There was a long queue in front of Migle Anusauskaite’s desk. The occasion was the launch of the book Lithuanian Travellers in India, published by the Lithuanian embassy in India, which all the guests were getting a copy of. And hunched over the table at Arts Acre in Action Area III of New Town, the artist was busy sketching away, looking up from time to time to hear the name of the next person in the queue and ask what he or she wanted drawn in his or her copy of the book.
Each drawing was unique. Some wanted a fish, some a bird, some their own cartoon and in one case, Migle’s self-portrait. The artist obliged everyone. “Making small talk is hard for me. I am an introvert. I prefer doing something I can do,” she smiled, when The Telegraph Salt Lake commiserated with her at the end of the book signing.
The girl from Lithuania’s capital Vilnius loves to communicate through pictures. “When I want to learn something, I do diagrams. So I can draw comics on any subject — physics, chemistry, linguistics...” She has done one on the subject she has a Masters degree on — semiotics. “Comics teach you to pick up what is important,” she says.
Indeed, her book that was launched in New Town tells the life stories of six Lithuanians who have set foot on Indian soil over four centuries. And each story is done in six to eight pages.
Migle Anusauskaite introduces Lithuania on the map at Arts Acre in Action Area III. Pictures by Sudeshna Banerjee
Migle had started drawing for fun during her college days. People started asking her to draw for websites, and at one point payments started coming in. “Even then, my parents asked me to get a real job.”
The break came when 10 years ago, she undertook a project to draw comics on two pilots who were the first to fly over the Atlantic Ocean, Steponas Darius and Stanislovas Girenas. “They are venerated in our country, and feature on our currency note,” she says, drawing the 10 litas note as she spoke. “So doing comics on them was a risk.” But thankfully it worked and she got a book contract. Migle was 25 then.
She did want to go to art school but was warned it might mar her style. So she stayed self-taught.
Now Migle holds workshops for adults. “Often I find that those who say they can’t draw have the most simple and expressive styles.”
Before she had started the book signings, Migle educated the audience about Lithuania through, what else but, comics. She asked the audience questions on local preferences, sketched the object on one side of the table, and put the Lithuanian answer on the other side. Thus, next to football for Calcutta, she sketched basketball for Lithuania, next to fish there was potato while the counterpart for Royal Bengal Tiger was a stork, the country’s national bird.
She also asked the audience to name the nations surrounding Lithuania. As the responses came, she drew the map of that part of Europe, drawing the icon of the respective country on it, like Eiffel Tower on the map of France.
When she is working on a project, she does the lines by hand on paper and then colours the sketch on the computer, she said.
She regretted the low demand for comics. “It is such an educational medium. But we get a book deal only if we offer a historical subject. It is tough to sell a fiction idea,” she rued.