Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Bahadur the brave


Long before Star Gold made Batman (or was it Spider Man) speak Hindi, India had its own super hero. No, don't say Hanu Man, that's a bad joke and a capital offence in the court of the VHP. I am talking Bahadur. The super hero in the orange Fabindia kurta and the bad 70s Jeetendra haircut.
Bahadur, founder of the Citizens Security Force (CSF) in dacoit-infested Jaigarh, is a crime fighter with no super powers. He hides his underwear under his trousers and battles real dacoits. No goblins and jokers for Bahadur.
He is strong, brave, clever and named after my security guard. Fact is, all of the characters in Bahadur comics are imaginatively named. Mukhiya is the village headman, Inspector Vishal is the cop, Shaitan Singh is the daaku and Bela is his Lara Croftish belle. Can't understand why his dog is called Chamiya, but then super heroes think differently no.
Bahadur saw me through many mathematics classes. Was easy to hide his orange kurta under a big math book cover and disappear into a world where he fought moustachioed dacoits in the Chambal and vanquished them. This one's for you Bahadur.

1 comment:

Diptakirti Chaudhuri said...

Except for names of characters, Bahadur rocked! Mukhiya had a cousing in the CSF called Sukhiya.

Scanned copies of Indrajal comics are available at thecomicproject.blogspot.com