Vaadivaasal’s Visual Storylines in the Graphic Novel Adaptation

Abstract

The graphic novel Vaadivaasal offers a striking entry point into questions of masculinity in Tamil culture. Originally told by C. S. Chellappa and recently given a visual reworking by Appupen, with Perumal Murugan’s commentary, the story returns to the setting of jallikattu, the bull taming contest that has long served as both sport and ritual. What the novel makes immediately clear is that masculinity here is not a private matter of strength or courage. It is bound to performance, to the gaze of the crowd, and to the weight of family memory. The images sharpen this point. The body of the man pitched against the bull is all endurance and aggression, but it is also duty and an insistence that the son must step where the father once stood. At the same time, the visual field does not hide the cracks. Fear flickers across a face; hesitation halts the body mid gesture; silence hangs over a panel. These moments interrupt the spectacle and expose how fragile the performance of masculinity can be, how much it depends on recognition and validation from the community that surrounds it. This paper argues that the Vaadivaasal adaptation stages masculinity in two registers at once. It celebrates the violence, pride, and ancestral honour associated with jallikattu, but it also unsettles those very terms. Masculinity appears not simply as prowess but as a trial of existence itself, a space where glory and vulnerability are inseparably bound.