Nineteen years ago, brave Lieutenant Nawang Kapadia of Mumbai, laid down his life fighting terrorists just 39 days after getting commissioned into the Indian Army. His parents, who since then have struggled to make peace with this loss, recently saw his life immortalised in a graphic novel, Nawang, dedicated to the war hero.

The novel is part of a patriotic comic series, created by Delhi-based Rishikumar Varma, who has now become the India Army's go-to artist to tell stories from the war zone. The graphic artiste has already published 37 titles under the banner of AAN Comics. "As a child, I was always fascinated by war heroes. Most of the ideas for my graphic work would come while playing videos games that depicted war zones or watching war movies," says Varma, whose favourite Bollywood war film is JP Dutta's Border.