As a kid I loved to draw. I spent countless hours with a pencil in my hand, drawing whatever my obsession was at the moment (Dragon Ball, Sonic and others). But at some point, for whatever reason, this hobby got lost and I never really went back to it. My love for the 9th art also dates from those days; with many people influencing me. Those people lead me to dive into manga and american superhero comics but also European comic (Tintin, Asterix, Blacksad) and comic strips, mainly the Spanish ones (Mortadelo y Filemon, Superlopez, 13 Rue del percebe, etc).

Chai & Churro

A few weeks ago I told Aneesha about an idea that had been in my mind for some time. I wanted to do a little comic strip about situations in our life. We are people of different race and culture and that creates a context where funny situations are quite common. Putting that on paper shouldn’t be that difficult, and it would be a good creative effort, fun and entertaining.

Aneesha loved the idea, and we discussed some situations that we could use. After that, I worked for a weekend on putting together the first comic strip. I needed to find a way of creating characters that looked like us and, after some tries and some feedback from Aneesha, I created the first comic strip. You can see below these lines:

A FIRST DATE WITH INDIAN FOOD (Swipe right to read the whole comic) Guys, I’m so excited to announce this! @francisco_caal has come out with a fun comic strip on our lives as a mixed race Spanish-Indian couple living in Dubai! This comic summarized his first experience with Indian food 😂 This series is called Chai & Churro and this is his comic #1. Needless to say, I’m absolutely chuffed about this 😁🧔🏻👩🏽 Swipe right for #ChaiandChurro and let me know what you think of it! ❤ #WhenChaimeetsChurro . . . . . #comicstrips #creativepreneur #creativelifehappylife #creativityfound #calledtobecreative #creativebusiness #creativedesign #createcultivate #createeveryday #thenativecreative #doitfortheprocess #designisinthedetails #designinspiration #designideas #colorhunters #colorlove #colorcrush #livecreatively #livecolorfully #herestothecreatives #mybeautifulmess #flashesofdelight #pursuepretty #explorecreate #dowhatyoulove

A post shared by Aneesha Rai | Dubai Blogger (@omnomnirvana) on Apr 17, 2018 at 1:58am PDT

Yes, we started with a toilet joke. I know is not the most original thing in the world but believe me – spicy Indian food and Spanish stomachs are not the best combination. Chai & Churro was born and we were ready to put them out into that wild place that is the internet.

What happened next

Creating this comic strip was meaningful to me. It’s been a way of blowing off some creative steam, it has connected myself with my partner and at the same time with my inner child. I thought it could be special for Aneesha too. But to be honest, I didn’t know what her reaction would be. I’m not gonna go into specifics, but the things she’s said meant a lot to me.

When we published it on Instagram I was expecting some “likes” and some people finding it funny (because I believe it is). That obviously happened. We tend to “like” everything these days. But as soon as we published, we started getting a bunch of comments. People asking for more. People saying that we should open a separate account for the comic strip. I wasn’t expecting that. I think is the first time in my life that I do something and people asks for more.

But that’s not it, something else was coming. We got people telling us how much it meant for them to see a representation of an interracial couple. Specially one with an Indian in it. The Indian community is not used to see this kind of representation. And for that, I wasn’t prepared. I was just having fun, doing some creative stuff because I have an urge to do it. I was writing the most silly and stupid toilet joke. And yes, I know that in the online world, 200+ likes and some dozens of comments are nothing. But for me, if something I’ve done becomes meaningful for just a couple of people… well, it means the world to me.

I don’t know what’s gonna happen with this comic strip in the future. I have another one ready to publish and ideas for a couple more. After that I can’t promise anything because I honestly don’t know what I’m doing. The response to Chai & Churro has been overwhelming and really humbling, and I just want to say THANK YOU for all the “likes”, comments and messages.