Picture a woman in her ex’s large T-shirt, sans bra, wearing disintegrating flipflops, with half-shaved legs (till the hem of her favourite dress), with a pimple patch or two. If this describes the you that you keep off Instagram, illustrator and debut author Akshara Ashok got it right with The Little Book of Big Girl Things. Her colourful, new graphic novel captures everyday moments with an ease and levity that makes it a hard relate for anyone annoyed with adulting today. From the realities of living alone to the rigmarole of buying new jeans, the book encompasses everything; expect to hear yourself repeatedly saying: “That sounds just like me.”
While in her second year of college, studying architecture (a stream she chose for its “stability”) at SRM IST Chennai, a bout of chickenpox led to a missed deadline on an important project. Instead of empathy, she got a scolding from her professor. She channeled this frustration into Happy Fluff Comics, an Instagram account where Ashok draws comics on everything from body positivity and mental health to pets and relationships.
Based in Chennai, Ashok spent her childhood drawing but viewed it just as a hobby, “I didn’t think that it [art] would be a career option for me,” says the 27-year-old. She started out hand-drawing her first set of comics, literally using her finger to sketch the illustrations on her phone. It was all set in college and revealed the every day anxieties of being a young adult. Today, she’s a published author, has an Instagram account with over 227k followers, and has even given a Tedx talk on ‘art’s role in normalising societal taboos’.
All of her drawings are centered around a relatable character, named Fluff, whose flaws stand tall and proud. “She is imperfectly perfect. A lot of people ask me, why does your character look like that? Why can't you just make it look beautiful and skinny?", shares Ashok. But the illustrator wanted to create a persona her readers could relate to—bad-hair days, acne, a not-so-flat stomach, et al. Tired of seeing only men in pop culture walking around shirtless, in their underwear, Ashok wanted to portray women do the same things—normalising being silly, minus the sexuality. You’ll see her lead walking around at home in her underwear, wondering how the dishes keep piling up, and why unpacking after a trip is just so damn hard. She even has a section dedicated to her pets—two cats, Teefie and Dalgo, and a pug, Yoshi, the overlords of her home who make frequent demands on her time, space, and sanity.
Scroll to see the most relatable comic strips that had us nodding our heads in agreement, from her newest book.
The Little Book of Big Girl Things is published by Ebury Press and is available in all major bookstores in India; ₹499
