Chacha Chaudhary

Its one of the series of homages to those eternal comic strips which punctuated an average day in the life of an average Indian kid about 10 years back. That was the time when kids had better things to do than getting their brains liquefied by the idot box watching mindless soaps and even more moronic movies. This post concerns that great character : Chacha Chaudhary. Nostalgia is a great deluder. Irrespective of how mindless those comics seem in hindsight, they were a joy to reckon with in the bygone era and my perspective is coloured both by a pining love for the dying genre and a humourous take on their sheer artistic ineptitude which by the way did not seem to matter then:

The Protagonists:

Pictured above is the main protagonist, an octagenarian with very matter of fact look as if he is just done saying "I told you so". He differs from all other superheroes in the sense that he does not have to wear his underwear over his pants in order to indulge in rampant ass kickery. His main weapons are his sharp mind and huge coincidences which the writer tries to pass off as somehow resulting from his ingenuity. His mind purportedly works faster than a computer although with the computers of that age slothing away at a few megahertz, I would hardly take that as a complement. Mr. Chaudhary supposedly never locks his home but then only a suicidal psychopath would dare break into your home also when you have a wife like:

When Bhaagwan is not busy preparing truckloads of food for her family, she is basically known to pass her time beating the hell out of Chacha. One of her main weapons is a belan (which in more civilized homes is used for preparing rotis) and this is one of the few times in her life when she was photographed without one.

The image says it all. Sabu is from Jupiter... ... ... I will let it sink in... ... ... So then, Sabu is from Jupiter and Jupiter being n times larger than Earth, it is inconceivable that its residents are of the same size or lesser than those of Earth. But there is something we did not know about their sizes before Cartoonist Pran decided that humanity was mature enough to face the truth. Jupiter residents change sizes as you can see below:

Sabu eats 108 rotis, 12 kilos of Halwa and drinks about 20 litres of Lassi in one meal (Source:Wikipedia) and when he gets angry there is a volcanic explosion on Jupiter which all makes sense because he is from Jupiter and a volcano erupting on Mars would be too ridiculous to believe. As if the notion of volcanic activity on his homeplanet wasn't corny enough, Cartoonist Pran goes ahead and draws a small volcano on the side whenever Sabu gets angry. Now how are we supposed to believe that its the same volcano and not one of the millions which would have been spewing fire had Jupiter NOT BEEN A GASEOUS PLANET ? "Nevermind Logic: Corn is up for Grabs". Meanwhile Chacha also has a dog named Rocket. And oh by the way, he is vegetarian... whatever that means in a canine context.

The Antagonists:

No its not Gabbar Singh, its Gobar singh which effectively translates into "Dung Singh". Its like his mother left him no chance. I can almost picture his parents at the time of his christening. Hmmm... what should we name this filthy, hairy sack of flesh and bones... Hmmm... how about kachra (garbage)... no not degrading enough... how about Gobar !!!... and they rejoiced at screwing up their child's life. Whats more astonishing is the fact the Mr. Dung went on to opt for Dacoity as his career. New rule: anyone named Gobar isn't allowed to be a dacoit. How are people supposed to take him seriously. No wonder that his only achievement in life is being famous for getting his ass repeatedly kicked by an 80 year old. His accomplices include Dhamaka singh and Palita Singh. As unfortunate as the name Palita is even for a real Palita (what does it mean anyways), its almost a crime against humanity when used to denote a person. Its one of those words which do not mean anything and if you think about them long enough you will realize how inhumanely funny they are. Its like Tinda or Albuquerque . Now whoever came up with that one.

Pictured above is one of the most devilish characters ever to adorn a cartoon strip in India. Make way Mr. Chumba, move aside Mr. Kirgi, here comes Raka. Everything about Raka is NO JOKE. He likes to ruin people's days for no reason at all. One moment you see him walking on the road minding his own business, another, he picks up a car and munches it up with all the ingredients inside. That is how badass he is. No wonder he remains one of the few characters which gave me sleepless nights during my childhood. The other being that lady from Ramayana who gets up from the ocean and tries to eat Hanumaan. That was way too scary.

This was too much fun. I should probably review specific comics from Chacha.