My Story
My earthly journey started in Washington DC. Arts came early to me as I doodled figments of my imagination. But thanks to my South Asian heritage I was forced to pick the sciences over arts in middle school. I dropped the pencil for good.
I spent most of my childhood in India and survived the genocidal massacre of thousands of Sikhs in 1984 in cities across the country.
I move back to the US after high school and faced the challenge of identity crisis, bullying and labels being placed upon me all my life. I gave up my Sikh identity to go a search for finding my place on this planet.
Through college at University of California, Santa Barbara and graduate school at University of California, Berkeley I fell in love with books. Words became my time machine, my savior and guide. I eventually fell in love with eastern philosophy especially Buddhism and Taoism. That finally led me to the faith of my parents, the Sikh path.
The 9/11 attacks in United States and the subsequent hate crime wave adversely affecting many Sikhs along with many communites created the ripe conditions for an artistic spark. Inspired by the creative response of American editorial cartoonists to the tragic events and one specific cartoon by Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Mark Fiore, I started creating turbanful cartoons focusing on Sikh news, happenings and contradictions..
Cartooning led to an umimaginable new fork in the road, Cosplay, performance art with me dressing up as Captain America.
The following interview based news links give more background into the motivation for cartooning and performance art.
My life in a Turban
Sept. 11, 2012 | Salon
Another Perspective on Cartoons - Interview with Dick Gordon
Oct 12, 2012 | The Story on American Public Media
