Yasser Hussain, 41, is currently admitted to the hospital to undergo a septoplasty in the next few days. Before the operation, he set a certain condition. With a bandaged nose and a cannula in his arm, he tells The Indian Express“I told my doctors, I won’t have surgery if they don’t let me meet Sacco. I told them ‘I’m leaving’. They said: Go, but for the whole hour.
Hussain is one of the more than 100 people who gathered at 2:48 pm on Sunday in the middle of the Hauz Khas market square at the Midland bookstore.
Joe Sacco, a Maltese-American journalist and cartoonist whose career has spanned more than three decades, will sign a book at 3:30 p.m.
Sacco (64) painted Old Palestine among many other books about life in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. He lived in Palestine for two months during the First Intifada in 1991-92. He is considered a pioneer of investigative reporting and journalism through the comic medium.
Edward Said in the foreword to Palestine, says of Sacco: “Certainly his pictures are more vivid than anything you can read or see on television… the victims of history.” In Journalism, Sacco says: “I am primarily concerned with those who are rarely heard, and I do not feel it is my responsibility to balance their voices with well-crafted apologies to the powerful.”
His books, especially on Palestine, have attracted a lot of attention since the problem spread in West Asia. Both in art and content, many see his work as visionary. This is his signature book in India. The set-up is outside the store; some shelves were moved into the space. Front and center are Sacco’s Palestine, Footnotes in Gaza and The Fixer. But there are books on Palestine, wall to wall, wherever the eye goes – Isabella Hammad, Rashid Khalidi, Antony Loewenstein.
Many sit with one of them in their hands, reading from the rapture, waiting for the cartoonist to arrive. Around them, many spirited discussions about everything from Gaza to the caste census in India took place. One talks about his thesis – it’s on Joe Sacco. The man across the room catches his eye, and proudly, pulls out his thesis and mouths “It’s on Joe, too!” The girl’s friend calls them “Thesis Brothers”.
Brought by their drama teacher, Sukriti Khurana (35), a group of 11 students sat in the front. In January, Joy of Drama, their organization was preparing their students for an acting test – a play. The topic the students chose was Palestine. That was their first brush with Sacco. In May, they launched an exhibition: Nonfiction stories created over months of research on Palestine, told through the lens of youth in Delhi looking at youth in the Occupied Territories. Sukriti says, “In the play, show them how Palestinian youth don’t have the luxury of meeting their partner, walking around, or getting basic medical care like they do.”
One of the students, the child of one of the people helping to organize the event, introduced Joe Sacco when he arrived. Sacco takes the mic and says: “Actually I didn’t know that people knew about my work in India. It was a shock and a surprise.”
As the signing begins, there are frequent “please take two steps back” announcements. Children get their books signed first. It’s hot, it’s crowded. Yasser also stands in line, spills into the neighborhood shops and waits for more than half an hour to catch a glimpse of Sacco.
From there, Sacco goes to Lodhi Colony’s bookstore. Even then, with 15 minutes to go before the event, the venue reaches capacity. Inside, “Voices against Genocide” – a small collective that organizes cultural and literary events around Palestine in Delhi – set up shop in collaboration with The Bookshop at the last minute. They sell prints and Keffiyehs. Proceeds go to the Samir Foundation which provides medical aid in Palestine.
Among the many books for sale, one is donated by artist and retired professor, Vasudha Thozhur (67), called “Colours for Blood: Painting for Palestine”. Talking about his work, he says, “This was in April. It had been six months since the genocide began and what happened in Gaza was very scary. I was impressed by the number of images in the media space that blurred the so-called ‘trap’ moments. And most of them had this blur. What does that tell us?”
He’s also interested in representational methods that don’t make the horror visible – so the blurring serves two purposes. He adds, “For me as an artist, it is important to say that painting – and its set of dialectics – can be a language of resistance and protest … a way to convey a message.”
In the bookstore, Amita (name changed), 30, the point person of the collection, says, “We found that there was a lack of knowledge of the history and culture of Palestine before October 7 … I came back from Cambridge, where I participated in the protests. Here, the idea is to do some quality work low and make people aware and raise money to do basic work in Palestine.” In a month, they have collected Rs 70,000.
As the scheduled hour draws to a close, the crowd will thin out. Many who entered wore keffiyehs as they prepared to leave. Outside the store and inside, there are a hundred conversations. Most of it is about art and the art of sending a message across.