Reality continues to ruin life- celebrating 30 years of Calvin and Hobbes

A six-year old boy in a striped red t-shirt lays a trap for tiger with a tuna sandwich as bait.  Soon enough a tiger falls prey. Thus begins a thirty-year-old journey, a world of imagination and a magical friendship as Calvin and Hobbes, perfect companions on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Calvin, a mischievous kid named after a 16^th century theologian who believed in predestination and Hobbes his stuffed tiger, after Thomas Hobbes, an English political philosopher with a grim view on human nature, are the creations of acclaimed cartoonist Bill Watterson. They debuted on Nov 18^th 1985 and had a successful run in 2400 papers and in several languages until Watterson called it quits on December 31^st 1995.  The comic is an ode to childhood and the pains of growing up, ‘transmogrifying’ the reader into the bratty child lurking inside everyone who wants to get things done his way. 

After the stint in newspapers, the comic was published as fourteen book collections that consistently made it to the New York Times bestseller’s list. The humour in Calvin and Hobbes is subtle, observational, mildly subversive and is expressed through the many adventures that Calvin has with Hobbes, at school, in the woods behind his house and make-believe alter egos as Spaceman Spiff, Stupendous Man and Tracer bullet. The success of the comic however has been attributed its ability to defy age and time, and appeal to both children and adults. “While as a kid I liked the slapstick humour, as I grew older I enjoyed the cultural and political references he makes,” says Shiva Nallaperumal, a comic book aficionado and graphic/type designer with the Indian Type Foundry Ahmedabad. “Though I am a kid who grew up in the 2000s I find this 80’s work as accessible and funny as the people who enjoyed it when it first got published,” he says.

When quizzed about the relationship between Calvin and Hobbes once, Bill Watterson remarked that he saw Hobbes as subjective reality than as a doll that springs to life in Calvin’s imagination. “That’s how life works, we all see a different side to it,” he said. Sharanya Gopinathan a student of Law and Gender Studies, SOAS, London loves the comic especially for its philosophy.“ I just love the gentle unobtrusive philosophy and wisdom each strip is loaded with. It makes you laugh not only at the kid and comic but yourself and the strange world around.” Calvin’s rants on human nature, pop culture and his curiosity abut the natural world are balanced by the quiet dignity and intelligence of Hobbes, making their conversations a delight to read and ruminate thereafter.

Calvin and Hobbes are supported by an amusing motley of secondary characters including Calvin’s parents, Rosalyn the babysitter, Moe the school bully, Mrs Wormwood the disgruntled schoolteacher and Susie Derkins his classmate. Interestingly, the reader is not given any information about the parents, their names, professions or even the city they live in, thus defining their roles only as the exasperated mother and the father who satiates Calvin’s sense of wonder. Calvin has a mild crush on Suzie that he chooses to express by annoying her, a dynamic that is perhaps true of modern day romance.  Siddarth John, an animator based in California drew inspiration from Calvin to create his own character Spitz. For others, like Shankar Swaminathan, a new parent, the conversations between Calvin and his dad, an amusing motif in the series, sparks interest. “The comic is infused with lessons on parenting and dealing with children, he says. But would he like a Calvin at home?  “ Of course not. Calvin is always adorable as someone else’s’ child, “he laughs.

Bill Watterson, a recipient of the ‘Reuban Award for outstanding cartoonist of the year twice is known to be a recluse. He chose not to appear in the documentary “Dear Mr Watterson’ and has given only two interviews so far. Watterson declined to give merchandising rights believing it would turn the characters into celebrities who need to be profitable and compromise the spirit of the comic.

A part-time cartoonist himself, Shiva Nallaperumal is astonished at the process that Bill Watterson might have gone through as an artist. “He was full of ideas, despite having the same constraints that it had, to involve this kid, his environment, his parents and an imaginary world. It’s a strict framework but he was able to explore so much within that.” Some of the recurring themes of the comic include the snowmen Calvin builds, conversations with his dad, his grouse with the educational system, television the ‘20^th century drug of choice’ and the good vs. evil debate portrayed through Calvin’s love for Christmas. In one strip Calvin selling a ‘swift kick in the butt’ for one dollar is shocked that business is terrible, given that ‘everyone he knows, needs one!’

Calvin and Hobbes enthusiasts are a legion and they have been collecting many quirky facts about the strip. For instance, did you know that Calvin is ambidextrous, multilingual and a fan of Batman, the Star Wars and Bugs Bunny but hates Disney? Have you noticed that Hobbes never calls Calvin by name? Saturday mornings begin with the cereal ‘Sugar frosted chocolate bombs’ and ‘ Hamster Huey and the Gooey Gablooey’ is his favourite bedtime story?

These thirty years may have been about friendship, but as Bill Watterson says it’s also about “finding your own meaning of life, it’s not easy but it’s still allowed, and I think you will be happier for the trouble”,

- Originally published in The Sunday Magazine. The Hindu on 29th November 2015 

 

Do you get the nuances of Textese?

Have you seen that ad where a wife loses her husband in a crowded train station and discovers the love for him instead? Platinum day of love. Well, if such a day does exists, N’s was when he saw me polish off an entire plate of chicken biryani with absolutely no qualms, fuss or mention of diet (unlike regular girls he says). On the other hand mine was when N corrected my spelling of ‘rejuvenate’. I’m a ‘Grammar Nazi, and used to maintain a standing rule that I wouldn’t date guys who txt lyk dis. So, when N caught me in my momentary lapse of reason, I fell for him. Period.

Textese or SMS language as we popularly know it now, developed at the time when phones were as big and heavy as TV remotes and one needed powerful fingers to press the keys. Text messages were expensive and there were only 160 characters to express oneself before the phone balance dipped. It was a handy and made testing faster. Now with Wi-Fi messaging, feather light phones, touch screens, and other paraphernalia you think tesxtese would have died a natural death, but it hasn’t. It has merely evolved. Textese can be a bane or boon of today’s society depending on which team you are in; the Nazis or the busy bees that don’t have the extra second to add the ‘O’ before they reply ‘K’ to the essay you just sent them. I wonder what they do with all the extra time.

Smart phones have made us extremely lazy. We cringe to pick up the phone and have an actual conversation. We’d rather text with our own textese, our unique language with customised vocabulary and personal style. We devise new norms to adhere to and to judge others by. For instance, purists would tell you that the exclamation mark was traditionally used to indicate surprise. When you shout ‘surprise! ,‘at a surprise birthday party for example. Or is used to show vehemence, like “Get off my spot!” But off late, the punctuation mark has been going on overkill. “Hey!!! What are you doing?!! “, says the friend who frankly doesn’t give a damn or the dramatic ‘thank you!!!” when a person compliments one’s profile picture. Well, I have just failed to get long along with these excessive exclamation users. Maybe my phlegmatic personality is allergic to their overly sunny disposition.

 A ‘hey’ with a single ‘y’ has become an unenthusiastic, akin to calling a stranger on the road. ‘Heyy’ shows interest. ‘Heyyy’ is borderline flirting and ‘Heyyyyy’is just plain creepy. Many would agree that ‘Lol’ (laugh out loud) hardly stands for what it started out with. Now ‘Lol’ is the new ‘okay’. “Hey guess what, I bumped l bumped into Neha. Remember her?’ “Oh ya.lol”.  At times it’s measly politeness, especially when a friend says something supposedly witty and you aren’t too amused.  Likewise, a plain ha-ha has become lame, fake almost. The next time you want to find out if your joke is genuinely rib tickling look for the ‘Hahaha’. More ha’s the better, except when it’s Muahaha. That’s Joker having the last laugh.

The other day I was chatting with a friend on Whatsapp and had to cross the road. So I quickly typed ‘brb’ and shut the window. Fifteen minutes later when I checked my phone, he had left me a sermon on how the acronym for ‘be right back’ is used only in shady chat rooms and not with close friends anymore. Really? News to me.

You think teachers must be a happy lot, with all phones coming with an in-built dictionary. It requires determination to defy the auto-correct and get a spelling wrong. Unfortunately, they are far from it. Exam papers and class assignments now lay strewn with acronyms and shoddy spellings. While students type out superlative text messages on autopilot, the same dictionary slowly erases the memory of all spellings from their brains. Come exams, they stutter and start scribbling to mask their mistakes.

To text with ease or text traditional?  To nit-pick or let it go. Is he being friendly or flirty?  Goodnight or nite? That’s the question. Maybe the Emoji will be our answer.

-Originally published in The New

Indian Express, Bangalore on 31st October 2015

Cinema can be a great teacher

I wallowed in a state of ennui. Life was very insipid that Tuesday afternoon until I switched on the TV for some mindless white noise, and HBO was playing the ‘Inception’.  Leonardo jolts awake in the plane and is surprised to see his team mates around him. Did they succeed? Are they still dreaming? Hans Zimmer’s ‘Time’ starts to play in the background as Leo walks down the airport and we feel happy for some reason. He enters home and sees his children playing on  the porch. He spins the top on the table and rushes to hug them. The camera zooms on the top. It wobbles slightly. You pray for it to fall. The screen blanks out.  I gasped.

This flitting sojourn in Nolan’s classic sent my brain tizzy with excitement, as it started writing its own screenplay on dreams, reality and life in between. The curse of the ennui had finally been lifted.

 The other day I asked my mother about my first movie at the theatre, as a baby. Had I asked her what colour frock I wore on my first birthday or if I bawled or behaved on my first day of school she wouldn’t have been too shocked nor would she have jogged her memory so much. I was hoping she would name a Kamal Haasan blockbuster of the 80’s, reaffirming my belief that I was always a film connoisseur. What she did name is irrelevant now, but I grew on a staple of regional and English movies from childhood and cinema was my greatest therapy.

Our family is a bunch of devout Kamal Haasan fans. So much that he is like a member of our kin. Every avatar of his reminds my mom of someone in the house. Demented lover, poor communist, choreographer with suicidal tendencies, we have them all. The tryst with cinema had only one aberration though; my grandfather who supposedly sat beside Rajinikanth in a flight and failed to recognize him even after the superstar introduced himself. Earliest memories of watching movies date back to summer holidays squandered away rolling on mattresses in front of Doordarshan’s Saturday night specials or at a cousin’s community open-air theatre with packed tiffin dhabbas. We watched robots come alive, kids getting locked in their houses and the great escapade of prisoners in awe. One month of Jaundice and missing school went by without much complaint thanks to the re runs of old movies, which I devoured lying sprawled on the hall sofa.

Adolescence is best remembered by the AR Rahman phase. Road trips meant marathon singing -along sessions till the tapes screeched out of agony. Then came the ‘Titanic’ craze. We stuck posters of the legendary ship pose, and shed copious tears when Jack died. I admit I am embarrassed about it today but I’m sure Di Caprio is more. Deploring romance in books, I feasted on mind numbing rom- coms smitten by bumping onto a cute stranger, realizing the love for an old school friend, the climax at the airport. You know the works. Luckily with age came sanity and the ability to discern the good from the bad, the realistic from the fantasy and define pure cinema.  And when I did, a whole new beautiful world opened up, giving me a peek into the fascinating lives of Iran, Germany, Korea and Argentina.

The good thing about great cinema is that inspires you to watch more. The last ten minutes of the Inception set the right mood to watch Court, India’s entry for the upcoming Oscars.  With its lingering camera work, this extremely deft and subtle satirical take on the Indian legal system is the kind of movie that runs in your head as an afterthought long after the credits roll. The more you mull lover it, the more you remember the nuances and deeper it caves in releasing all the pent up remorse. Films graduated from being entertainment, escapism or wish fulfilment into catharsis.

I’ve learnt more about cinema from teaching it to an enthusiastic bunch of college students than studying and understood life better from Woody Allen, The Motorcycle Diaries and the friendship of Andy Dufresene and Red then I can ever hope to.

Lost in the Emoji Explosion

157,439,872. That’s the number of smileys being used this very moment as you sit reading this. One balmy Tokyo afternoon, Shigetaka Kurito sat away plodding on his computer, silently creating history. Little did he realise that the battery of seemingly ridiculous, infantile yellow cartoons that he was coding were soon going to be used by the world in ginormous proportions. Emoji, as they soon came to be called, appear to be throwback to our times of communicating through pictograms and hieroglyphics. As we sit immersed in our little phone worlds, these surrogate faces give expression to our emotions as we talk to each other through screens and say the most important things via texts.

So is the Emoji only for the emotionally stunted, the wallflowers, and the inarticulate?  I think not. We all use Emoji when it’s convenient.  Research states that giving the smiley strong completion is the heart symbol. Love is indeed blossoming everywhere. However I strongly believe that the grinning face emoticon cannot be far behind.  With its half shut eyes and sheepish grin this little face is often used when we have said something embarrassing, when we brag about ourselves, but don’t want to sound too boastful, when we post mushy pictures on Facebook and dread being the object of ridicule amongst our friends.  The grinning face is a face-saver, an excuse for any action. You can text your friend that she looks like a little tomato in that red dress, add the grin and she will probably think you’re being funny. Truth sugar-coated as cute always works.  Emoji soften our emotions and thus been the greatest invention in recent times, saving fights, averting miscommunication and making everything light hearted. They are also very popular among the youth, especially while flirting or engaging in sexual banter. Emoji-sexting maybe juvenile, but it does take the stigma out and allows them to converse with ease, without any moral implications hounding their minds.

Apparently more women use the Emoji than men, corroborating the popular perception that we women are more volatile beings. But a handful of men do find these emoticons handy especially when they want to apologise. “Girls never seem to be satisfied with just a sorry, so I add a string of hearts, throw in a couple of teary eyed faces and factor in the feel- goodness,” said one of my friends. I frantically rummaged through the keyboard to send him a middle finger emoticon.(its time we got one!). For a long time I was probably judgemental too, labelling guys who used the Emoji excessively as effeminate. But perhaps more than effeminate, my grouse should have been that Emoji is now a form of escapism, a tool to hide behind the real emotions. When we have nothing to say but want to be polite we reply with a smiley. When a friend sends what is the 100^th picture of her baby that week, and we are mentally exhausted of using the word cute, we add a few kissing smileys and rest in peace. Last heard, the ISIS is using the Emoji to sound warm!

The Emoji have evolved over the years into not only a language but also a full time hobby for some people, (I am glad we don’t know them!) who translate popular songs like Beyoncé’s ‘ Drunk in love’ and books such as the ‘Moby Dick’ into pages of these graphics. If you want to get a detailed report on your social well-being, emojianalysis .com can do a quite interpretation for you.  Old souls who have no clue if the two hands picture is clapping, praying or saying “Oh god leave me alone’ can visit emojipedia.com that will educate you that its high five.

 

Nevertheless the Emoji are fun, now that all our phones are socially inclusive and offer an interesting palette to choose from, from skin colour to sexual orientation. There are three types of kissing faces, (denoting different relationships? Beats me.), dancing girl, funny cats, a yummy chicken leg and even a pile of smiling poop, which I believe is a lucky symbol for the Japanese! Well, one only hopes that these faces continue to augment our communication and not replace words entirely!

-Originally published in The New Indian Express, Bangalore on the 17th of October 2015

The urge to take that one last Personality Test

Are you an Alien, Predator or Terminator? N peered into my computer screen and scoffed, “that’s easy. You are an alien.” N has always been a hapless victim of my quirks and binging on personality tests is one of them.

I love to present myself as a subject for any psychological test. I’ve been taking them since the time they debuted on sites such as emode and tickle.com and continue to enjoy the random ones on Facebook today.

The other day N caught me taking  “What does the colour of your poop say about you?”  He walked away disgusted. In my defence, the test says a lot more about the employee who ideated it and the boss who approved it than the compulsive test taker, for whom this was just another one! Buzzfeed claims that its recent personality test, “Which city should you live in?” has got the maximum hits in recent history.

Personality quizzes are the latest fad and the Internet is threatening to crash under them. From fascinating to downright asinine, these tests promise to offer a window into our soul, by slotting us into a category. “Who is your celebrity soul mate?” “Which Greek god do you resemble?” “Which Harry potter character are you?” You are Remus Lupin. Damn it. I wanted someone cooler. I retake the test, this time giving the answers more thought. Lupin again. I let it slide, nobody needs to know. I did get Derek Shepherd in the “ Which Greys Anatomy character are you?” and it called for some serious flaunting. Many would argue that these tests are meant to be flippant and do not require so much thought or analysis. Agreed, given that some of the questions are preposterous and have no connection with the test. The poop test for instance wanted to know my favourite sport! Also, shouldn’t we ask our partner ‘how good we are in bed?’ or ‘where should our next tattoo be?’, than treat our computer as an Ouija board?

As the little dots circle our screen, busy calculating the test results, we wait, secretly hoping it unravels facets our personality that we never knew existed. We want to see if the arbitrary algorithm that some unsuspecting techie devised could unlock a hidden alter ego. We want to be the Dark Knight. Social media is notorious for swinging us like a pendulum. We either become supremely confident or wallow in self-doubt. These tests offer validation or dispel our fears. At the root of it lie the answers to deep sociological questions like, what we think about ourselves and what we think others think of us. So when the pop window on our screen says that ‘Golden retriever’ is our ‘Inner dog’ we pat ourselves in the back. We always knew that we are immensely lovable.

Tests apart, one quick look at our online behaviour is enough to sketch our personality profiles.  So which social media animal are you? We have a medley of ‘over-sharers’, the ’like mongers’, the ‘chronic –likers’, the ‘over-reactor’s etc. N is a Facebook watchman. You think he hates the damn site until you see the notification, ‘N is now friends with 9 people’. Our man scrolls through his feed every hour albeit without leaving a trail. However watchmen are infinitely better than the Facebook sly. She is the friend who routinely stalks you, and on principle refrains from commenting or liking your new Goa album. Although, she silently keeps tabs on your increasing waistline. I am the shy exhibitionist. Too shy to do any self-promotion but would be very happy if you could upload the party pictures where I am looking fab or share my latest article.

It’s been seven tests in half an hour. I may need a test that asks, “ Should you quit taking tests?”  But the suggestions from Zimbio are irresistible and I take what I tell myself is the last one, “Which social media are you?” Pinterest it says. “You are a community mom”. Whatever that means. But given that “How old are you based on your Internet habits,” mentioned that I am in the 40’s, looks like the algorithm is painting a pattern.  I press shutdown.

 -Originally published in The New Indian Express, Bangalore on 10th October 2015 

We lap up drama,as long as it involves others

It was a beautiful and nippy Bangalore night. I cuddled into the comforter, and while admiring the contours of N’s face in the darkness, asked him, “ If you murder someone, how will you erase the trail?” The next one-hour, we debated on many game plans, and discussed the logistics of this morbid question. It was a conversation I never thought I’d have.

The recent Sheena Bora murder case made most of us play Sherlock Holmes and badger our Watsons with indigenous conspiracy theories and deductions. We’ve always had a penchant for murder mysteries since childhood. This gruesome crime was until recently India’s biggest reality show. At 9 pm everyday, life came to a standstill as our conscience keeper rattled away question after question and hollered the answers himself. His panellists squabbled in vain while getting engulfed in ‘flames’. We, who constituted the nation that ‘demanded’ the answers, critiqued but yet watched from the comfort of our arms chairs. Amidst all the cacophony, lurking in a corner was Ram Gopal Verma, or his protégé quietly penning away the screenplay of his next magnum opus.

Thanks to marathon media coverage spruced up with lascivious details, stereotypes such as the ‘she-devil’ and ‘gold diggers resurfaced. Many were upset that the ‘sanctity of motherhood’ had been tainted. Apparently a lot of men also started wondering how to protect themselves from the many ‘Indranis’ swirling them like sharks. Yes, men please be scared!

But picture this. It’s a nice sunny morning and you are driving to work. Your mind flits between what you want to eat for lunch and if it’s someone’s birthday that day when your right leg jams the brake. Bumper to bumper traffic and people are alighting out of their vehicles, straining their eyes in the sun to get a clearer view of something. Pedestrians are congregating in groups. For a moment your mind imagines a radioactive monster going on a rampage and then you hear the string of cuss words. It’s a fight, between a neatly dressed man in a Swift and an extremely irritable autowallah. Everyone is busy squeezing in to get the ringside tickets. It has jolted a truck driver’s assistant awake and he is now filming it on his mobile. Life grinds to a halt for twenty whole minutes. The same people who until five minutes back were expressing their tearing hurry with some ferocious honking now cannot peal their eyes of the spectacle.  Sounds familiar? We Indians are a quirky lot and  extremely voyeuristic. We love drama, especially when it involves others. After enjoying the show, we like to nod our heads dismissively and walk away. News channels that played the role of the judiciary and taught the police where to steer their investigations in the Sheena case are not going to shoulder the entire blame. Everybody loves a good fight they say. Maybe we are watching too many thriller TV shows and B- grade movies that are fuelling our imagination. More the masala, greater the fun.

The other day, in one of those Whatsapp groups where one is an awkward spectator, I read a joke. It read, “How did Indrani manage to convince an ex -husband to murder when I cant even get my current to pick the towel of the floor.” I showed it to N. N too loves to leave the wet towel sprawled on the bed. We sniggered at not only the dig at the husband species but the fact that we have become such shallow creatures.

Of course, the show is now over. The case has been handed over to the CBI, which is our cue to erase all memory of the crime. From breaking news to no news. From front-page splash to snippet on pg. 12. We shall wait in anticipation for something more scandalous or heinous to lap up.

My phone flashes. “ 3 Militants killed in Poonch District, Jammu and Kashmir, One jawan dead,” NDTV. Today, we can rattle away all of Indrani’s boyfriends, but the name of the lone soldier who died? The channels don’t bother to find out. Arbitrary jawan. Many people die in Kashmir everyday. Obviously not as exciting as the ‘mother of all murders’!

-Originally published on 3rd October 2015, in The New Indian Express, Bangalore