BENGALURU: I went to watch the latest billion-dollar blockbuster superhero movie. Too much of an outsider for the inside jokes, and too old to get the Gen-Z references, I felt like one of the alien characters. In many ways it was the final nail in my ageing, creaking coffin. But this was not always the case.
Growing up in a religious ashram and born in an orthodox family, my first superheroes were Gods. I read their stories in comics, heard their stories from teachers, and watched their stories on television. My favourite Lord Hanuman pummeled the rakshasas into the ground. I read the entire ‘Dashavatara’ series in one sitting. The Krishnavatara series transported me to Dwapar Yuga when my school banned the more ‘colourful’ novels by Sidney Sheldon.
But Indian superheroes held a special place. They spoke in Hindi and Punjabi. Their issues dacoity, electricity theft, and milk adulteration – were very Indian too. These superheroes were afraid of their dads and touched their elders’ feet before stepping out of the house.
They had indie dogs as their pets, and the illustrations featured bones crunching and blood spilling. I began to wonder why Indian superheroes never saw the shiny glitz of box office success. Why didn’t today’s kids know of Nagraj, Super Commando Dhruv, and Doga? It was then that I did the heartbreaking research to find out the causes.
Indian superheroes came sans any origin stories. They were all blessed by gods or cursed by the devil. I read the first Nagraj comic, and found no origin story. He just EXISTED – fully formed and ready to kick ass. Doga – the superhero who killed evil people mercilessly was supposed to be made into a film by Anurag Kashyap.
But a cursory look through his Wikipedia page showed that the side characters are all named after Indian spices Haldi Chacha and Adrak Chachi. There was no concept of Copyright, and characters were blatantly copied. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles became Fighter Toads.
Captain America became Tiranga. RoboCop became Inspector Steel. One of their comics featured Superman, Batman and Spiderman being rescued by Nagraj after they’d been captured by evil villain Shakoora! It was the Multiverse of Copyright Infringement!
And then there was the sheer lack of logic. Super Commando Dhruv wore a yellow banian over a sky blue suit, and rode a noisy two-stroke motorcycle hardly suitable for a stealth commando. Then there was favourite among the lot Nagraj. Clearly inspired by Spiderman, he was shown to fly on snakes (instead of releasing webs).
How do you make that into a movie? Imagine an 80 kilo man flying on snakes! Every rescue mission must mean at least 20 snakes being killed. Nagraj would have gone straight from Snake Charmer to Snake Harmer! And what happens to the snakes once Nagraj has flown away? Forget lawyers, they would have faced their biggest challenge from Menaka Gandhi!
Which made me realise that Indian superheroes belonged to the Age of Innocence. Their place was relegated to the nostalgia of people in their 30s and 40s. And perhaps that was a good thing. They wouldn’t survive the brutal world of social media trolling. Maybe Nagraj, Super Commando Dhruv and Doga deserved to remain in my memories.
I looked up their website and ordered a few comics for my bookshelf. That is where they would be safe forever. Maybe it was life’s way of telling me that it was time to move beyond childhood superheroes. And face the real villains – back pain, cholesterol and blood pressure!
(The writer’s views are personal)