My Hindi teacher always tried to tell us that all of must read a lot of Hindi and try to appreciate Hindi Literature. To be honest I never really read anything in Hindi apart from my textbooks. For me the appreciation of Hindi literature in my schooling days came from my passion for Hindi comics :)
Batman, Superman, He-Man were never great enough to be my heroes :) It was always Nagraj,Dhruv,Doga,Parmanu, bankelal etc etc. who caught my imagination and got me hooked to the comic books. I would get very excited for any new addition of the comics that would hit the stands and I even had a pact with my local book shop that I should be the first customer to get the latest collection. Be it any normal day, day before exams, a day when we were loaded with homework, I always used to find my small secret place in my home when I used to open up the comics and for hours get lost into the magical world.
I often used to get scolding for doing this, but I always felt proud that for my superheroes I can take this small amount of beatings. If they can fight such supervillians, i could atleast do this much :)
Every situation I faced in my childhood, i used to think that if my superhero was here what would he do? they were with me through thick and thin (overloaded homeworks and bullying friends). They were an essential part of my childhood.
In school, we used to talk about the latest stories. How Dhruv can be so flexible that he could dogde bullets? how Doga has such an amazing network that he could reach to any part of town through the sewer lines?
Whenever our school teacher used to ask which student has created mischief, we used to murmer in the back benches that ask Nagraj, he has his snakes all over the city, and they can give him every detail :)
I still remember I had saved money for two months for something special. raj comics came up with its range of stickers and posters. I used all my savings and bought stickers and posters out of them :) I pasted them all over. I pasted them on the small wooden almirah i owned at home. I pasted them all around my room, all over my notebooks, over my water bottle, over my bag. Then one fine day looking at my notebook my english teacher asked me, what kind of stickers are these. I looked at her with a feeling of disgust. What was she an alien!!!!! SHE DID NOT KNOW SUPER COMMANDO DHRUV!! what dis-respect!! Since that day she became my least favourite teacher(ofcourse super heroes teach you not to hate any1, so she became my least favourite)
When I look at children these days going crazy about harry potter and spiderman and what not!! I still feel my superheroes can beat these modern day characters any day.
Nagraj, Dhruv, Doga,Parmaanu..... You still are my superheroes and will always be :)
And for all the fans who want to refresh their memories, now in the age of internet, you can get e-comics @ http://www.rajcomics.com/joomla/
Jai Hind
