Forbidden places, forgotten heroes

A line from Peanuts has been a great source of comfort for me since my school days—“I think I've discovered the secret of life - you just hang around until you get used to it.” I held on to the line like a charm that helped me get through several downs.But all that was somehow forgotten as I grew up and matters more mundane became much more important for me. And maybe in this striving for the ordinary, I forgot being a superhero. Very recently all of that changed in waves of nostalgia as I stumbled upon an old cardboard box in the cellar on a wistful rainy Sunday afternoon of grey sky and callow breeze. Tied with a coir rope the box was stacked below a set of stools for decades, forgotten and wasted. A neat layer of dust had settled itself comfortably and the knot looked like a nice old button, like the ones with a blob that we wore on the woolen sweaters that have gone out of fashion now. I got myself a pair of scissors from the tool box and got rid of the rope with a quick snip.

Open Sesame! Stacked in two neat files were piles of Bahadur, Magician Mandrake and Lothar, Flash Gordon, Batul the Great, Nonte Fonte, Phantom and their mates. In one fine cut my entire childhood had come galloping back. Back in those days I was often seen as some geek who would often enact the actions of the superheroes while guffawing with friends. But yes they stayed by me like silent sentries of strength, resolve and often inspiration helping me chaff the right from the wrong.

Whenever I had an extra dime or quarter, I would run up to the local comic stall to buy myself a few flights of fantasy and adventure. In fact my father often got me to do a lot of household chores while my friends were busy playing hanging the carrot of a double volume of ‘Indrajaal Comics’. As I stood before my childhood heroes I once again felt dwarfed by their overwhelming presence and simplicity. It will not be a detour to remind you of how it all began, while I dust clean the pages.The verdict is still hanging in balance as to how the first comic book evolved. In fact there are several versions. One can trace it back to the cartoonish broadsheets of the Middle Ages, which were parchment products, created by anonymous woodcutters.

These broadsheets later evolved with better content and humor. The first formatted evidence of a comic strip could well be the popular Punch, an elegant British creation, which became the primary focus of documentary accounts of those days. But in reality the comic strip still stood in the alley, waiting to be born. Then Great Britain's Ally Sloper's "Half Alley" arrived-- a black and white tabloid that had panels of cartoons mixed with a sliver of news.Now while all this was going on in Great Britain, the United States had its own brand of evolution. Instead of magazines, US newspapers took the lead in creating the comic book industry and it was William Randolph Hearst who scored a knockout with the Yellow Kid. But these were not comic books. It perhaps arrived with Carl Schultz' Foxy Grandpa.

The Whitman Publishing Company, in 1934, took over the mantle of being the pre-launchers for the modern comic book. They published forty issues of Famous Comics, which was a black and white hardcover reprint. However, people really got the hang of comic books with Famous Funnies that featured such memorable characters as Joe Palooka, Buck Rogers and Mutt and Jeff.

But it really didn’t matter when it originated, what mattered was how my brand of indigenous magazines were my constant companion in the dim balmy afternoons, stormy dark nights and valourous peek-a-boos during the study hours, letting the untamed horses of imagination run wild.What began with ‘Thakurmar Jhuli’, ‘Khirer Putul’ and ‘Buro Angla’ silently slipped into the cover comic strip ‘Kaushik’ of ‘Sukhtara’ and ‘Roverser Roy’ of Anandamela. Aabid Surti, who published the first 3 panel strips Dhabbuji, also created one of my favourite characters Bahadur for Indrajal Comics that could easily compete with Phantom and Mandrake.

The character came into being in the 1970s when dacoits were rampant in north India. Bahadur, himself a son of a dacoit Vairabh Singh, grew up to be the principle protector after being adopted as a kid by inspector Vishal, who had killed Vairabh. He along with his love interest Bela rid the Chambal Valley of the low life much like an indigenous Robin Hood.

I was filing comics in neat rows when from behind a double volume of Mandrake and Lothar emerged a rag-tag ‘Batul the Great’. Narayan Debnath’s Batul, was the next door superhero we all admired as kids. Batul was chasing Bachchu and Bichchu, the regular thug-duo, in the story and threw them inside the lock-up with one fling of his arm. The story goes that Debnath thought up the idea of the superhero while returning from College Street. When the Bangladesh War of Liberation flared up, he was asked by the publishers to add an aura of invincibility to Batul. Debnath was reluctant at first because he was worried about legal implications. On assurance, he made Batul a superhero able to take on tanks, airplanes, and missiles. Bullets began to bounce off him. If batul was the homespun superhero Handa Bhonda and Nonte Fonte, two of Narayan Debanath’s other creations, were any prankster’s guide to a ‘helluva fun’ and I was no exception.

Two other Super heroes who ruled our childhood were Phantom and Mandrake. The Skull Cave and Xanadu were exotic hideouts of these superheroes. I remember I had once or twice as a kid tried to locate Bangalla, the mythical African country, where resided The Ghost Who Walks. If the Skull Cave attracted me for its exotic and mystic nature, Mandrake’s residence Xanadu enticed me with its hi-tech content, close circuit cameras, drop gates. While, the skull ring’s impression with the sound effect of ‘dhishum dhishum’ remained etched in the mind for years, as did mandrake’s hocus focus that changed pistols to bananas, guns to snakes and rods to sugar-canes. If for nothing Lee Falk will be immortalized for the adrenalin rush he had given to our otherwise staid childhood that had no cable televisions, no video games and no play stations.

We also had our share of sci-fi in the hip-shaking Elvis singing 1970s. And it was none lesser than Flash Gordon created by Alex Raymond. The comic strip followed the adventures of Flash Gordon, a handsome polo player and Yale graduate and his companions Dale Arden and Dr Hans Zarkov. The story begins with Earth bombarded by fiery meteors. Dr Zarkov invents a rocket ship to locate their place of origin in outer space. Half mad, he kidnaps Flash and Dale, whose plane had crashed in the area, and the three travel to the planet Mongo, where they discover the meteors were weapons devised by Ming, evil ruler of Mongo. For many years, the three companions have adventures on Mongo, traveling to the forest kingdom of Arboria, ruled by Prince Barin; the ice kingdom of Frigia, ruled by Queen Fria; the jungle kingdom of Tropica, ruled by Queen Desira; the undersea kingdom of the Shark Men, ruled by King Kala; and the flying city of the Hawkmen, ruled by Prince Vultan.

Another aspect that attracted me were the remarkable pets they had be it Chinmaya (dog) of Bahadur or Devil (wolf), Hero (Horse) and Fraka (Hawk) of Phantom. But perhaps the most unique of them were Vedo (dog) and Uto (the ostrich) that Batul had. It was quite a treat seeing the illustration of Batul riding the ostrich almost choking the bird in his vice grip on the neck. He of course did not mean it and Uto surely knew it.

While, these superheroes did not have the fancy web of the Spiderman, the avant-garde batmobile of batman or the kryptonite gene of Superman, they were heroes grounded to the earth with their set of follies and weaknesses that often made them look very mortal and vulnerable and hence the connect was deeper. What made them heroes was perhaps their capacity of overcoming their frailties in doing what was right, what was true and fair.

In contrast the aura of invincibility of the new age superheroes makes them larger than life and hence often too alien to relate to. Perhaps the only exception is Herge’s Tintin, who has survived time and has in his own affable way continued to charm generations of kids with the classic morals of discretion is the better part of valour and a stitch in time saves nine. The Tintin series was therefore not there in my magic box from the past as it had taken its place in the book rack along with his dog talking dog snowy.

I dusted the books and set them back inside the box along with a few series of Panchatantra and Chandmama, our moral police from childhood. I closed the box and set it back where it was. I searched my way back to the cellar door in the fading light of the evening. A storm was brewing in the horizon. I descended into the balcony of my house amid the ordinary, but as I walked into my room I could feel the superhero alive inside me once again.

What if!

What if I become a stone!
A bright shining piece to play
Throw me around, build your house,
Use me any which way.

What if I become a river!
With water lapping a lonely bay
Raise a flood, quench a thirst
Use me any which way.

What if I become a paper!
That has been soiled every day
Tear to pieces or write your life,
Use me any which way.

What if I become a joker!
A joker -- silly and gay,
Snub me out or laugh aloud
Use me any which way.

Use me; abuse me I will never refrain
Who am I or what can I be;
But the day I pour down like a rain
Don’t run for a shade away from me.

Romance on wheels

Most of the time I have to travel by air. I go to the airport and catch a plane, I am hopping places. I reach my destination, attend meetings and then I am back at the base and that too in time.

As I have raced with time to keep pace I have wondered about trains...a huge coal engine chugging out of the station puffing black smoke and whistling. The locomotive wriggles out of the confines of the station, car shed and workshops...with an occasional passerby staring into its silhoutte....as it fades into the valley...

A journey by train is very different from travelling by road or air. It allows you to be one with nature for sometime...not the ones we use now in the comfrots of the AC coops....the train had the effect of setting the mind at rest ....completely at one with nature.....thoughts wander in and out of the open window as the electric posts and wires play a game of catch-me-if-you-can racing with the tracks that constantly shine and meet and then part ways and move on.... sights outside the window spur some past memory and activate a new set of hyperlinks that lead us on to some old sad tales of little unhappay things or sweet buds that you pluck from the maze of time and let it blossom at ease.

I have always been fascinated by the trains since I was a child. There is some magical quality about watching an engine pull a series of rakes so effortlessly...like a magician who would disaappear a handful of knives into his mouth and smile....I feel like sitting in the stomach of a huge serpent that noses through the valley, cuts through ravines, gorges through hills and criss crosses civilization with harmless ease. Long train journeys in my life have been rare, but the tramp has seen it all.

I had came across a parchment by Sandeep Silas on an old monk form India Mahatma Gandhi and his association with the Railways. It read :In 1901, Gandhi and Sir Pherozeshah Mehta travelled by the same train from Bombay to Calcutta. Gandhi had an opportunity to speak to him in the special saloon which was chartered for him. The kingly style of the Congress leader did not amuse him. The session at Calcutta, and his stay with Gokhale prompted him to tour the entire country in a third class compartment, to acquaint himself with the hardships of passengers. The first such journey was from Calcutta to Rajkot, with one day stopover each at Varanasi, Agra, Jaipur and Palanpur. Gandhi did not spend more than Rs 31 on his journey, including the train fare.

Third class travel, he thought, was the mirror to the plight of Indians. These journeys made him realise how India bled. His meagre travel kit comprised a metal tiffin-box, a canvas bag, a long coat, dhoti (loin cloth), towel, shirt, blanket and a water jug.The sight of a colossus seized by a few people, bound like Gulliver while the pygmies rejoiced, pained Gandhi. His experiences while travelling through India convinced him that swaraj (independence) was the only hope.

The Mahatma was born in a third class compartment of an Indian train. Gandhi preferred the ordinary train-life was closer to him this way. He has recorded vividly that the third class compartments were dirty and arrangements bad. He had an acrid experience of third class travelling on a journey from Lahore to Delhi in 1917. Twelve annas (75 paise) to a porter got him an entry into the overcrowded train through a window. He stood for two hours at night before ashamed passengers made room for him.

When we read about Gandhi, we realise that a lot of his philosophy emerged during the spare time he had while traveling. The train journeys gave Gandhi an opportunity to think and indulge in introspection.

I guess that is the magic of train journey. They help us make a connect with our own people. They also keep us a little removed from the world outside so that we get time to think....think and bring about revolutions....as we get into one of the ancient trains and whistle away into the darkness.

It's such a pity that as life gets faster, we move away from the trains to the the roads and get air borne. It takes away so much from a child and a dreamer like me...the cows, the endless pride of buffaloes...not herd...pride...the sudden conglomeration of trees before dispersing onto different corners of the paddy field, the water wheel that a girl paddles on as the glinting water pours into a field....it takes away the sun and moon in all its beauty, the hillside, the waving hands, the run-along children frolic, the tune of a bamboo flute of a shepherd and many more.

More importantly it takes away the fear and anguish of losing it all...the pain of not knowing it at all and the joy of having stacked up the experience in the heart as we move on.......only the rails look forever un-weary and ready for the next journey...

A Window on the Pointless

It happens sometimes. When the grey sky with droopy eyes makes the sun go to sleep… it happens. When you look out at the window pane and see one droplet collecting the other and the two knock on the next door brother…till they have gathered enough to roll down the pane and seep through the window sill into the lane…

In those uncertain moments I flicker like the last flash from a candle, before disappearing round the corner of my old street and stand right before my childhood. Those were the days when even a little rock-salt with green mango were laced with the most daring thrills of life. The run-downs to catch that yellow school bus… the wait-for-hours for the old ‘ektara’ seller to come to my lane on Sundays… the radio…Don McLean, Carpenters, ABBA, BoneyM…. Those old tunes… On lazy afternoons like this when the world goes past like a gushing pool of water and you stand at the doorstep not knowing which way the tide of life will take you….you think of these things sometimes.

I have creeper on my terrace…it has certainly grown a few inches in the last two weeks of rain…the fresh green leaves are filled with life…I touched and felt them like a parasite trying to feed off it…and then saw a quivering, withered yellow one hiding below the fresh tuft… my eyes welled up…pointless I know… but it happens sometimes.

A distant song filled the balmy air making it heavier. I know this song… When I hear this, I usually feel like humming it for sometime for it makes me happy, but today I looked up into the sky and slowly recited W H Auden…

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead, Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood. For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Pointless I know… but it happens sometimes on lazy afternoons.

Monsoon Moments

The moment a monsoon breeze blows, our lanes get flooded right up to the main road. The wayfarer’s shoes must carried over his head like his umbrella and it becomes clear that the inhabitants rank no higher in the struggle for existence than the amphibious beasts. I have grown grey watching the same sight from our balcony since my childhood….If I had written this or anyone else, it would have made no difference. But this was written none other than Rabindranath Tagore in “Kartar Ichchay Karma” in 1917. And the same story is very much true after 89 years. Kolkata is an old city, romantic and old.

Younger to many like Venice, but old in its ambience and philosophy. And old and reeking are its alleys and roads of North and South ends….they flood at the hint of monsoon and look like the Italian water-city when rain persists.

But Kolkata is changing, optimists say…bridges, highways, malls, complexes….actually it makes things even more complex for a complicated city structure that the metro has.

The city should have drained itself on the west and east sides, but that has been effectively blocked. The arterial cannal that curves through her like a waterline actually suffers from choking under a huge mash of waste. The wetlands are going dry and Kolkata holes up to take in monsoon.

When I was a boy I often let go paper boats from the balcony on the second floor that spun and danced about in the air as it drifted in the callow breeze to slowly settle on the water logged street below. Then a wait. One car…God please send one car…and God smiled sending a blue carrier that waved through the water and my boat set sail. Hurrah!!!

Ma…Ma…where are you? She is sleeping…and I slip down the stairs, those old ones, with bricks and morter peeping though the broken plaster, as you find in old homes in North Kolkata. I stand at the gate of the house, water lapping the final stair, a look up at the balcony…no one….Jump and for the next few minutes it was everything…rafting, kayaking, swimming and playing float ball with friends who have also escaped carefull eyes of their guardians. Nowadays, boys and girls don’t enjoy monsoon that often. Sad!!!

That girl...who came down to play with us one day....two plates and a yellow ribbons....blue skirt and blouse of the autumnal sky...she laughed like the breeze and flowed like the water....what is your name?....Varsha....she danced and sang as we all allowed the water to enter throiugh our pores....and then one day when monsoon was over...she went away in a big car...forever...wished the rains never stopped. Wish!!!!

Grown Up….all that changes…time becomes our tyrant tying us down to the post of duty… as you make a mad rush to reach office…jumping potholes, skipping driving cars, dodging through drains from umbrellas…red, blue, black, broken with one pane out and overturned….Jams, congestions, no police in sight and a madcity honks about in desperation…buses look like urban hell with bodies hinged form their seats melting in the hot humid condition as the windows shut down to avoid the downpour outside….monsoon is such a spoilsport… you think for a brief moment….God!!!

A cut back to the maidan in the evening….the lush green grass looking fresh and filled with life… a lamb skips about with his cousins and brother sisters as their mother looks on….two horses enjoy th drizzle muzzling into each other’s neck and tucking at each other’s hair….a rainbow appears all of a sudden as the billowy bossomed nimbus takes a leave after a smart shower…Wonderous Monsoon…thou art welcome in my pain!!!!

The Cogs in Chaos!!!


There is no reason to make things more complex than they are already. The heart of the matter is the red bastion is being stormed, stoned and pillaged by a different hue of the same red. The Maoists are storming the Red zones like Bastille. As the flames rise in Lalgarh and blood spill in Burdwan, one can’t help but look at the two people at the centre of it all.

The two are on two poles and have two synergies. They can never be in sync, for they don’t even speak in the same tongue. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, the quintessential Bhadrolok Bangali of Kobi Sukanta lineage and princely charm oozing from a blend of Cuban history and Gabriel Marquiez, is set against Mamata Banerjee, of rustic elegance, careless etiquette, rogue arrogance and spitfire lingo.

It’s a battle between a classy Communist Babu and a pauperish Bourgeoisie Didi.
But what is it that makes Didi so charismatic though every other person I meet says, “Does she have any stability? God knows what she will do next. But you have to agree to one thing she is more honest than most of the politicians.” So is it the last part that is pulling her through. The people will be in the best position to answer it. As for me she was a woman of substance, who is now a myth.

Mamata Banerjee is as austere in her lifestyle, as profligate she is in her speeches. The modest setting of Harish Mukherjee Road and the not exactly salubrious road that leads to her house are ample proof of her lack of want.

Set this against Brand Buddha. Brought up in a sober Bengali middleclass family and trained to develop a taste for literature, he was widely seen as the “Un-corruptible” …”Lets do it Chief Minister”.

And after some hard-selling of a ‘New and Improved CPIM’, Bhattacharjee roared to power with an overwhelming majority in the last assembly election. And it is here that he lost the plot. Mistakes piled up like files in Writers’ Buildings and blunders were shield with the ego politics of “Amader and Oder” (Ours and Theirs).

Where Brand Buddha was being missiled to pieces, like the statue of the Lord that was torn down by the Talibans, Tranamool was collecting the chips to build block by block. Talibanism of industrial development helped the germination at the grassroots for that is what Trinamool means.

Now she has single handedly fought her way back in the Lok Sabha polls despite being reduced to a laughing stock in the last general elections. A Communist graffiti had read, “Ami Mamata Banerjee. Amar Kono Sakha Nei”. (I am Mamata Banerjee. I have no branches. Obviously referring to the one seat that Trinamool Congress had won)

As Bhattacharjee degenerated into helpless scion of intellectual depravation, Mamata rose like the proverbial phoenix. When Buddhadeb hangs on to Writes’ like an ageless ghost and spends the evenings in the cultural hub at Nandan like a eerie soul seeing master directors like Roman Polanski, Mamata uses her vocal calisthenics to prune out “Karar oi Lohua Kopat” on the highways of Singur and paints “Kash Phool” like Nero as the state gets engulfed into further anarchy. But where there was no plan in the calm of Nandan, there is a definite strategy in the chaos of the highways.

Election results have come out. The Communists have been further cornered, Trinamool’s grass-flowers are the blossoms of the season. The white cotton saree and rubber chappals have become synonymous with her call of “Ma Mati Manush”. As the sickle and hammer erodes from rural Bengal like a folklore dying with time, Mamata’s choric charm, people-to-people contact and ability to blend with the mass build her into a myth.

As I came out of my house for office, I saw a ragged red flag hanging precariously for dear life from a wire with a dashing breeze determined to sweep it away. Well it’s not Aila. For we know not when the winds of change come out of the lurking forests in our mind. And when the dust settles, it’s time for harvesting a new crop.