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All Of It with Alison Stewart
Kay Sohini on Beautiful, Ridiculous New York
00:21:06
We speak with Kay Sohini, author of the new graphic memoir, 'This Beautiful, Ridiculous City.'
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- [00:00]
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Alison Stewart
Welcome back to ALL OF it. I'm Alison Stewart. And to end our show today, we're going to be talking about this beautiful, ridiculous city. That's the name of a new graphic memoir about the author's coming to New York. Story from an intergenerational family home just outside of Calcutta. Kay Sahone was educated at English speaking schools. She read about New York and it made her fall in love with the city before she ever stepped foot in the Big Apple. She was especially entranced by its literary history. Sahone quotes E.B. white on the first page saying, in the country there are a few chances of sudden rejuvenation, a shift in weather perhaps, or something arriving in the mail. But in New York, the chances are endless. A writer, researcher and artist, Sahone writes with what belonging means in a city full of people who come from everywhere and how the post colonial arc of India's history has shaped her journ. Kay sahoney, welcome to all OF it.
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Kay Sohini
Hi. So glad to be here.
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Alison Stewart
So glad to have you. I think I pronounced your last sohini.
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Kay Sohini
It's so he.
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Alison Stewart
Yeah, thank you. I'm sorry about that. Sohini, how did literature come to be the catalyst for your move to New York?
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Kay Sohini
So I feel like I've just been shaped by all these popular culture and classic literature stuff that I just grew up reading, watching. And I was an introvert. I still am. I still very much am an introvert. But so I spent a lot of time reading and in libraries and my dad had this dusty it's not a library, but it's like this kind of like dusty old room where he had all these books, like mostly like secondhand copies from College Street. And I spent a lot of time in that room and I don't know, dreamed of the world I guess. So that's where it started.
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Alison Stewart
Listeners, if you are one of the millions of New Yorkers who came here from somewhere else, we want to hear what it is about that called you to this beautiful, ridiculous city and what made you feel like you belong here. 2124-3396-9221-2433 wnyc. You can join us on the air or you can reach us via text 212433 WNYC. What brought you to this beautiful, ridiculous city? You say in the book, in the thank yous that you drew for 12 hours a day for nearly six months. Did you know what you wanted to draw or did it come to you daily?
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Kay Sohini
So the way comics work is usually you have to, like, there's thumbnailing and there's penciling, inking, and then coloring. And usually there are different themes for that. But when you do graphic novels, mostly, like, one person does it. But I really. I'm not. Like, I came from academia. I don't have, like, a background in comics. I just started drawing one day because my mentor did, and I was inspired by it. So I didn't go, like, the traditional route. I couldn't find a way to have the entire book drawn out ahead of time and then run it by my editor or anything like that. So what I did was I took it one page, literally one page at a time. So I would literally sketch and pencil one page. And my goal was just this one thing. I didn't want the images to repeat what the word said already, because in that case, I may as well write prose. But I was trying to make a comic. So I was like, the words have to mean the images, the illustrations have to mean as much as the words. So that's how I made, you know, like, drew my pages and tried to make my compositions.
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Unnamed Interviewer
There are many pull quotes, and one is from James Baldwin early on in the book. And you wrote. He wrote. I should say it was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive. How does that relate to you?
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Kay Sohini
So I grew up reading, you know, like, stuff like Asterix and Tintin, and that was just, you know, like, fun comics. I didn't really think much of it till I encountered Alison Begdal's fun home. And that was, I think, where it all started. Because her story, like her, it's a very messy story, as we all know. And obviously it wasn't similar to mine, but I came from a family where it was very dysfunctional, just like hers. And there was a death, which was very messy, which I only allude to in the book because I didn't know yet how to write about it. That's for my next book. But when I read it, I felt not so alone. And it's such a weird thing to say because I was just this girl in India and she was in New York. And we didn't have anything in common. But she made me feel like I was not alone in this world. So. Yeah, that's.
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Alison Stewart
She's in the book too.
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Kay Sohini
Yeah, she's in the book. She's on the COVID too.
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Alison Stewart
It's so interesting when you said that it made you not feel as alone.
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Kay Sohini
Yeah. Why? That's a really great question. I guess I never really thought about it, but I guess it just made me realize that, you know, like when we are, you know, like when we are depressed, we think that literally nobody else can understand us.
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Alison Stewart
Right.
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Kay Sohini
But sometimes books can. That's all I can really say about it. It's a little ineffable, I think.
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Alison Stewart
Kay Sohini is a comic artist, researcher and writer. Her new book is called this Beautiful Ridiculous City. An important part of your story starts with some of the changes in Indian culture, especially during the growing up. How did you understand how cultural changes in India shaped your home life?
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Kay Sohini
So I feel like. So I might be inaccurate because it's been a while, but growing up it really felt like the change was overnight. One moment I remember having this black and white CRT TV which only had like state run channels. And then the very next day like we had cable tv and then the single theater cinemas turned into like multiplexes and there were like, I don't know, like American cars and American movies and all of these things like happening almost overnight. And so there was certainly a lot of like American literature in college street too, which I then kind of like grew up reading. So it almost like shaped my dreams and desires when I wasn't even looking, like I wasn't consciously thinking about it. Only upon coming here and realizing that I don't feel a culture shock, was I like, why don't I? So yeah, that way.
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Alison Stewart
I guess there's a chapter in the book called the Clementines because in Bengali we do not say I love you. What do you remember about your family? About the role of food in your family?
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Kay Sohini
I am serious about that. In Bengali we do not say I love you. I mean there is a literal translation, but I do not remember. My parents love me very much. They just never say it. When they do want to say it, they, you know, like feed me. So it's. I am quite literal about that. But like I said, my family when we were growing up, it had just suffered this terrible tragedy. Somebody we know and love, my mother's sister, she died. And it just, it just made us, a lot of us like emotionally dysfunctional and Bengalis don't do therapy. Either. I mean, they do now, but, you know, like, back then, they didn't. Oh, no. So a lot of our comfort was literally from gathering around food, I think. Yeah.
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Alison Stewart
Well, this page alone shows me all of the different food in your family. It's quite. Would you tell people a little bit about this page?
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Kay Sohini
Oh, my God. Yeah. So this is one story that I didn't want to mention is that page features this Bengali dessert called pais, and it's essentially a rice pudding. And it's supposed to be, like, this auspicious food kind of thing. So when I was leaving for the U.S. my grandmother, she made this, a huge pot of pais, and she wanted me to take, like, you know, like, kind of like just a container of it with me. And I was like, didu, there's no way I can take this because this is liquid, and liquids are not allowed. And she was like, but it's auspicious. Tell them that your grandmother sent it. And I was like, they will not understand that. But, you know, like, she was a very emotional lady. She loved me very, very much. And I actually had to take her to the airport. I just had to E it before I, you know, like, went through the gates, because I knew, like, I wouldn't be able to throw it away. You know, like, that would have broken my heart, so.
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Alison Stewart
That's sweet.
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Kay Sohini
Yeah.
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Alison Stewart
The way you write about New York.
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Unnamed Interviewer
City and what it has to offer you is the sense of possibility. Right. It was a dream of your parents.
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Alison Stewart
In a way that you would be.
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Unnamed Interviewer
Ready for whatever the next thing was, whatever it was going to be, because they lived in a certain place and they were trying to expand your horizons.
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Kay Sohini
Did my parents. Sorry, what was that?
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Alison Stewart
I'm just saying, why do you think.
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Unnamed Interviewer
You gravitated towards a city rather than from a less chaotic way of life?
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Kay Sohini
So you have to understand that the town, the small town I grew up in, it was incredibly small to the extent where it was actually claustrophobic. And I say it both, like. And I say it more like, socially speaking, there was no room for errors. People had to live in a certain way. It was very normative. There was literally no room to experiment. It's one of the reasons my mother's sister died, and I just couldn't take it. I just wanted to be in a place where people did not know me, and New York seemed like a good place to get lost in.
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Unnamed Interviewer
My guest is Kay Sohini, comic artist, researcher, and writer. Her new book is called this Beautiful Ridiculous City. If you're one of the Millions of New Yorkers who came here from somewhere else. We'd love to hear from you, why you came to this beautiful and ridiculous city. Our number is 2124-3396-9221-2433. WNYC. Let's talk to Tibor, who's calling in from New Jersey. Hi, Tibor, thank you so much for calling all of it. You are on the air.
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Tibor Spiegel
Thank you very much. I hope it's not gonna be feedback. My name is Tibor Spiegel. I am originally from a country used to be called Yugoslavia. Can you hear me?
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Unnamed Interviewer
Yes, I can hear you. When did you come here?
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Tibor Spiegel
Okay. I came out as an exchange student back in the 70s, and in 79, I spent two weeks in New York City. At that time, Exxon had these free concerts by the Philharmonics and Zubin Mechta was a conductor. And I was witnessing a live concert for free in New York City Park. Dubi Mechta conducting Mother's fifth. To me, that was amazing free stuff. In America, the world renowned Philharmonics. So that just blew my mind. So I got, you know, so much impressed by it. I fell in love with New York City. I came back later in the 80s and the 48th Street. I don't know if you remember, at one point, that was the musical street. So on 48th street you had all these music stores. And if you were long enough standing on the street, you run into celebrities coming to buy guitar strings, coming to buy stuff. So you can meet like anybody who was somebody in New York, musician or even world Ren. I met Stevie Wonder, shook hands with him. He said hello in my language. That blew my mind. So the music was my attraction to New York. And I worked in New York for 30 years. I'm in Jersey right now. But the original question, what brought me back to New York is music, music, music.
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Alison Stewart
Tibor, thank you so much for that statement. This text says I was drawn to the city because of its sense of community. You step out your door and encounter people and places that feel like home. One of the motifs in the book is we keep returning to you on the tarmac at JFK with some of your initial thoughts before deplaning coming to New York. Why did you want to revisit that moment?
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Kay Sohini
I think the day I came here, it was. I still remember it very clearly. The evening the plane just sat on the tarmac for a while because it was a stormy evening. It was raining. It was raining super hot. And then I remember just sitting there, I was all alone and I just kept thinking, did I make a mistake? Because all the people I left behind, I just felt a sense of guilt because I knew everything I was leaving behind, I was leaving behind with them. Like, they would still have to go through everything I tried to leave behind, if that makes sense. But over time, I just realized that me staying there and not being my best self wouldn't have been of any help to them. So. Yeah. So as I, you know, like, progressed through the story, I kind of like, come upon the realization that me leaving did not have to do with my own guilt, but somebody else's.
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Unnamed Interviewer
Were there other themes that you wanted to reflect in the book and the visual style of the book to help us understand your story?
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Kay Sohini
Yeah, I guess the one thing is, the reason I call this a beautiful, ridiculous city is, as we know, in New York, it's a beautiful city, but it does have its problems. I do not like it when non New Yorkers say it, but if you live here, you were on the right to complain about it. But at the end of the day, I do feel very optimistic about the city and it's because I'm the sort of person who just, you know, like, needs to believe in, like, some kind of magic. I don't know, like, be it Shahrukh Khan or be it New York City, it just has to be something bigger than myself because like I mentioned, I am capable of working super hard, but I'm also somebody who gets sad very often, like for no reason at all. And for those moments, I really need something bigger than myself. Something magical, like, like New York to, like the myth of New York to just, you know, like, pull me back.
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Unnamed Interviewer
Let's take another call. This is Bobby calling in from Jersey City, New Jersey. Hi Bobby, you are on the air.
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Bobby
Hi everyone. Thanks for taking my call. So, yeah, I came as a dreamer child to New York 35 years ago when I was 17. And it's definitely a hard place to survive for someone who's undocumented, especially if you're an artist. And I think it's also the best place because the greatest thing about this country is that even if you're undocumented, you may not be able to collect a paycheck or get a job, but you can definitely start a company and employ American citizens, pay taxes, and you just can't collect a paycheck. But your so called company pays for all your expenses, which is amazing. So here I was at the age of 25, undocumented, but I have 25 photographers working for me, which was amazing. So thanks, New York, for everything you've given me.
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Alison Stewart
Bobbi, thanks for calling. The thing that I also think is so interesting in your book, and I hope I can find the page, is that, you know, you're obviously enthralled by literary. But you also. Literary references. But then you also have references to Friends.
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Kay Sohini
Yeah.
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Alison Stewart
Do you remember the first time you saw TV that was situated in America?
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Kay Sohini
Yeah, it was Friends. I was pretty sure it was Friends. I loved them. They felt like my own friends. I mean, it probably makes me sound like a loser because I didn't. You know, I was just so into American culture from so far away. But I don't know, it just felt, like, so cozy. And I know, like, I've watched. I've rewatched Friends recently, and some of the jokes are, like, quite inappropriate now. But aside from all that, it was. I don't know, like, it's just so cozy and nostalgic. There's something about it.
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Alison Stewart
Have you thought about how your roots in suburban Calcutta have colored the way you think about New York and what it has to offer?
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Kay Sohini
I think one of the first things that I want to mention is. Which has nothing to do with New York at all, but the fact that I grew up in such a terribly small town, that made me want to find the opposite. Like, what is possibly the biggest city that I could, you know, like, move to. And New York was everywhere. So, yeah, it was an obvious choice that way.
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Alison Stewart
You also shout out many writers by name. Do you have a version of New York you found to be the most accurate in your experience based on what they wrote?
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Kay Sohini
I don't know. I feel like everybody in New York is a little different, you know, and it changes, too, from one phase of your life to the other. Because when I came here at the beginning, I remember being insanely optimistic. Like, I was just so eager. It was just all about everything that is good about this world and everything that is terrible about the one I left behind. But now I feel like I have a bit more tempered love for the city and for. So, I don't know, like, I don't think I can pick any one author's depiction of it.
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Unnamed Interviewer
There's a part of your book, this is Hard that you write about recovering from an abusive relationship and you say, kind of like it kind of did a number on your memory, to be honest. What did you want to communicate in this book about memory and identity?
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Kay Sohini
You know, I've been thinking about this a lot. Is that when something like that happens to you and somebody sort of, like, lies to you over and over and over again over the period of, like, I don't know, like, five, six, seven years, you actually start questioning your own reality, and that messes with your identity and what you think of yourself. So I just sort of needed. I know, like, Diaspora Books is supposed to be about, you know, like, often about, like, racial identity, but I wanted to talk about this aspect as well, because this sort of, like, really, I don't know, like, shaped or, you know, like, destroyed my 20s in a way that affected my identity long term. So.
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Unnamed Interviewer
It did affect your identity long term or. No, it did not.
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Kay Sohini
It did. It did. And then it was only, like, moving here and moving away from it all, like, putting literally, like, a lot of physical distance between there and here that I was finally able to, like, actually find myself again. So I felt like it was connected to the Diaspora story somehow, even though that it didn't happen here at all.
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Alison Stewart
My guest is Kay Sohini. The name of her book is this Beautiful Ridiculous City. The book takes forays in social commentary. It uses your illustrations to communicate a little bit of sociology here and there. Why did you feel the book needed those sort of more scholarly, abstract asides? I mean, there's a whole page, you're like, oh, I didn't know that. I learned something new here.
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Kay Sohini
I think for the simple reason that I came to comics from, like, my Ph.D. in English. So I was doing a Ph.D. in English at the time. One of my mentors was Nick Sassanis, who has this really cool academic comic book called Unflattening. And it's the reason I wanted to, like, I drew my doctoral dissertation as a comic, following his footsteps, and that's how I got into comics. So, like, from academia. So it's just, like, not something I did consciously. It's just my research background that seeped into the story. I suppose.
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Alison Stewart
New Yorkers always have the. Should I stay or should I go? How are you feeling about New York? Are you glad you're here? Do you have fantasies of living someplace else?
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Kay Sohini
No, I'm not ready to leave yet. I am not ready to leave yet. I do want to live here for as long as I can.
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Alison Stewart
Have you thought of your sense of belonging? Do you belong in New York?
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Kay Sohini
Yeah, I think so. Like, I don't know. Like, when I look around, I. You know, like, you can walk in any block and you will hear so many people talking in, like, different languages. There's food from all over the world, and everybody belongs here.
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Alison Stewart
So what are the contours of belonging. What does that mean to you?
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Kay Sohini
I guess it's just a place that you can call home regardless of whether whether you were born here or not. That's literally it.
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Alison Stewart
What do you want someone to take away from your beautiful book?
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Kay Sohini
Oh, thank you.
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Alison Stewart
It is really beautiful, I should say that.
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Kay Sohini
Thank you. I don't know, I guess I just want them to hopefully think critically about the state of the world a little bit, but also be a little optimistic at the end of it.
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Alison Stewart
The name of the book is this Beautiful Ridiculous A Graphic Memoir by King Sohini. Thank you so much for being with us. We really appreciate your time today.
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Kay Sohini
Thank you. I really enjoyed it.
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