Amar
Chitra Katha’s ‘Tales of Hanuman’ introduced me to the heroics of this
mythological superhero. I was fascinated by his exploits. Especially the one in
which he flew up to the sun thinking it’s a nice juicy mango, or some equally
delicious fruit. His Lankan pyrotechnics, of course, is the stuff of which
legends are made of. The wrestling icon of India, Dara Singh was aptly cast as
Hanuman in the 80’s mega serial ‘Ramayana’. He did try his best to do justice
to this superhero with the help of his highly expressive eyebrows that wiggled
lovingly at every utterance of Lord Rama and nostrils that flared alarmingly in
the mighty Ravana’s presence. However, the not-so-cutting edge graphics of that
era and the occasional HMT watch on Hanuman’s hand did not do justice to this
mighty hero’s adventures. This watch fact is a bit of an urban legend though.
However, canvas shoes were often spotted on the feet of the soldiers who
pranced around each other waving their weapons in a desultory fashion on the
battlefield.
Around
the same time, another caped crusader started making a dent on my
impressionable mind. Every Sunday at 5:30 pm, ‘The Amazing Adventures Of
Spiderman’ would be shown on the one and only Doordarshan channel. Playgrounds
would get emptied. Birthdays in the neighbourhood were postponed till late in
the evening. Homework was completed. Favourite uncles accompanied by hot
samosas and juicy jalebis were ignored. A lot of compromises were made for the
webbed superhero as he swung from one adventure to the other. In fact, one of
my most memorable birthday gifts was a special Marvel Comics ‘bundle’ edition
of Spiderman. Memories of those wonder years came cascading back as I spotted
these two childhood heroes together in the bustling Beltola Bazaar in Guwahati.