Aryaman Kakkar's Archive

 Thrillers, in truth, have never been my favourite genre when it comes to books. Neither was I a fan of the Dan Brown wave that has seemed to overtake every title on the market as the one of the best historical thrillers. Yet, everything changed when I read Matthew Riley. His series on “Jack West Jr.” was the perfect blend of history and action, sticking to details when it was important but knowing when to keep mum to let the mystery build. The series itself was launched in 2005, reaching its conclusion in the seventh primary work released in 2021. Seven books over 16 years seems like an awfully long time, but the wait has been worth the ending. Before we get there, there are a few things that really irk me when it comes to this series.  Riley is a big believer of plot twists and one of the ways he implements this is through the “death” of characters. He has a habit of conveniently fridging people until they're required again by the protagonist - Jack West Jr. At some points i...

Sanitary Panels, started by artist Rachita Taneja, is a webcomic series that was first released into the world in 2014 and has only grown since. At present, she has a Twitter following of 39.5K, a Facebook following of 78K, and an Instagram following of 129K. I state these numbers to provide context regarding the artist as well as the nature of the content that she produces and her audience interacts with. Tried for contempt in 2020 on having released a comic that criticised the Supreme Court, Sanitary Panels is a play on “sanitary pads” in an effort to provide content that makes the uncles of India uncomfortable in the way they perpetuate certain ideas of nation and nationalism.  The key issue that the comic raises is the conflation of the identity of a community of people who identify with the Indian flag, and those who identify themselves with the BJP flag. For some, the two may mean the same thing due to extensive and deep-rooted political rhetoric repetitively instilled by Ind...