Year 2017:
I walked into my aunt's home with ADI, my production no. 1, the other day and asked her about the books I used to read long back. Happily she pulled out a few from the cupboard. It felt the same; the same slightly dusty smell from the cupboard, and the same damp feel on those pages.
She pulled out a few Amar Chitra Kathas, Tinkles, one Laurel & Hardy and one Phantom.
If you have grown up reading these comics, you are smiling now. (OK you don't have to smile that wide )
Flashback......Year 1985:
I was 8 years then. (Stop calculating my age....I am 40... Now don't give that "Really!!!” gasp)
Kannur which is my home today, used to be my holiday home back then. We used to come down to Kannur for the 10day Christmas/New year break and for the 2 month annual holidays.
The best part of these holidays was that it was time out with cousins of various age groups. Gokul was slightly older than me, But definitely we belonged to birds of the same feather, so we flocked together. The only exception would be when he had his boring Hindi class (That's what they called it and I have attended one with him. Trust me, Hindi used to get murdered in broad daylight by very respectable teachers)
Our holiday home, where my grandmother lived almost all her life, was almost the same house we live in today, in terms of plot area but was completely different in shape and layout of rooms. It would be wise to say that our present house just got modified every time the sensex moved up. Not that we had anything to do with the sensex, but that's how all houses "organically grow". First there is a necessity of an attached bathroom and then preferably a room to attach to it .
Since all the houses next to ours belonged to our relatives itself, as a kid, I would just move from one house to the other bothering them while they did their daily chores. Morning activity included a temple visit and reading .... Mostly comics. Afternoons and evenings were all dedicated to outdoor activities, hide and seek and cricket being the major events that disturbed the elders. And on Sundays few uncles got together for the game of cards.
In summer, the other major pastime was collecting mangoes from all around our locality. We had abundant supply of mangoes from the mango trees around our place. Every time there was a breeze a few ripe mangoes would use Newton's law to come down. The first few mangoes belonged to us to be devoured immediately and the rest would be taken home. The best part was when we played cricket, hitting a ball high meant that it would definitely hit one of the loaded branches of the mango tree. As kids we looked forward more to the falling mangoes due to the impact of the rubber ball than the ball itself.
As I stated earlier, the mornings were mostly spent reading comics. My aunt had an awesome collection of comics that her son Anil had bought over the years. There was a steel trunk box under their bed that had over 300-400 comics.
While most of them belonged to the Amar Chitra Katha series, there were quite a few Laurel and Hardy, Phantom and Mandrake comics too.
While elders mostly slept on cots, kids were on the floor on a cotton mattress. Such cotton mattresses were always bundled up under the cots every morning. So if you want to imagine what my mornings looked like, imagine a large king size cot that had a large steel box and a cotton mattress stored underneath it. I would coolly spread the mattress under the cot and lie down on the mattress with comics waiting in line to be read. My uncle and aunt would sometimes come over to rest, but that wouldn't bother me. I would lie under that cot for 3-4 hrs continuously until there was a commotion in the corridor which meant its Lunchtime.
Sometimes when Gokul had Hindi class or it was raining, the session under the cot continued.
I remember that once I dozed off under the cot only to wake up way past lunchtime. And to my surprise, not one person realized that I was missing. My parents would have easily assumed that I might have wandered into my cousin's place and decided to have lunch at their place, which was a common practice for me. Mom asked me where I was and I timidly replied, "Sleeping under the cot...”.
She wouldn't bother to ask what I was doing under that as she knew I was reading those books.
Once in a while my uncle would ask me to bugger off when he wanted rest in the afternoon but otherwise it used to a great holiday spot. I had many moments of enlightenment under that cot reading Tinkle and Phantom just like the great Gautam Buddha had under the Bodhi tree. The only difference is that I didn't get that halo around my head like he did, as shown in the comics I read.
I attribute my knowledge of all the sacred books, and the famous comic book personalities to those comics and the days I spent under that cot. Be it the avataras of Maha Vishnu, Suppandi from Tinkle, Loather ( Mandrake's side kick) or Diana (Phantom's girlfriend) , all of them made my childhood wonderful.
Back to 2017:
To be very honest, I feel a bit disappointed when kids today sit in front of televisions and watch Chota Bheem and Ben10 doing crazy stuff. What a waste of time I feel.
So to give my son a taste of what I used to do when I was his age, I pulled out those comics once again. While he is already an avid reader, it was still his first tryst with Phantom and Laurel and Hardy.
As I sit reminiscing those days, an old Malayalam song "Oru vattam koodi" comes to my mind....
The first few lines translated into English means
“Once more; I wish, I could go back to my childhood days
To ruminate the good times once spent in the neighbourhood.
Playing, shaking trees and picking up falling fruits..”
Machu... kollaaam...
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