At The Edge

Cross-posted from my Kashmir Blog With expert inputs from yours truly...first part of the last concluding part of Sumit Kumar's 'Kashmir Ki Kahani' is out. Read and become an instant expert on Masala-e-Kashmir. Check it out at  newslaundry.com In this part the story gets even more intertwined with story of India. -0- Previously: Educating Indians on Kashmir through Comics

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Vyjayanthimala in Amrapali inserted into a comic panel based on story of Hamsavali from Somadeva's Kathasaritsagara. -0-

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Cross-posted from my Kashmir Blog. If you know a Kashmiri who you would, just out of common courtesy, ask a question about Kashmir, a simple ' Aur Aaj Kal Waha Kay Halaat Kaisay Hai ?' but then end-up praying to your God may guy please drop dead because he wouldn't just shut up going on and on about Kashmir until you have learn't by heart all the clauses and sub-clauses in article 370 and the exact chronology of  signing of the Instrument of Accession, before you even get a chance to offer your sympathies or apologies, leave alone a solution, that there, that crazy Kashmiri guy with possible terrorist looks, would have been me. Back when I was in college, the ignorance of Indians about Kashmir infuriated me and like any other good Kashmir, I took upon the charge of educating Indians about the real Kashmir. I became the resident Kashmir expert of the college, of Chai ki Dukan , of Cinema Hall, of train, of bus.  You could ask m anything you want but the problem ...

Came across this rare second coming of Mario Miranda's famous creation Miss Rajni Nimbupani - the famous Film Star, in NFDC publication called 'Cinema in India',  July 1990. -0- Mario Miranda, Previously

Chaino loves comics Screencap of Shatrughan Sinha in the film 'Ek Nanhi Munni Ladki Thi' (1970) reading 'Sheng the Savage' (1969) in Flash Gordon series from Indrajal Comics.

alternatively titled: 'What to do if nothing else works?' Ride a horse -single handed, ride a bike on a high wire - let your hair blow into the wind, play with knives ( and springs!), do trapeze, break that wall with your head, and when you have completely lost it, be a ' chiddi maar ' - killer of birds. So now you are a Super Hero.ClapCalpClap. -0- Image: A page from Pratishodh ki Jwala (fire of revenge, Raj Comics ), the first of Super Commando dhruva. dhruva started in Circus just like 'Robin - The Boy Wonder'. Parents get killed and so on. After many successful adventures he ended up playing 'Robin' to Nagraj.

Amitabh Bachchan gives some Dishum to Amjad Khan. Rekha tries to look worried. -0- In 1980s Amitabh Bachchan had a little comic series of his own in which he was alter-ego to masked crusader - 'Supremo'. Apparently, Gulzar was the script consultant. Read more about Supremo at aniamit .

Last week, I was buying a copy of Walter Crocker's 'Nehru: A Contemporary's Estimate' from a Railway Station Book Stall but then also ended up buying a thing called - 'Phir Aya Naagdant'. With a cover like that who could resist. (It was the wings!)  As a further inducement, for the back cover, it had this Year 2008 ad for 'Sharan Kaand' from Raj Comic 's  Nagayaan Series for Nagraaj and Super Commando Dhruv. Obviously inspired by the Ramayana. Powerless (but, bullet dodger and intelligent) Dhruv gets to play Laxman but interestingly enough, in this image Nagraaj, with a snake and a trident from future, strikes a Shiva in Ram's Khadau . And the monkey lords look straight out of Planet of Apes.

 Found this in a post about The World Of Illustrated Weekly Of India at an awesome blog called Comic World . The blog is not just dedicated to Indrajaal (long gone, but still synonymous with comics in India) but it is a blog delightfully filled with lot of Fauladi Singh, obscure Hindi comics and strips ('Film Reporter Kalam Das' anyone ), covers of old Hindi novels, vintage ads, Newspaper clippings, film trivia and vintage. Stuff like: Do visit!

No, I don't think Lord Mountbatten's Chief of Staff, Lord Ismay, was really thinking about 'Samosa and Tea' in that meet of 3rd June 1947 when Nehru and Jinnah signed on the Partition Plan.

I just opened the fridge to gulp down some water. Opened a bottle. Gulp. Gulp. What this in my mouth. I take it out. It's a green leaf. A small leaf of tulsi. It's in every bottle. Holy Basil in every edible thing in the fridge and even outside it.   The bloody eclipse is here. Sun is consuming hydrogen and I have to consume green tulsi leaf. For these next few days, these leaves will turn up at the strangest places. In between sheets of clothing and Newspaper, in the crevices of my under-wears...happens all the time. With the Sun god you can't take a chance. -0- Images - It's Tintin - The Seven Tulsi Leaves...

  Quite educating! Something with a sour taste. Chandamama, January 1982 [Check out the archives of Chandamama ]   What's that buzzing noise? Just blood sucking pink fairies. This one comes from 'Doga Hindu hai' ( Raj Comics) . This particular issue is quite a riot. Sample this - Doga bashes up bad guys, someone badder, working a scheme, later kills few of those injured guys. It turns out the ones who died were Muslims and the ones who lived were Hindu. People conclude Doga must be a Hindu. Riot. This isn't the end, in the next issue Hindus scream ' Apna Bhai Doga'. Mind bending. A junky friend of mine would agree with a lot of it, he used to say, 'If you want the stuff, head to a Muslim ghetto, basti.' Doga was pretty much the last comic series that I really followed. And I still think it has the best title names. However the art has become too dependent on computer generated images - basically the colors have become too shiny.

“The inclusiveness that Indian society traditionally displayed, literally in every aspect of life, is manifest in recognizing a role in society for everyone,” judges of the Delhi High Court wrote in a 105-page decision, India’s first to directly address rights for gay men and lesbians. “Those perceived by the majority as ‘deviants’ or ‘different’ are not on that score excluded or ostracized,” the decision said. [...] Still, the decision was condemned from many corners in India. “This is wrong,” said Maulana Abdul Khaliq Madrasi, a vice chancellor of Dar ul-Uloom, the main university for Islamic education in India. The decision to bring Western culture to India, he said, will “corrupt Indian boys and girls.” The High Court’s decision should be overturned, said Murli Manohar Joshi, the leader of the main opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. “The High Court cannot decide all things,” he said. - the complete story at Nytimes Image: Naagraj aur Jadugar Shakura - Snake...

Image courtesy: tomheroes.com (a site having great collection of similar items from the 80s) How many folks in India remember this mesmerizing for amazing pet creatures? This ad could be found in comic books like Superman, Archie and almost every other comic. The amazing Sea Monkeys were actually shrimps . And I used to fight with my elder cousin telling him these were real beings, why else would the comic have the amazing family portrait of these cute little sea monkeys. -0- Here's a  blog dedicated to sea monkeys called ' Sea Monkey Geek '

According to the story line: A crazy forest princess is holding some lady friends of Tarzan as prisoners and she is forcing Tarzan to do house chores wearing a loin cloth made from the skin of a pink panther. Or maybe the coloring artist was using the pink color to symbolize subjugation of Tarzan. Why else would Tarzan wear a pink underwear! Image: Curiously colored version of Tarzan from Times of India.Sunday,  March 22, 2009. Edgar Rice Burroughs must be disappointed.

They are calling us Hindu Taliban, they are using terms like Talibanization of India. What a stupid idea and a preposterous notion. They belittle us, these pseudos. We are the Heroes, how can they compare us to our enemies. Remember we - in our all flavors - still believe in the old maxim: ' Sakinaka Say Nagasaki tak Sara Area Apna Hai ' and wasn't our Ghandhari ji from that area. What do you mean So? These Jhollawallas turned Suitwallas really have microphones for brain and cameras for mouth. Do they have any idea what we are trying to achieve and against what odds. Taliban had their work cut out for them, they are students and they only interpret, here we are masters, we create stuff out of thin air, at times we have to define good Indian culture, workout issues of public morality and lot more, and we do it by mostly relying on our good instincts and the prevalent political climate in the country. We are great people of a great civilization. Those crazy talib s coul...

The cover pages of all The Adventures of Tintin by Hergé, real name Georges Remi . The images are in chronological order of their release. Cover Tintin and the Lake of Sharks had been left out, as it wasn't drawn by Hergé. The last image is of the back cover of a version of Tintin and Alph-Art - The twenty-fourth adventure of Tintin which was left unfinished at the time of Herge's death The complete list: 1. Tintin in the Land of the Soviets (1929–1930) The first adventure appeared in 1929 in a children's supplement to a Belgian daily newspaper, Le Vingtième Siècle. Hergé was just twenty-three. In this adventure, Tintin and Snowy travel to communist Russia and get chased around by its infamous secret police. 2. Tintin in the Congo (1930–1931) The infamous second by Hergé. The one not for the kids . Tintin  is in Congo and a henchman of Al Capone, who has diamond interest in Congo,  tries to kill him off. Not only is this publication racist, an attempt at glorify...

Recently, an Indian News channel carried reports of sighting of a Ball Lightning Apparently, the ball lightning was observed by some airborne plane. The whole story took me back to a TinTin comic that i read long long ago - The seven crystal Balls. Are we going to see an Indian twist to these age old stories of UFOs , aliens, strange creatures from space, from the deep sea, from the empty closet... et al ? Aren't Indian politicians strange enough for these news channels. Do we have to see addition of Indian Hocus Pocus to the western Mumbo Jumbo. Interestingly, even that Tin Tin story had an Indian touch to it.