Munmun, the six-year-old, animal-loving, big-city girl from Bombay, was having lthe special rainy-day lunch with her family on a Sunday afternoon. Their mother made mutton curry with potatoes, and rice. As her brother called goats dumb, she remembered a story of her mother’s grandfather’s pet goat who was so cute, and had kept her mother home from school for 3 days!

Her first series of Handmade Storybooks, the Adventures of Munmun the Big City Girl were about Munmun, who lived in the cosmopolitan metropolis of Bombay (today, Mumbai), visiting relatives who lived in small towns or remote places which were very different from where she lived. The book titles, all words in Indian languages, tells of the animal she meets or the food she eats.

From the Studio PAUSE Community Art Collection.

Munmun, the eight-year-old, animal-loving, big city girl from Bombay, had come to Deoghar, a small town in the state of Bihar, (today in the state of Jharkhand), in eastern India. This was where her grandparents would be living for a few years. This was also where she learned electricity-saving ways to warm water and saw her first Hanuman, the wild black-faced langurs!

From the Studio PAUSE Community Art Collection.

Haathi – Adventures of Munmun the Big City Girl, 2007 is an adventure of Munmun, the 12-yearold Big City Girl from Bombay, who goes to visit an aunt who lives on a tea estate. But where does Munmun meet a rescued baby elephant? And where can she find the mommy haathi? Also, as none of Munmun’s photos came out on that trip, she makes her own – a drop-down photo strip. Here, she gave the baby elephant, who the rangers had rescued and named Ramprasad, pokey hair. She also used peppercorns and mustard seeds as they are part of the story.

Creating this artwork brought back memories. I used a photo of a collage I had made ages ago which sold at a book arts festival I attended. I enjoyed looking at new maps where “Rungamuttee” had a new and non-colonial spelling. And I added a photo of a sculpture of a mother and baby elephant I had seen at the airport in New Delhi in 2018. I also wrote Haathi, meaning elephant in Hindi (and Bengali), using the Indian Devanagari script using water soluble graphite.

Bandar, is an adventure of Munmun, the nine-year-old Big City Girl from Bombay, who wants to play with a cute monkey. What do you think happens when she actually meets one?

From the Studio PAUSE Community Art Collection.

Kairis, is an adventure of Munmun, the 11-year-old Big City Girl from Bombay, as she helps her American friends understand the fantastic Indian treat, kairis. As they hide from the boys’ grandma she tells them the story of when she was visiting her cousins one summer and saw a summer storm knock down the sour green mangoes she so loved. And then her cousins ,made her go out to bring some.

Sushmita launched Handmade Storybooks in July 2007 with the book Kairies! At a brunch at her friend’s restaurant in Washington DC, the food included kairies so guests could taste what the story was about—those sour green unripe mangoes Munmun the Big City Girl loved so much. The book’s cover is reminescent of the green wooden shutters of Munmun’s grandma’s house in Jabalpur, India. When the summer storm comes in the summer afternoons the wooden shutters rattle and unripe mangoes are knocked down from the huge trees outside. What do her cousins have her do as she peeks through the windows the adults forbade them from opening? Make her go out and bring the raw mangoes, or kairies, in of course!

In this mixed media work, she shares a photo of a collage she had made years ago and makes something new with it.

The 2006 story Gaai – Adventures of Munmun the Big City Girl, was about the 13 year-old Big City Girl from Bombay, who goes to attend a wedding in Varanasi and finds it impossible to decorate the wedding car with cows everywhere! As she navigates the delicate situation she experiences a lesson in non-violence she had only known in theory.

Reimagining the story today, I used photos of marigolds from my garden from previous years and mixed it with some blooms from this year. I also used images of the book cover alongside text from the inside pages, and a little glassine sachet which was sown into each book and included dried marigold from my garden. To all that I added the word Gaai, (meaning cow in Hindi, one of India’s main languages) written in the Indian Devanagari script using water soluble graphite.

Created in 2009 to relive and retell stories from my son’s first Saraswati puja experience in Mumbai when he was four, the format of the book Rest is Sweet is inspired by the ancient Indian palm-leaf manuscript format, or pothi. The book is a letter in a mithai (sweet) box (bought in Fairfax, VA) through which I tell Arijit the story of how he ate the sweets reserved for the goddess even before his grandma could offer them to her. Each panel of the letter tells him how his relatives rest differently, to celebrate the festival of the goddess of learning and the arts. As they place their books, machine drawings, paint brushes, ink pots, musical instruments, and even a soccer ball at the altar to the goddess during the puja, they have to stay home from school, work, and play – they have to rest.

My first book to be accepted into a show, Rest is Sweet was exhibited at the Susan Hensel Gallery in Minneapolis in 2010. It would only be in 2024 that I would create a similarly imagined Handmade Storybook to the other goddess, Lakshmi, naming that book Abundance is Bright.

I dedicated this mixed media artwork to the textiles, which are such an important part of Indian celebrations. And I used them to create another South Asian inspired book format, the Islamic style muraqqa, an assembled album page made from parts of many other artworks. I used prints of two fabrics—the red fabric of the mithai box from West India and a paper I had in my collection that has the katha print on yellow from Bengal in Eastern India. Yellow textiles is what is worn in West Bengal to celebrate Saraswati puja. The yellow background paper with gold embossed paisleys is a cotton-based paper, very textile-like feel, bought in Mumbai.

In the inner border I used printouts of pothi-style books in my collection, from a book about Ganesha done on palm leaf in India and a Tibetan pecha printed on paper.

The back of the book reads: “Slide out the tray. Pick up the first page. Read it. Turn it over, and set it down. Pick up the the next page. Read it. Turn it over, set it down on the first. A golden lesson awaits—one that I haven’t forgotten and hopefully never will. Enjoy!”

The story about a hamework assignment my class was given in 8th standard, the book is an unbound book in a matchbox. It tells the story of how our teacher wanted us to siti at a table, remove one match stick at a time, and put it on the table. Then we had to put them all back, one at a time. She wanted us to work on our patience.

The book was in the collection of a professor at the now defunct The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where I had attended the Hybrid Book: Intersection + Intermedia Conference in 2009 and she had shared it with students in the book arts class.

“All mommies are different. As different as their favorite drink. My son asked me about my cha and here’s my poem. Enjoy!” says the back of this book. Inspired by the art from my son’s Mother’s Day card where he drew a hot cup of tea, cake, and cookies, the poem answers a simple question he asked me once. When I made the cover from his art and wanted to trim the steam rising from the cup, my little son said I had to keep the steam. “Because cha is always hot!” he explained. And he was so right! Through various designs of the book the poem has remained the same.

Lelemenope: a collection of mis-spoken first words etc. by Aweegee, NyaNya B, family & friends documents the words of children, as well as adults from when they were children. It includes new words adults learn as well when they move to a new country.

It was accepted into the Abecedaries exhibit at the Abecedarian Gallery in Denver, CO, in 2010. A copy of the book is also in the George Mason University’s Fenwick Library Special Collections Research Center, Fairfax, VA.

I fell in love with the Japanese stab bound book format at the National Museum of Asian Art where I have been a docent since the year 2000. So when I learned to be a book artist I already knew the history of how books were made in Edo-period Japan.

From the Studio PAUSE Community Art Collection.


Created for the Smithsonoian’s Folklife Festival where it would be sold in the Marketplace, Ananya & The Scary Green Guy tells the story of Sushmita’s daughter Ananya, and how she was scared of the Green Guy who always came with Goddess Durga during the big Durga Puja holiday they celebrated with her grandparents in Dayton, OH.

With covers made from Ananya’s grandmothers first red and white Bangali puja sari worn in Dayton, the limited edition book covers were sewn by a Venezuelan woman who was part of Empowered Women International, a Virginia-based organization where Sushmita had trained to be an entrepreneur.

A version of Japanese stab binding but with flat pages, not folded.

From the Studio PAUSE Community Art Collection.

The 2007 book Bakri - Adventures of Munmun the Big City Girl had a story within a story. As Munmun ate goat curry her mother had made, she remembers the story of her mother’s grandfather’s pet goat and how she had kept her mom away from school for 4 days. The book for young children had drawings by my old college friend which children could color in.

One day some years later, that old college friend posted on social media that we were not friends anymore. After the shock and confusion subsided, I stopped making the old books. One night I dreamed of how the story of Bakri could evolve into just the story of Mangli, the very special goat from my mother’s childhood, who lived in a house totally different from the apartment building I grew up in. I saw myself making the art inspired by henna designs! When I woke up, I created the 3D, house-shaped book I had learned to make at a library in California, and I looked at photos of henna designs and created the art.

Since 2011, this book has been a huge hit and my most popular workshop till today. Hundreds of people have learned to make a blank book like this and written their own stories in them. The hand-colored book in the shadow box remembers how a DC librarian, Polly, enjoyed coloring in a sample book while we waited for the children to come to the Summer Reading Program I was going to present.

A folded origami one-page book design, this book doesn’t use any binding. However, it was cool to dig up my old 6V pink hand drill which I used to make books, to drill holes in the frame to hang this book. A clothesline outside and one inside. Peek in the windows and you can see Mangli looking at the shirt!