Cartoon Notwork !

 

When I was young we did not own a TV. I had no complaints though. It was really not a big issue for me. Primarily there was not a fat lot program wise  on it around  those days . Anyway we were also lucky to have richer next door neighbours who actually owned one. They also owned a  big heart and followed an open doors policy , specially for neighbourhood kids. What that meant was anyone who wanted to was welcome to their living room from 6 pm to 8 pm on weekdays to watch TV and a little longer on Sunday evenings for the weekly movie. Seriously! They would  expect every kid to be there if not their parents as well.  Although I was tempted everyday since all my friends would be there ; I went only rarely. Maybe I was shy and timid ;maybe I wanted to be in my parents good books or whatever but I would wait for the man of the house to knock at our door and invite me whenever something good was on. My bad luck was that I was more interested in watching news which came on exactly at 8 pm. Sadly the TV owners had no interest in it , neither had the rest of the sizable audience. So by consensus they switched  the set off promptly as the clock struck 8 . Everyone left for their homes and a waiting dinner.  I had to as well and I never got to watch  more than a minute of the news bulletin . But that's another story.

Sunday had a morning session too since the sole station aired programming for children.  They once in a while showed  cartoon movies. Now that was something I did  not want to miss. I would secretly hope for that knock on the door or even a call over the side wall. I ran to it as soon as It did. I am part of the generation that was reared on TV except that I was reared on cartoons and comics. TV played only a minor role. Due partly to the journalistic nature of my father's job ; I had comparatively extensive access to comics and cartoons. The organization he worked with published most of the better known ones. We got lots of magazines in the house too and the  first thing we went for was the cartoon strip. I grew up with "Dabooji". My childhood heroes were Phantom, Mandrake and Lothar. They still are. The girl of my dreams looked like Diana Palmer;  Phantom's girl friend. One who worked in UN's new york office. If you are young enough not to know who these characters are please go online. Some of the lasting values  I imbibed were from those comics. Some of my understanding of the ways of the world came from them as well. Even my understanding of as complex an issue as race relations got their idea seed from Phantom Comics. Of course there were all those other heroes from DC comics  stable and fabulous Walt Disney characters. And who can forget the jungle book  which has spawned a whole industry. Even today I watch it on DVD with my children.

Like every other kid I too had an older cousin .He subscribed to and collected Phantom series in those days. Every copy he owned was kept neat and clean in perfect chronological order in a glass door bookcase. To his chagrin however whenever I visited their house which was every school break,  too many times for his comfort ; I would take those comics out to read. Yeah, yeah ! behind his back! The matters would not  rest there. Afterwards I would re shelve them hurriedly, haphazardly and not even in the correct order. This would never fail to make him red hot angry.  Only my beloved aunt , bless her great noble soul would stand firmly between me and murder. Backing me against her own son too! I do not  fully understand exactly how or why it happens but  people cared passionately about comics and cartoons then as much as they  love them today.

Love them did I say? No , correct it . I mean hate it well and truly . Now they are afraid of cartoons and are sometimes seriously offended by them. No benevolent aunt stands a chance of coming between them and actual murder. As we saw about those Jyllands posten cartoons. We may dismiss those  violent objections as something originating from a medieval ,totalitarian  and extremist mentality but  not so fast though.  What would you say to the  recent  parliament pandemonium , in India of all places , over some cartoons ! Really ! So many parliamentarians of all shades of political opinion found a cartoon first published over sixty years ago ;  yes that is sixty; so objectionable that it was ordered to be expunged. Delete it they thundered.  No child should see it;  specially young adults in grade 11 and 12 have to be saved from it.  The so called democrats from the world's largest democracy hate and fear  today what was originally published in a national daily roughly sixty years ago without any hue and cry. Even the subjects of the cartoon were alive then!! And they were very powerful people too. One a prime minister and other a jurist responsible for crafting a constitution.  Those worthies took the cartoon as it should be taken. In a lighter vein! Today their petty minded followers  find it objectionable, insulting and every other bad word in the book. This comes right after a chief minister who came to power in an eastern state representing "grassroots society" ,jailed a professor because he had the temerity to circulate a cartoon that she did not like. 

How did we arrive at this bad place in these intervening sixty years? Where laughing is a crime; and you can get jailed or even get killed if you laughed at the wrong joke!  What kind of times are we living in when a cartoon puts a scowl on our face more often than a smile. Why are cartoons not working as intended ? Ask yourself this while I search on the internet for more......cartoons of course!