'Touching Grass': Stick figures, hefty messaging

Cartoonist Rachita Taneja’s debut book of comics is aptly titled Touching Grass (Bloomsbury) — Internet slang for telling someone off for being so immersed in online culture that they have lost touch with reality. Although Rachita has been using online platforms to take her cartoons to the world, she is well aware of the realities of life around her. On social media, she is known more by her handle ‘Sanitary Panels’, and has been cartooning about life, society, queer rights, climate change, and politics, from as far back as 2014, when she created her first comic in reaction to the arrest of students for critiquing the government. 

Rachita, who’s in her thirties, has since gone on to make hundreds of cartoons on her social media platforms, with over 2,50,000 online followers and counting. What does the handle she uses to post mean, we ask. “A group of friends were brainstorming, and one of us suddenly thought of sanitary pads, and that’s how the name came up. It addresses what used to be or continues to be a taboo even now in our patriarchal society,” she explains. Rape may be a less offensive word than menstruation, considering how many struggle to even mention the word, Rachita remarks. Rachita has often critiqued narratives around patriarchy. One of her comics talks about how women are told to “be confident about your body and looks”, but also warns about being too confident — a reflection of the hypocrisies and tokenism that exist in mainstream narratives. (see pic)

But it’s her political commentary that fetches Rachita the most feedback online — her sharp observations on bigotry, fascist tendencies and the many binaries that exist in Indian society have earned her both appreciation and brickbats. She won the prestigious 2024 Kofi Annan Courage in Cartooning Award, in recognition of her incisive satire. This isn’t to mean that she has never felt fear at any point. “It would be disingenuous to say I haven’t,” she adds. To voice one’s opinions on social media today would prepare one for some sort of trolling. Rachita is no stranger to this aspect of the online world. “You are trolled for being political, for being a woman, or for being someone from a minority community,” she observes. 

How easy or difficult has it been for satirical and political cartoonists online, in an ecosystem that’s increasingly wary of criticism? India is ranked a poor 151 among 180 countries, according to the 2025 World Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders. Noting that things have taken a turn for the worse, she explains that while there are many new voices, there is also an increase in censorship, and several posts have been taken down. On the positive side, for each voice that is curbed, 10 more new voices are coming up with interesting and innovative ways to dissent, says Rachita. Trolling aside, Rachita’s favourite feedback is where someone told her they were a fence-sitter till they were introduced to her work, and then developed a clearer understanding of what their stance was.

Internet culture has shaped Rachita to a fair extent, and her book has comics on doomscrolling (the act of consuming a never-ending loop of bad news), fake news and misinformation, among others. She recalls spending time on platforms like Tumblr, Reddit and Imgur, among others, and is clued in on the many Internet subcultures and memes. How does the meme stand out from the satirical or the political cartoon? “Satire at the core of all forms is still the same — you are just telling the same joke in different mediums,” Rachita says. 

Rachita has seen the best of both the online and offline worlds — with her father in the Navy, her family travelled a lot, and early on, she learnt that there wasn’t just “one way of living”. She also learnt early on about different cultures and contexts; critical thinking and questioning those in authority have shaped the cartoonist that she is today. 

Rachita uses minimal stick figures to convey what she has to. “It’s simple, uncomplicated and not intimidating,” she points out, adding, “I didn’t know how to draw.” In her book, she explains she was impressed by ‘xkcd’, the stick figure comic by Randall Monroe, where he uses the minimalist style to demystify complex scientific concepts. The stick figures help her stay disciplined and enable her to put out her work faster, she explains. 

What does the political cartoon mean to her, beyond its function of holding truth to power and questioning authority? The political cartoon is an effective and important tool; it is scary too for those in power to be made fun of, to be lampooned, she observes. And satire, for her, has come to be a coping mechanism.