When Gandhi unleashed the beast within

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What if it were the 1940s again, when countries were baying for each others' blood and the anti-semitic Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler, was wielding his strength with both men and machinery. World War II had just created its ugliest and most dreaded monster, and the Allied Forces were scrambling for a solution to nip the brute in the bud. History, as we remember it, would eventually script a victory in favour of the Allies. But, who was its biggest hero?

A new graphic novel, up for grabs on Kickstarter, surprisingly makes the violence-resisting Mahatma Gandhi, the unlikely star of that bloody war story. Gandhi: The Beast Within, written by Brooklyn-based Jason Michalski and illustrated by Spanish artist Antonio Rojo, reimagines the pacifist icon of India's freedom struggle as a diminutive superhero, who is transformed into an unfathomable Hulk-like ogre with powers to crush the enemy with the slam of his fist.

Coming close on the heels of the country's 70th Independence day celebrations, Michalski and Rojo's Gandhi will shatter the image you had of the bespectacled, dhoti-clad leader, but in an amusing way. In Michalski's fantasy fiction, Gandhi's "devotion to non-violence was never a choice, but a means to keep a terrible secret hidden from the world". "I was having breakfast with a friend at a Mexican restaurant in Brooklyn when the idea came to me during our conversation. I ran home and wrote up a one-page summary and sent it to Antonio," recalls Michalski in an email interview from New York.

The seeds of the novel's plot are sown in South Africa of the 1900s, during the Boer War, when a young Gandhi is exposed to a mysterious alien power source and discovers he has been forever cursed. When consumed by moments of anger, he transforms into an uncontrollable raging monster, the writer informs. By dedicating himself to a life of peace, Gandhi manages to evade the horror, until of course, the leaders of the world find out, and decide to use him as the foremost weapon to destroy Hitler. Forced into a no-win situation, Gandhi unleashes the beast within to save the lives of millions. "This is a satire and I think that's clear from the presentation. We stayed true to the core of what made Gandhi special. Think of our book as a similar concept to the book and movie – Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter — but with more outrageous humour and foul language," says Michalski.

When Michalski reached out to Spain-based Rojo, with whom he had previously co-created another graphic novel, Zoe: Out of Time, he liked the idea instantly. "Hulk was the main reference, so I needed a massive body, but I wanted to make him [Gandhi] more disproportionate than Hulk; huge, long arms, and short legs. To wear the typical Gandhi glasses and moustache was necessary, and perhaps the Indian-style clothes," says Rojo.

Until before the project, the writer and illustrator's knowledge of the iconic mass leader was only limited to the popular representation of him. "I knew the figure of Gandhi and his ideas, but not in depth," admits Rojo. "Hence, I did not want to draw him in an offensive way for his followers."
To research his subject, Michalski sourced Gandhi literature and leveraged the Internet — credible sources only, he insists. "We tried to fit this story 'in-between' real events, so there is some mention of Gandhi's life in passing and flashbacks, but we tried to keep this as self-contained and fictional as possible," he says. Among other fictional elements in the story, is a more sociable Gandhi, who "likes to party a little" to relax and bury the raging hormones that could let out his big secret.

Jason Michalski

The duo, who live in different countries, took a year to complete the project and most discussions, they maintain, took place over email. "We always communicated via email or instant messages; we did not even know our voices. If I had any doubts, I waited until it was daytime in Brooklyn, when Jason answered," says Rojo.

Antonio Rojo

Next in the pipeline is Gandhi: Rocket to Russia, where the leader faces a new evil born out of the Cold War between the US and Russia. "If all goes well, there will be a part three. America could use our Gandhi right about now," says Michalski.

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