Desi Superheroes

One of the fondest memories of my childhood was waiting eagerly every other week for the new issue of Raj Comics to come into the store. I remember asking my auto-waallah to change his route just so that I could quickly pop-in to the comic book store to check out if the latest issue of Nagraj or Super Commando Dhruv had arrived, and how i used to read almost half way through it even before we reached home. Ah, those were simpler times, when a cricket bat and a comic every other week was all that was needed for me to be extremely happy, in my own self-sufficient way.

I used to read a lot of comics, English and Hindi: Tintin, Asterix, Disney, Archie's, Raj Comics etc. But my favorite was Raj Comics and within that most definitely Nagraj (Snake Man) and Dhruv. It was mostly because they were the most prolific and had the best descibed universes amongst all the others (In hindsight I can add that they also had the hottest girlfriends). But by no means were they crude or simplistic even. In fact i will stick my head out and say that Raj Comics could rival DC or Marvel in terms of creativity and story-telling. Each hero had its own well defined set of Villians, Mythology and side kicks and often had complexly layered stories and relationships. (e.g. Dhruv's girlfriend's father was his arch enemy: Crime Master Robo). I'm sure a lot of inspiration came from DC/Marvel in terms of motifs etc. but the Indianisation of these comics was what made them special. They were home grown and ingenious; and in their own way, they were also intelligent.

There were other heroes like Bhokal, Doga, Gojo and the solitary Raj Comics funny man Baankelaal. But pocket money being finite, I spent more on my favorite two.

Over time I stopped reading them and having been in the South for more than 8 years, I completely lost touch with Raj-world. The last time around when I was in my home town, I went to the store but to much dismay it had closed down. I did manage to get my hands on a few new issues but something didn't exactly feel the same; maybe it was because of the lacuna in between.

Last heard, Anurag Kashyap was planning to make a movie on Doga (quite an anti-hero, only one who wears mask, troubled childhood, vague morals: in short a Batman in Dickensian world). If it works out, it's a hugely good news as it would put into limelight the immense talent in these comics and the fact that we have good indigenous material to make movies on that will become maybe as popular as Batman / Spiderman.


Nostalgia is a funny thing; it pops in the most unexpected places. The next time I'm home, maybe I'll take down the stack of old comics and rediscover the mystery of Nagraj's powers or Dhruv's adventures. I hope the soda still has the fizz.