Amar Chitra Kathas and Childhood

 

My love affair with the Amar Chitra Katha series started from a very early age.

 Like most other children of the early 70’s, my life too was made immensely colorful by the umpteen stories that revolved around invincible Gods and Godesses, devas, asuras, rishis, national heroes, and brave warriors. Thanks to my parents, I had steadily built up a solid collection of these treasured books and I would eagerly lap them up on hot summer afternoons, reclining on the walls of the cool corridor of our small ancestral village house. Siesta time for the elders, It was reading time for me since there seldom were other children to play with. So the various characters in the books, especially the mythological ones like Krishna, Rama, Draupadi, Sudama, Sita, Parashurama, Drona, Karna, etc became alive in my own special imaginary childhood world.

My subsequent journey through life took me away from that simple old house overlooking a big pond, where I had entrusted the small leather trunk filled with my precious books in the care of my grandmother. Every time I got a chance to visit my grandmother, the first thing I would do was to rush to the trunk which was kept on top of a stone ledge in a room upstairs. The whole ritual of opening the box with a rapidly beating heart, taking a quick inventory of the books stacked neatly, turning the pages slowly, and drinking in the damp, musty smell which could possibly have been a mix of evaporated naphthalene balls and old paper, gave me a sense of pure bliss and I would revel in it for as long as possible. But during one of my periodic visits, I was heartbroken and inconsolable to discover my cherished Amar Chitra Katha comics totally destroyed by termites.

Over the years, my interest in Indian mythology and history deepened and I got to know more about my favorite topics and more through other authoritative books. But surprisingly, even today, when I think of a character in the Puranas, I automatically associate it with the small but precise illustrations in the Amar Chitra Katha which had so influenced my childhood days.

This morning as I was cleaning up my bookshelf, I came across an old issue of Amar Chitra Katha which I had brought a long time back for my son, that being the reason for this pleasurable trip through memory lane…

 

Victim Speak

Just recently I was reading about Rahul Gandhi’s speech in Rajastan where he has referred  to the assassinations of his grandmother and father, and also the possibility of his being killed in the same manner.  First of all, let me clarify that I am not a political critic, but being a person who is still able to empathize, I certainly feel sorry for the person who definitely would have undergone a lot of trauma from a young age.

In no way am I referring to his oratorical or management skills or his credibility or financial assets or love affairs or even his current job as a Congress leader. Like a lot of my fellow Indians, I agree that there is much more he needs to do to prove his mettle politically, and win the trust of the people. But seeing him verbally assaulted in this manner and brought down to the level of a ‘buddhu’ or ‘pappu’, I certainly feel sorry for the person that is Rahul Gandhi , who seems to be a victim of circumstances. True, he has lived in the lap of luxury lifelong and is part of a political dynasty that may not be digested by many, but all that comes to my mind when I think of him is the phrase, ‘poor little rich boy’.

Speaking about victims, my dears, it certainly looks like we Indians are a sadistic lot when it comes to victimizing victims.  Mind you, I am not just talking about those unfortunate people who are victims of major physical crimes. I am also referring to people like you and me who may be victimized emotionally and psychologically for a word or action taken unwittingly.  We could be victims at school, at the work place, in the bus, at a public gathering, or even in our own houses.

But irrespective of the degree of victimization, what I feel is that we belong to a peculiar culture that has generated our own effective ways of dealing with the sufferings of victims.  We believe in taunting, demoralizing and demeaning them thoroughly mostly using weapons of words which force them to remain victims throughout their lives.  Never mind the age, gender, or sex of a victim; never mind the magnitude of their sorrows or troubles; never mind their circumstances or reasons as to why they were victimized; we are proficient in offering them not just our generous sympathies, but we also make sure to judge, criticize, condemn, warn, taunt, moralize, sermonize, and watch over them all their lives just to make sure that they never ever forget the fact that they are victims.

Coming back to Rahul Gandhi, as a young politician, he may or may not be able to survive this massive onslaught by over eager Indians belonging to various political categories and idealism, but as an individual who i feel is ‘more sinned against than sinning’, i hope he finds his peace sometime in life...