The Forgotten Hero

       The Phantom strikes like a thunderbolt but moves softer than a stalking great cat.

                                                                                                        - Old Jungle Saying

As we grow older, our tastes evolve, our hobbies mature, we embrace the upgraded version of our pastimes. We quit playing Mario in those archaic Sega consoles and move on to playing Modern Warfare in the highly sophisticated PS3s and X-boxes. We turn our Walkmans off and switch on to our I-pods, I am running out of metaphors here, but you get the picture right?

In this Digital Age where a revolution is born within a hundred and forty characters, and the crowd for an uprising is gathered in our Facebook walls, everything that we do has a digital signature to it. Even the art of reading has evolved - from flipping the pages of a book whilst taking in its smell, that tells the age of a book, just like the taste does for a wine -  it is now all about pressing the navigation keys or maneuvering the screen through a touch screen. Our PDAs and tablets do not possess the soul and essence of a book, they are cold, hard and metallic - they are what they are: an object, unlike a book that in our hands feels like a living creature which moves and breathes, that has a smell and a taste of its own. Every now and then we need to go back a few years to a time when things were much simpler, when reading a book was only about flipping pages where with every new page we got closer to the lives of the people that resided within it. A few days back during one of my day-dreaming sessions at work I had mentally visited that part of my life where I had first made friends with books. Or a more adolescent and colorful version of a book which is known as comic books.

Having a parent as a school teacher inspite of a few pitfalls has one positive, it gives you access to the school library without the pressure of having to return the books within the two-week period. And it was in the summer vacation of 1992 that I had befriended comic world's first superhero, Lee Falk's "Phantom". Dubbed as "The Man Who Cannot Die" and the "Ghost Who Walks" by the jungle tribe of the fictitious nation named Bengalla, the Phantom fought crimelords and pirates who tried to disrupt the sanctity of the jungle and its tribesfolk. Two decades back Phantom was the most widely read superhero in the Indian hemisphere, as the first real contact a child could have with a man who fights evil within the pages of a book, he had captured our imagination like no other character could have. It wasn't Batman nor was it Superman who had pushed me to the fanboy extreme, but it was Phantom - whose skin-tight purple colored costume made me do the deluded act of wearing my underwear over my pants at the age of six.

Phantom did not possess the superhero powers of a Superman, neither was he bitten by a spider to be gifted with freak-like abilities. He was more like Batman or infact Batman was more like the Phantom who used his intellect, his strength and his legend of being an immortal to spook and strike at his enemies.  Another similarity between the two masked vigilantes was that they never killed their enemies, while Batman used his boomerang based Batarang to disarm his enemies, the Phantom used his gun to disarm his foes by shooting their weapons out of their hands. 

He was a protector and an avenger, the duality of which was symbolized with his two rings. The Skull Ring on his right hand when punched on his adversary's face left an indelible impression of the skull on their face, and the ring of Crossed Swords which was a symbol of the Phantom's goodwill towards those who had it stamped on their hand. The Phantom also had the support of his trusted steed Hero, and Devil - his wolf who is always mistaken as a dog by the villains. He also doubles up as the Commander of the Jungle Patrol - an elite crime fighting unit in the jungles of Bengalla, and surprisingly also keeps his identity as a secret only to be known within the unit as a man they have heard of but never seen. Phantom's real identity was Kit Walker, a man who stayed away from alcohol and always preferred milk in bars when he visited the city to meet his lady love Diana Palmer. 

In this day and age where lesser enigmatic superheroes like Captain America, Thor and the Green Lantern are revived by the Marvel and DC Comic franchises, its disheartening to see Phantom - the world's first ever comic book hero to not find a suitable relaunch in the cinemas. I say relaunch because there was a movie made on The Phantom in 1997 which starred that guy Billy Zane (#youremember) who loses Kate Winslet to Leo Dicaprio in the movie Titanic as the Phantom. A flop it may have been, nevertheless it didn't stop me from watching my favorite purple-colored-figure-hugging-tights-wearing crime fighter kick some ass on the big screen, whilst my parents were watching Se7en on the other screen. If I were an eleven-year old, I would recommend the movie to you as a mad fanboy, but more than a decade has passed and sanity has prevailed within me as I wear my pants over my underwear these days. Yet, I wish I could go back to being a six-year old in my summer vacations reading the legend of Phantom, immersed in the vivid imagery, as Lee Falk gifted me with a superhero who true to the legend is immortal for he still resides in my memories.

 Image Sources:

http://deepwoods.org/diaries.html

http://quadradinhos.blogspot.com/2005/05/phantom-o-fantasma.html

http://ovshake.blogspot.com/2010/03/ode-to-arvind.html

http://debarth.blogspot.com/

http://www.comicartfans.com/galleryroom.asp?gsub=832

http://www.weeklycrisis.com/2010/08/top-10-tuesdays-10-comic-character.html

Rise of the Planet of the Apes - All Hail Caesar!

                                                              Caesar *is* home

Every revolution needs a leader, a leader who grasps your palm and leads you forward, a leader with a voice of authority, a leader with a rage to break the shackles, a leader who commands respect from allies and enemies alike. The rise of leaders has been done in Hollywood before from Spartacus, to Braveheart, to Gladiator – in Rise of the Planet of the Apes it shows the rise of a primate who is aptly titled Caesar. It not just portrays the rise of a leader but also peels the various layers that come with it, the reason for inciting a revolution, the flipside of playing God when you mess with evolution, the conflict of an animal on where it belongs – among people of its own kind or amidst humans as a pet. Rise of the Planet of the Apes does seem like a ludicrous title, the plot may seem laughable what with the apes versus humans theme, but the execution is one to behold.

Rupert Wyatt has not only given us a fitting prequel to the 1968 classic Planet of the Apes, but has also revived the franchise that had been dead and buried after Tim Burton’s failed reboot of the 1968 version. The story opens in the labs of a drug company named Genesys where Will Rodman (James Franco) has finds a cure for Alzheimer’s through the drug ALZ112, but when a test on one of its subjects (a monkey named Bright Eyes) goes wrong the whole process is forced to shut down with the rest of the monkeys asked to be “put down” by Will’s money-minded boss Steven Jacobs.  Unwilling to see an infant chimp end in a body bag with the rest of its kin, Will raises him along with his Alzheimer’s- affected father Charles (John Lithgow) who names him Caesar. With his mother Bright Eyes’ drug-tested genes within him, Caesar grows on to become a far more superior and highly intelligent primate than any of his kind. With a positive response to the drug this time with no apparent side-effects Will injects the drug on his father who responds well, but Will’s hopes are dashed when Charles once more starts regressing, his disorder too advanced to have been permanently cured.

Confined within four walls, his natural curiosity to explore the outside world only gets Caesar into trouble with the neighbors frequently. When one such incident goes horribly wrong, Caesar is handed over to a primate shelter run by the father-son duo of John Landon (Brian Cox) and the twisted Dodge Landon (Tom Felton). And it is from here on that we witness the birth of a leader in Caesar­– caged, abused and trying to fit in with people of his own kind, the fury within Caesar gets the better of him as he sparks a revolt. The politics of rise to power is subtly yet wonderfully depicted within the apes when in one scene Caesar uses his wits by befriending a caged gorilla and uses him as a muscle to threaten another monkey who had been bullying him. We cheer for Caesar as he grows from a loving and cuddly antic-performing monkey who steals cookies to a shrewd politicking, havoc-wreaking, alpha-primate who retaliates when subjugated to the whims of the brat Dodge Landon. We understand the conflict that burns within Caesar who tries to understand his place where he belongs­ ­– in the jungle among people of his own as a King or amidst humans as a mere animal who is caged and subjected to tests and treacheries of man. Wyatt sets up a thrilling finale of the San Francisco takedown by the army of apes by building up Caesar’s evolution from a chimp to a champ, throughout the whole of first half and the initial part of second half. A minute yet symbolic shot of leaves falling from trees signals the beginning of a revolution, and from thereon the film hurtles towards a brilliant climax where we end up cheering for the apes.

James Franco as Will Rodman merely plays out a supporting role whose star power is used to bring in the crowd. Yet as Will he plays out an underlying performance of a man who starts out by giving shelter to an orphaned chimp, who raises him with love and care and teaches him of the ways of the world dominated by humans – like a father, but who ends up as someone who reasons with his adopted primate to stop the carnage and come back home. John Lithgow as Charles plays the role of Will’s Alzheimer-stricken father with a dignity, forgetful of his own car and on the basics of how to use a knife and a fork his portrayal of a helpless man tugs at our emotional chord. Frieda Pinto plays a primatologist, as Will Rodman’s love interest she supports his same enthusiasm for Caesar and shares his grief when Caesar is taken away from him. The veteran Brian Cox does a decent job of the caretaker of the facility, whilst as his on-screen son Tom Felton as Dodge Landon earns our hatred and applause when he gets a taste of his own medicine.

But the star of the show is Caesar played by a motion-captured Andy Serkis. Having already played as a motion-captured schizophrenic named Smeagol in the The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Serkis’ every emotion and facial contortion is beautifully converted to the face of Caesar the ape. From his endearing eyes that reflect mischief as an adolescent to a pride and rage that glow on his face, Serkis’ Caesar is the selling point of the movie. The movie takes its time to develop as it chronicles the birth of a leader, his special gift, his conflict of emotions and in the end his emergence as the leader of the pack. Thanks to the watertight screenplay and brilliant direction by Wyatt the movie never tends to feel too long as most of the scenes are pivotal to the development of the character and keeps us engaged.

The ending leaves us with a hope of a sequel, and what with Caesar and his band of apes having conquered the Golden Gate the next stop seems to be New York. Watch out New York, for the apes have truly risen!

For The Sake Of Fraandsheep

"One measure of friendship consists not in the number of things friends can discuss, but in the number of things they need no longer mention." - Clifton Fadiman

Its a strange custom this "Friendship Day", it is on this day that an innocent friendship blossoms between a boy and a girl - and it ends on Valentine's Day when the boy gets rejected by the girl after he proclaims his love. I honestly don't get what the big deal is about friendship day, why do you need a day to state the bleeding obvious - to proclaim your loyalty, devotion, love, and faith towards someone whom you know well enough or are acquainted to? Why the formality I ask! The only people who benefit from having such kind of moronic customs are the greeting card companies and Zee Cafe and Star World. While Hallmark and Archies sell "Friendship Band", which during my college days was a symbol of popularity - the more you had the more popular you were, I can't believe they still do that, whereas the Star Worlds and Zee Cafes run a seven hour marathon of F.R.I.E.N.D.S - a sitcom which is normally telecasted on a weekday for half-an-hour.

And what's with tagging people on photos on Facebook? Its not like its a group photo where you can see your face, its not a forgotten poignant moment which you had captured in your camera that you shared with your friends - its a bloody .jpg image of a greeting card with "FRIENDS FOREVER" or a couplet inscribed in it - which you probably had google searched, how thoughtful and how imaginative! Do you think people find it touching to have their profile tagged to some random  photo which is "liked" by a bunch of idiots and commented on by dozen other morons who at the most respond with "Happy friendship day :-) " Well I have news for you, you just spammed their mailbox which now will be flooded with notifications from Facebook about some Tom, Dick or Harry whom you had tagged in that photo. Do yourself a favor, stop shouting over the rooftops about how true and everlasting friendship is, most of the true and everlasting ones are forged with a bond that is not spoken of, but are displayed - in those minute gestures that go unnoticed by our eyes but are safely deposited within the treasury of our heart. 

Its in those little moments where you share a cup of coffee with your friends whilst you bitch about your job, you have heard your friend say it before but you lend them your ear because you know they'd do the same if it were you. Its in those long-distance phonecalls that last an hour where you talked of nothing that made sense, yet it was something that made you feel belonged - a reassuring feeling that distance and time will not corrode what you share. It is in that gesture when you save a seat for your friend on a crowded bus, it may not speak much - but it for sure says "I am here for you". They are hidden within those human contacts which we have taken for granted be it that bear hug that we get, or that ruffle of our hair, that arm around our shoulder or that prank that we play. It is engraved in the liberty that we have with our friends, we count on them to finish off our lunch that we hate to eat, we count on them to share our grief, we count on them to be there at our moment of glory, we count on them to be watching our back in our time of despair.

Over the years I have been blessed with friends and have forged relationships for which I am grateful, some have lasted and some have withered away thanks to a juvenility and indifference of my own, which may not make me the right person to speak about the sanctity of such relationship, but then haven't we all been let down and have let down the ones whom we believed in? Yet, what it had in common while it blossomed was those moments of togetherness and the feeling that this would last forever. Its after the seeds of friendship have planted that one needs to groom it with care. So, stop abusing the emotions involved in this relationship, stop being a prey to greedy corporations that play you like a violin with their "Friendship Day" offers, stop updating your walls, quit sending cheesy smses, and for the love of God - stop tagging people on artificial soulless photos that will be forgotten as the days go by. For the sake of fraandsheep, be there for them when you need them, that in itself is a testament of what you share.

Sweat and Steel

There comes a time in every man's life when he looks at himself in the mirror and is not pleased with what he sees. That ever-so-slightly increasing paunch–that is attached to his body like a pitcher's mound makes him say out one of those two things that every man would have said to himself at some point of time in his life–"I need to start working out". The other thing being “I will stop watching porn”. We live our lives at a desk job where the only muscle we get to move is that of our index finger while clicking the mouse button. And let's face it - the number of keys we type while updating our status on Facebook and Twitter is more than the number of keys we have used to type a code. We have taken the term "Don't sweat over it" too seriously, the process of sweating itself is looked upon with disgust. The physical process of sweating is as manly a task as matadoring (that is if you don't consider those tight fitting clothes of a matador), thanks to these deodorant advertisements we are made to feel that men who sweat a lot need to be stayed away from.

Men are normally non-jealous creatures, he is happy with what he gets - that badly cooked lunch, his job, his bike, his low-tech mobile phone. He never looks at another man and says "Oh boy how I wish I have what he has"–except occasionally if the other man's girl is very hot. But there always comes a time when a man looks at another well-built man who flaunts around his carved body, and shows off his washboard abs that makes him wish he had one of those. If there is one place in the world that can make a man feel insecure and make him hate his very existence - it has got to be the gym. Picture this–in a room full of men who seem to be sculpted out of gold you are the only guy unevenly shaped. In a place filled with hard-bodied men who look descendants of Zeus and Hercules you look like someone whose head is the size of their biceps.

I began my stint at a gym lately only after a lot of cajoling from my father who had gotten carried away looking at the likes of Mark Wahlberg, Matt Damon and Jason Statham, initially I resisted, but he still persisted. I said gymming involved too much dedication and had more chances of me breaking bones of my own than building biceps. He changed his tune and started pitching the idea of Baba Ramdev and the miracles of yoga, which made me wonder when was the last time Baba Ramdev would have gotten laid. "Mark Wahlberg and gymming it is!" I declared, hoping my father stuck with Arnab and Newshour rather than HBO and WB movies.

Talk to the hand!

My hunt for gym led me to various fitness houses that had muscular men doubling up as salesmen who tried to sell me the benefits of having bulging biceps and a neatly cut out chest. They were less convincing than a fitness-freak friend of mine who cited the examples of books and movies - those porn movies that had men with a sculpted body acting.... or performing. And the cover of any Nalini Singh novel. Almost every gym that I had stepped into either had a large board of a ridiculously muscular white man who seemed to have gigantic cuts and biceps on his body than a sculpture of Achilles or a photo of Arnold Schwarzenegger before he became a Governor whilst secretly raising a lovechild. I finally zeroed in on a gym that was pretty closer to home, which was much cheaper but way less fancier than the glamorous fitness houses that had cropped up in the city.  As I settled down in the gym during the initial few days, I could see there were men who didn’t do any exercise but just inspected their body with a pride that said “You see this! I worked hard for this. You think you can better my washboard abs?”  there were men who belonged to different walks of life, outside the gym they were just ordinary men–students, security guards, drivers, engineers, probably plagued with issues of their own, normal looking men whom you wouldn’t care to give a second look when they have their shirts on, ordinary men who were probably bossed around. But it is within the gym surrounded by all the steel equipments that they change to a different self.  From everyday men they change to men with a passion that powers them to give that one extra push-up, as they dig deep to summon that ounce of strength–that moment when the mind takes control over body making it believe that it had the strength for one final heave-ho.

There is something liberating once you step out of a gym after an intense workout, it’s not just the breeze that washes away all the sweat and the heat from your body, but much like a good book that is like chicken soup for your senses–an intense workout is that shot of drug you need to revitalize your body and soul.  One of the greatest mysteries of our bodies is to know how much we can endure, and the best way to know it is to push our body to as much as it can take in a gym.  I feel it’s always an advantage to have a good physique­– people agree to whatever you say, they give you some space to sit in a crowded train, nobody messes with you and the best part is that you feel good about yourself. But jokes apart, the sweat that drains from our face and our body and embraces the fabric of our t-shirt is a testament to the will to endure the pain that would make us feel better about ourselves. In a life where the same mundane job has left many of us questioning our purpose, and left us like rudderless boats– it’s probably within a sweaty and steaming gym that I find an answer.  Within a gym, I know what I am doing, I know what I want to be in another six months from now. I don’t just lift weights, nor do I just run the treadmill–I lift the weights knowing what I want to become, I run the treadmill knowing where I am going.

I don’t want to have a six-pack abs and bulging biceps to beat up goons during a fight, I don’t want to look intimidating as I walk the streets but then I don’t want to end up with a paunch and loathe the men with a lithe frame on the advertisements of Jockey. I just want to feel better about myself, I want to feel healthy, we all have our ways of feeling better about ourselves, finally I have found mine.  Now, when I look myself at the mirror I kinda like the face that stares back at me.