Hush!

My nights have been sleepless since long. I blame it on fast unlimited internet connections and something called Peer-to-Peer networking. Movies and TV series have filled my life for the past 2 years that I forgot how nice it was to hold a book in my hand and read. That did not stop me from buying books though.

“Shut that damn laptop now and pick up one of the books you have bought and then never touched”, my best friend screamed into the phone.

“O.K.”, I said sheepishly.

I closed “Dexter” mid-episode (hope he will not murder me for that), checked if I had enough seeds and peers on my BitTorrent client, opened my cupboard and looked at the books that were in it.

Rashmi Bansal and her “Stay Hungry Stay Foolish” – No way! Not at 03:00 AM. I was definitely hungry but not foolish! (Where is that packet of Lays now?)

Paulo Coelho’s Brida – Hmm… I love all his books and all, but naaa…

Khaled Hosseini (A Splendid Thousand Suns) – Interesting! But it is a really fat book! Knowing me, I will probably be awake the next 3 days until I can finish it. No Sir!

And that’s how I picked up the really thin book that I bought yesterday from this website, called Flipkart, that home delivers books (how cool!). My first “Graphic Novel”. It was so much simpler calling them comics.

“Call it whatever you want, but they are good. You should definitely try them”, says my friend Sumy. (Damn! Facebook does connect people!)

HUSH!

The next half an hour changed my life. Yes, I did take half an hour with it. To re-read it a thousand times!!!

Trust me; this is definitely not a book review

Hush is a graphic novel published by Manta Ray Comics, Bangalore.

Writer – Pratheek Thomas

Artist – Rajiv Eipe

Based on a story by – Vivek Thomas

I am new to the world of Graphic Novels, and I really don’t know if all of them are so damn good. But Hush is something I have never experienced before.

Why? I really do not know.

The story is something so clichéd, that I knew it even before I started reading it. Well, the introduction in the book itself says that.

But this was so much different. Hush does not have one bubble or callout in it with dialogues. Just frames after frames of action. If you took each frame and put it on a separate piece of paper and flipped through it, it would be an animated short film. The whole story is said in about 8 sheets of paper. Just because the story has been retold many times in many different ways, it does not mean that Hush is not unique.

I felt pain, anger, sadness, remorse, frustration and what not, in the first 15 minutes I spent looking at those gray images in front of me. I went through it again and I felt all those once again. It really was a strange feeling.

The protagonist, Maya, is so real that while flipping through those pages, I felt like I knew her. I felt somehow responsible for her situation. I felt that I should have done something about it. I felt so helpless. Just like her.

Overall, I really do feel like Hush has changed my life. Hush just showed me that a book will always give you something more than a 1000 movies or a night at the pub.

I was so desperately waiting for the next episodes of TV Shows to be released. But today, I wish that they never do. I do not want to go back to being glued to my laptop, headphones on, watching episodes after episodes of TV series, while such good books stare at me waiting for me to pick them up and enjoy.

Oh Yeah! And Sumy, now I know why they are called "Graphic Novels" and not comics!

Thank You!!!

Extra Info:

You can order the book online by clicking here too!

Do try it and let me know!

All the best to the guys at Manta Ray! Good Job!!!