Three Women: A Graphic Novel By Isheeta Ganguly

When the spirited and sassy ghost of Kadambari Devi—Rabindranath Tagore’s enigmatic sister-in-law—leaps across time, she finds herself guiding two iconic women from Tagore’s fiction: Charu and Bimala. Both brilliant, restless, and caught between love, intellect, and duty, they struggle to find their place in a world that is changing faster than they are allowed to.

As the three women debate, challenge, and inspire one another, they discover a surprising truth: the world may have moved from the 19th century to the 21st, but the inner battles women fight—for independence, desire, and meaning—remain strikingly familiar.

Adapted from Isheeta Ganguly’s internationally acclaimed dram-com musical Three Women: A Musical Theatre, this graphic novel offers a bold, visually immersive reimagining of Tagore’s heroines. Blending literature, history, and modern reflection, it celebrates the enduring power of Tagore’s women, and their quest to balance purpose with passion.

Isheeta is an acclaimed Tagore fusion singer with nine acclaimed albums to her credit. She is also a playwright–director. Her musical theatre productions, Three Women, Sundays with Chitra & Chaitali, and Shakuntala Awaits, have garnered international recognition for blending contemporary feminism, history, mythology and pop culture with 19th-century classic heroines in a modern-day, dram-com format. Shakuntala Awaits had an acclaimed Off-Broadway run with the HERE theatre in NYC, and Three Women had collaborations with Bollywood actresses Juhi Chawla, Lisa Haydon, Shilpa Shetty and Mandira Bedi.

Her most widely known fusion album, Damaru, was arranged by Shantanu Moitra and featured a renowned voice-over by Bollywood actor John Abraham on Tagore’s Where the Mind is Without Fear for the hit track Bande Mataram.

Prior to creating Three Women, Isheeta collaborated on a number of acclaimed multi-media Tagore fusion projects, including Chiranthan with Amitabh Bachchan and Tanushree Shankar, Still I Rise with danseuse Mallika Sarabhai, A Tribute to Tagore with the late Ustad Vilayat Khan and Riot with actresses Shabana Azmi and Madhur Jaffrey.

Isheeta recently gave opening performances for Lakme Fashion Week with Tarun Tahiliani, the Jaipur Literary Festival and Art Mumbai, as well as at the Lincoln Center, the Intrepid Museum, and the Asia Society in New York City.