With its vibrant use of colour and chaotic energy the cover of Sanika Phawde’s Wedding Juice and Other Melodramas #1 instantly catches the reader’s eye and practically implores them to investigate further. Phawde’s mini anthology is an autobiographical affair, the first in an ongoing series, that combines humour and pathos with an approach that is both appealingly self-deprecating and subtly profound in its observations.
This first issue centres on the awkwardness and tension that arises from Phawde’s upcoming marriage to partner John, and their growing realisation that their parents see themselves as much as stakeholders in the whole process as the couple do. John is from a white New England Catholic family while Phawde is from an Indian Hindu background. The cultural convergences of their mixed race relationship – sometimes resulting in low key conflict and on others giving rise to witty social commentary – are the prime focus of the short stories in this 20-page opener.
The titular ‘Wedding Juice’ brings us firmly into the strains and stresses of a wedding that is effectively being organised from two very different points on the planet. Here a phone conversation between Phawde and their parents in India moves onto the subject of a special juice being chosen for the celebrations. On the one hand it’s a seemingly inconsequential discussion about something quite trivial. But on the other it’s representational of organisational deliberations that are slowly drifting out of Sanika’s direct control. Irregular and busy page layouts that shift from the actual to the metaphorical guide the reader between moments of direct interaction and contemplative mental sidesteps.
‘Wedding Day 1994’ flashes back to Phawde’s parents’ wedding day with an affectionately humorous anecdote that builds up to a likeable punchline. The most memorable story in Wedding Juice #1 is ‘Wedding Entrance’ where another eventful Facetime call between Sanika and her parents in India depicts her father at a possible wedding location planning out an overly elaborate bridal entrance. It’s the longest comic strip in the collection and its frantic, almost frenzied, pages packed with detail and animated vitality perfectly mirror the ostentatiousness and wild extravagance of the doomed plans.
The final short ‘Wedding Décor’ brings us back to the more serious thematic explorations of Wedding Juice when a generalisation about the tacky nature of a particular possible venue for the wedding in India underlines the pull of two different cultures on the couple. It’s a reminder that amidst the levity and observational comedy of Wedding Juice that there is some far deeper and important social commentary at its heart. Phawde has indicated that these comics will eventually serve as the basis for a graphic memoir and that’s something I hope does eventually happen. Because these sweet but quietly unflinching examinations of identity, family relationship, and occasional cross-cultural discord deserve as wide an audience as possible.
Sanika Phawde (W/A) • Self-published, $20.00
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Review by Andy Oliver
