Now, that's the spirit

In Lokesh Khodke's comic, the chudail isn't here to haunt you. She's here to make you rethink caste, power and the rules women live by

- VAIDEHI SADIWALA

Comics and graphic novels fulfil a very fundamental requirement of art.

It's, at its simplest, a storyboard - images and text that propel a tale forward. The format sets the pace, builds the action, lays out the montage and allows for both panoramic scenes and quiet moments. All a reader has to do is sit back and let the panels do the work.

It's probably what makes them such a great vehicle to convey complex ideas about power, gender, caste, and social structures, and often do it with humour, satire and irony. Kids love it. Grownups love it. Even those who'd look down on comic books recommend Art Speigelman's Maus (in which mice and cats stand in for Jews and Nazis during the holocaust); or Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi's tender coming-of-age story in 1980s Iran.