Discarding their scars, they have done everything including photo shoot, documentary, calendars and modelling to lead a normal life which was disturbed because of the brutal acid attack on them.
This time they feature in the form of a comic strip in a five-series comic book created by Ram Devineni, a documentary filmmaker, filmmaker Paromita Vohra, and comic artist Dan Goldman.
The comic strip was inspired after the Nirbhaya Rape Case in New Delhi which shook the entire world. The comic book’s first edition Priya’s Shakti, released in December 2014 at The Mumbai Comic Con, features the first female Indian superhero and rape survivor.
Artist Dan Goldman described “Priya” as a girl who sits next to us on the bus, and knows us at school. Something terrible has happened to her which changes her forever and unlocks a strength she never she had.
The second edition of this series, funded by World Bank and released on October 13, 2016 in Agra’s Sheroes Cafe, is ‘Priya Mirror’ where the protagonist meets the acid attack survivors and leads them to fight their scars to come out strongly to the attacks on them.
Priya joins forces with a group of acid attack survivors as they fight against the demon-king, Ahankar, and his tyrannical hold on them. The idea, Devineni says, originated while their visit to Delhi during the Comic Con Festival held in the capital last year.
“Last December, I had the chance to meet Sonia and Laxmi with Stop Acid Attacks in their office. I discovered that they faced the same cultural stigmas and reactions from society that rape survivors had to endure. The treatment they received from the society, family, neighbours and society intensified the problem and their recovery. Often they were treated like villains and the blame was pinned on them.
“Our comic book focuses on this and tries to change people’s perceptions of these heroic women. The comic book’s main character is ‘Priya’ who is a survivor of gang-rape and we wanted to continue her movement and adventures and by focusing on acid-attacks. The correlations were too obvious and imperative,” said Ram Devineni, one of the creators of the comic book told Deccan Herald in an exclusive interview.
The comic book, which uses augmented reality, features three acid attack survivors, Laxmi Saa, Sonia and Monika. One of the survivors who have been globally-recognized with the International Women of Courage Award by Obama.