Here is something you should know about me. I wrote three stories for Savita Bhabhi.Just three. I wasn’t even able to write the porn parts. I am clarifying this not out of fear of the law, but out of respect for the creators.How did I end up writing Savita Bhabhi stories?
It started in 2009 when Savita Bhabhi had just begun. I was a fresh computer science graduate, who was freelancing for a magazine. My friend and I were working on our design start-up. And I had just started work on my first graphic novel, which was to be a serious Pakistan-India dhishkyaun dhishkyaun shahkar.The first few Savita Bhabhi episodes had come out and I, like everyone else, was reading them all. Some ideas are so strong that sometimes the treatment doesn’t really matter. Not that the Savita Bhabhi treatment was bad. The artwork of the first Savita Bhabhi comic — The Bra Salesman — is really good. Even the comics that followed had good artwork, but the concept in itself sparked my engine, and I guess everyone else’s. Right then only the genuine, tharki, fun-loving audience were reading it. The one love, save artists, world is one, wow Savita Bhabhi so cool ya brigade came later, much later to the party. Then it was just the readers and bhabhiji.
Then I got on the Savita Bhabhi forum. This was before you could stream porn online, or at least before I could. Forums were a great place to find good porn. By good porn I mean, you know, the porn that works for you at that moment in time. I find the stories in porn films to be exceptional. Full-length porn, you know the old porn movies, their stories border on the absurd. But between the absurdity and the bad acting it somehow creates something that is actually not bad — something unusual. Recent porn films, which want to be tasteful and HD and stuff no longer have that funny-ness. It is difficult to explain. I think it’s because you get the feeling that the new films take themselves very seriously and the old ones didn’t.Anyway, I thought the Savita Bhabhi forum would have gold. Instead I saw their invitation asking for stories from the readers. I shared my story idea on the forum. It was inspired by the graphic novel I was working on. I was deep into research then: Tarbela dam, Afghanistan, behaviour of frontier tribes etc. So the story I wrote was this: Savita Bhabhi goes to Afghanistan to catch Osama Bin Laden on behalf of the USA. She lures him out of hiding and fucks him till he’s tired and ready to surrender.Why did I feel like writing a story for Savita Bhabhi? Well, I like funny and I want to be a part of funny things and contribute to them. I saw Savita Bhabhi as something funny, something naughty that I could write. I can write an absurd plot. It might not be good, but I can write one.Next day I got an email from a “Deshmukh” — the pseudonym for the owner of SB. He liked the story and wanted me to flesh it out. Although, he suggested we change the location to Shimla and he’d rather have a dacoit instead of Osama. I was cool with it. He asked me to send him a rough plot and that he’ll take care of the rest. I did my bit, he did his bit and Savita in Shimla was out soon.
And then I went out, feeling super, like an invisible 26th January parade was on. Immediately afterwards I bumped into my buddy Adhiraj Singh and the staff of what was then Random magazine (today Comic Con India). How I showed it off. Badi santushti mili. As someone who draws — I liked the illustrations. They were nicely drawn and coloured. I have never been a perfect anatomy, third angle to the fifth perspective aur pata nahi kya guy. I just draw, theek deekhey to badhiya. So I was happy.Few weeks later, I suggested another idea and Deshmukh responded. This time I was full on exploring my ‘krativity’ — Savita won’t be at the house, she would be at her maayka. Her husband Ashok would be at home, alone. He would be visited by the cablewallah, doodhwallah etc etc and none will take money from him. In their flashback would be their sequences with SB. The story would end with Ashok congratulating SB on her good management of the home.In this one too, Deshmukh edited the storyline and wrote the porn himself. I did write the porn but he told me that “lovemaking isn’t alternate oohs and aahs” which I think is quite true. And I loved my absurd plots more than writing the erotic parts. I have always been in a hurry, and hurry is bad for lovemaking.So I stuck to what I knew best — I merely provided the storyline.
But I asked him to give me credit by name — as in mention my name on the cover. He asked me again — usually everyone got pseudonymous dude credits like, FunkY!@bb. I didn’t understand why they did that, maybe shame.I really don’t know what prompted this, but I just didn’t understand why people won’t want their name on something so cool. Or they didn’t think it was cool? Or they were not Indians? Or maybe they were and they knew their chacha reads it? Pata nahi.But yeah, I got my full credit, and I’ll always be proud of that. Nobody in my bloodline can top that.Deshmukh later asked me to write for a third time for a new comic series he was planning and this time he (I have never been sure if he was a he or a she) was ready to pay me. They wanted me to sign a contract with some company based in Isle of Man, an island somewhere between England and Ireland. I agreed and wrote the story, although by the time that was wrapped up, I was lost in other things in my life and could never get the money.Then other things happened.
In 2011, I finished my first graphic novel, The Itch You Can't Scratch, and on a whim, the publisher and I decided to write on the back a blurb — “After writing for Savita Bhabhi…” This small, impulsive act taught me about sensationalism, journalism, ethics, PR agents everything.Since my book got wide coverage and the first article about my book called me the creator of the character Savita Bhabhi, Deshmukh got pissed . I wrote to the reporter but she didn’t correct it.In all this my parents maintained a safe silence. Maybe they knew, maybe they didn’t. My graphic novel was about my life and my family. It was honest about poverty and my sisters were pissed. I mean, they were pissed about the honesty with which I had written about our family. The poverty of a Dalit family, the story of my father’s brothers who were consumed by their poverty. As an upper middle class family now (thanks to my father and reservations) my sisters try and hide all that. They felt some shame in me putting it out like that for the world to read.My eldest sister told me about her issues with the book. My elder sister, she stopped talking to me altogether for some time. About SB — well they never mentioned it. My eldest sister once mentioned it, laughing, later – “aur tu ek to ajeeb ajeeb cheezein kar hi chukka hai, wo kya bhabhi waigarah…” and then she laughed.That doesn’t mean all my relatives were like that.One of my mamajis gave me a golden lecture on doing ‘these bad things’ and how he never thought I was ‘that kind of boy’, I seemed so ‘normal’. And I had made ‘these shameful things public’ and I had to succeed a lot in life to wash these sins off or pata nahi kya kya.
After everything, I still feel Savita Bhabhi was a powerful character. Obviously she’s hot like hell— what draws me to her is the whole desipana in an area where Indians might be sending top traffic to adult websites, but we still don’t create adult content. Also, her character invokes the teenage boy in me who used to drool at beautiful older buxom women. I have nothing to say in dissection of the character. There’s nothing to learn man, it’s just the whole naughtypana of it. That’s it. Why do we have to dissect everything? Roti khaa ke so jao yaar.I do not want to talk about how the character liberates women etc. In my head they don’t need anyone or any character to liberate them. They are liberated, they liberate themselves. It’s an individual who does things. If serendipitous thing like an encounter with a fictional character helps it, then great. I think dissection is just useless debate, which wastes essential time which we can use to take action, useful small acts that begin change. Not bakar bakar wherever that is just lines of text. Lorem ipsum. Lo mujhse bhi likhwa liya duniya ne paragraph. Zeher kahan hai?
A lot of people also might pretend to like Savita Bhabhi because its cool to do so, like watching Gunda is cool. But I believe the character was a big success because of its relatability. It invoked this dark fantasy for a hot Bhabhi, yet kept it slightly funny, catching on to the tone of Mastram (the cheap erotic literature, which also inspired a film) I mean take the story of Savita giving tutions – I mean a simple act that occurs everywhere, is taken and made naughty, and it is already in the head of every teen who goes for tuitions. It’s just that someone wrote it.I would happily do it again. Sumit Kumar is a cartoonist based in New Delhi. His first graphic novel 'The Itch You Can't Scratch' has gained a strong cult following (meaning, not a mainstream one) and his political comics for Newslaundry have gotten mainstream acclaim - which led to his second graphic novel 'Amar Bari Tomar Bari Naxalbari' - a satirical retelling of the Naxal conflict.He has created comics and cartoons for companies in exchange for money.He lives in Delhi and makes comics for his webcomic - Bakarmax. Usually, he doesn't write about himself in third person.
It started in 2009 when Savita Bhabhi had just begun. I was a fresh computer science graduate, who was freelancing for a magazine. My friend and I were working on our design start-up. And I had just started work on my first graphic novel, which was to be a serious Pakistan-India dhishkyaun dhishkyaun shahkar.The first few Savita Bhabhi episodes had come out and I, like everyone else, was reading them all. Some ideas are so strong that sometimes the treatment doesn’t really matter. Not that the Savita Bhabhi treatment was bad. The artwork of the first Savita Bhabhi comic — The Bra Salesman — is really good. Even the comics that followed had good artwork, but the concept in itself sparked my engine, and I guess everyone else’s. Right then only the genuine, tharki, fun-loving audience were reading it. The one love, save artists, world is one, wow Savita Bhabhi so cool ya brigade came later, much later to the party. Then it was just the readers and bhabhiji.Then I got on the Savita Bhabhi forum. This was before you could stream porn online, or at least before I could. Forums were a great place to find good porn. By good porn I mean, you know, the porn that works for you at that moment in time. I find the stories in porn films to be exceptional. Full-length porn, you know the old porn movies, their stories border on the absurd. But between the absurdity and the bad acting it somehow creates something that is actually not bad — something unusual. Recent porn films, which want to be tasteful and HD and stuff no longer have that funny-ness. It is difficult to explain. I think it’s because you get the feeling that the new films take themselves very seriously and the old ones didn’t.Anyway, I thought the Savita Bhabhi forum would have gold. Instead I saw their invitation asking for stories from the readers. I shared my story idea on the forum. It was inspired by the graphic novel I was working on. I was deep into research then: Tarbela dam, Afghanistan, behaviour of frontier tribes etc. So the story I wrote was this: Savita Bhabhi goes to Afghanistan to catch Osama Bin Laden on behalf of the USA. She lures him out of hiding and fucks him till he’s tired and ready to surrender.Why did I feel like writing a story for Savita Bhabhi? Well, I like funny and I want to be a part of funny things and contribute to them. I saw Savita Bhabhi as something funny, something naughty that I could write. I can write an absurd plot. It might not be good, but I can write one.Next day I got an email from a “Deshmukh” — the pseudonym for the owner of SB. He liked the story and wanted me to flesh it out. Although, he suggested we change the location to Shimla and he’d rather have a dacoit instead of Osama. I was cool with it. He asked me to send him a rough plot and that he’ll take care of the rest. I did my bit, he did his bit and Savita in Shimla was out soon.And then I went out, feeling super, like an invisible 26th January parade was on. Immediately afterwards I bumped into my buddy Adhiraj Singh and the staff of what was then Random magazine (today Comic Con India). How I showed it off. Badi santushti mili. As someone who draws — I liked the illustrations. They were nicely drawn and coloured. I have never been a perfect anatomy, third angle to the fifth perspective aur pata nahi kya guy. I just draw, theek deekhey to badhiya. So I was happy.Few weeks later, I suggested another idea and Deshmukh responded. This time I was full on exploring my ‘krativity’ — Savita won’t be at the house, she would be at her maayka. Her husband Ashok would be at home, alone. He would be visited by the cablewallah, doodhwallah etc etc and none will take money from him. In their flashback would be their sequences with SB. The story would end with Ashok congratulating SB on her good management of the home.In this one too, Deshmukh edited the storyline and wrote the porn himself. I did write the porn but he told me that “lovemaking isn’t alternate oohs and aahs” which I think is quite true. And I loved my absurd plots more than writing the erotic parts. I have always been in a hurry, and hurry is bad for lovemaking.So I stuck to what I knew best — I merely provided the storyline.But I asked him to give me credit by name — as in mention my name on the cover. He asked me again — usually everyone got pseudonymous dude credits like, FunkY!@bb. I didn’t understand why they did that, maybe shame.I really don’t know what prompted this, but I just didn’t understand why people won’t want their name on something so cool. Or they didn’t think it was cool? Or they were not Indians? Or maybe they were and they knew their chacha reads it? Pata nahi.But yeah, I got my full credit, and I’ll always be proud of that. Nobody in my bloodline can top that.Deshmukh later asked me to write for a third time for a new comic series he was planning and this time he (I have never been sure if he was a he or a she) was ready to pay me. They wanted me to sign a contract with some company based in Isle of Man, an island somewhere between England and Ireland. I agreed and wrote the story, although by the time that was wrapped up, I was lost in other things in my life and could never get the money.Then other things happened.In 2011, I finished my first graphic novel, The Itch You Can't Scratch, and on a whim, the publisher and I decided to write on the back a blurb — “After writing for Savita Bhabhi…” This small, impulsive act taught me about sensationalism, journalism, ethics, PR agents everything.Since my book got wide coverage and the first article about my book called me the creator of the character Savita Bhabhi, Deshmukh got pissed . I wrote to the reporter but she didn’t correct it.In all this my parents maintained a safe silence. Maybe they knew, maybe they didn’t. My graphic novel was about my life and my family. It was honest about poverty and my sisters were pissed. I mean, they were pissed about the honesty with which I had written about our family. The poverty of a Dalit family, the story of my father’s brothers who were consumed by their poverty. As an upper middle class family now (thanks to my father and reservations) my sisters try and hide all that. They felt some shame in me putting it out like that for the world to read.My eldest sister told me about her issues with the book. My elder sister, she stopped talking to me altogether for some time. About SB — well they never mentioned it. My eldest sister once mentioned it, laughing, later – “aur tu ek to ajeeb ajeeb cheezein kar hi chukka hai, wo kya bhabhi waigarah…” and then she laughed.That doesn’t mean all my relatives were like that.One of my mamajis gave me a golden lecture on doing ‘these bad things’ and how he never thought I was ‘that kind of boy’, I seemed so ‘normal’. And I had made ‘these shameful things public’ and I had to succeed a lot in life to wash these sins off or pata nahi kya kya.After everything, I still feel Savita Bhabhi was a powerful character. Obviously she’s hot like hell— what draws me to her is the whole desipana in an area where Indians might be sending top traffic to adult websites, but we still don’t create adult content. Also, her character invokes the teenage boy in me who used to drool at beautiful older buxom women. I have nothing to say in dissection of the character. There’s nothing to learn man, it’s just the whole naughtypana of it. That’s it. Why do we have to dissect everything? Roti khaa ke so jao yaar.I do not want to talk about how the character liberates women etc. In my head they don’t need anyone or any character to liberate them. They are liberated, they liberate themselves. It’s an individual who does things. If serendipitous thing like an encounter with a fictional character helps it, then great. I think dissection is just useless debate, which wastes essential time which we can use to take action, useful small acts that begin change. Not bakar bakar wherever that is just lines of text. Lorem ipsum. Lo mujhse bhi likhwa liya duniya ne paragraph. Zeher kahan hai?A lot of people also might pretend to like Savita Bhabhi because its cool to do so, like watching Gunda is cool. But I believe the character was a big success because of its relatability. It invoked this dark fantasy for a hot Bhabhi, yet kept it slightly funny, catching on to the tone of Mastram (the cheap erotic literature, which also inspired a film) I mean take the story of Savita giving tutions – I mean a simple act that occurs everywhere, is taken and made naughty, and it is already in the head of every teen who goes for tuitions. It’s just that someone wrote it.I would happily do it again. Sumit Kumar is a cartoonist based in New Delhi. His first graphic novel 'The Itch You Can't Scratch' has gained a strong cult following (meaning, not a mainstream one) and his political comics for Newslaundry have gotten mainstream acclaim - which led to his second graphic novel 'Amar Bari Tomar Bari Naxalbari' - a satirical retelling of the Naxal conflict.He has created comics and cartoons for companies in exchange for money.He lives in Delhi and makes comics for his webcomic - Bakarmax. Usually, he doesn't write about himself in third person.
