In my first post I reasoned out that I am going to blog because someone will reach out to me and give information on ‘irumbukkai maayavi’. And after almost a year, I did get some dope on this. Of course on my own! No one really reached out to me. I wonder about what these search engines do in life. But anyway now they helped me.
A bit of history before going further! There was a time in this Planet Earth when the television did not exist. And entertainment during that time was either playing out in the streets without wasting a single ray of the Sun or if the going really gets tough ( I am not talking about the Sun, but the heat that is generated at home because of my wanderlust ), one invariably land up with some comics. Well, I was still struggling with English and that meant comics were not the Tintin’s and the Asterix’s. They were Tamizh comics.
And Tamizh comics were of two genres. One was serialized in magazines with India and Indian characters as the base. My favorite there was ‘Moondru Manthirvathikal’ ( Three magicians ). One guy was capable of crossing 100 miles in one step, other guy was capable was drinking the whole ocean and the third guy I don’t remember. Their exploits to save a princess from an evil guy whose life was secretly vaulted inside a small flower that resided underneath an ocean which is beyond a million mountains blah blah, was simply awesome and I was really empathizing with the princess was mighty worried about her life ( Now I know why I am worried about the welfare of women and get friendly with them , it’s all because of the comics ). It used be great fun.
The second genre was comics translated from English. We had Phantom, Magician Mandrake, Irumbukkai Maayavi, David & Lawrence etc. While in most comics the characters just appeared as it is with the same name and just translated, irumbukkai maayavi alone had this special name. Was he any good!!! Don’t even ask, all my life I only wanted to be him. He had this steel hand from the wrist and if he put his finger into an electrical socket he will disappear. In the seventies, I guess there was nothing more exhilarating than this. Book after book I read and still it was always insatiable. And even after I grew up, I still have this craving to read about his exploits and been researching in the Net to figure out more.
And I hit pay dirt recently. I learnt more about my hero. He is Louis Crandell a.k.a Steel Claw. A British secret service agent at a later date, he starts as a Lab assistant who loses his hand in an accident and the metal prosthetic he fixes makes him so powerful. He gets invisible when he comes in contact with electricity. He becomes a crook first and does evil stuff with his newfound ability and later becomes a good guy. Now I am hopeful of getting some Louis Crandell comics from the US and read to my heart’s content.
Come to think of it, I guess these are the stuff that forms you as a person. What you read, what you believe while you are very young. Sometime so naïve to believe everything ( I once tried putting my finger into a socket like him and had a huge shock and thrown a few feet off . Hasn’t told anyone about this foolish exploit till now, then because of fear, till now because of shame.
Most times these days when I see my daughters glued on to the TV, I start cribbing that they miss all the fun in life, maybe it is the Parent ego state in me talking. But somehow I am certain that it was more fun then than what they have now. Graphics simply has killed the imagination of the kids.
Even now sometimes when it is kinda depressing I wish that I could become Maayavi and become invisible for a while. Or when I come across stupid but lucky guys, I wish I could just scorch them to ashes as a Maayavi.
The boy in you never dies!!! Or the idealist in you never sleeps!!!
A bit of history before going further! There was a time in this Planet Earth when the television did not exist. And entertainment during that time was either playing out in the streets without wasting a single ray of the Sun or if the going really gets tough ( I am not talking about the Sun, but the heat that is generated at home because of my wanderlust ), one invariably land up with some comics. Well, I was still struggling with English and that meant comics were not the Tintin’s and the Asterix’s. They were Tamizh comics.
And Tamizh comics were of two genres. One was serialized in magazines with India and Indian characters as the base. My favorite there was ‘Moondru Manthirvathikal’ ( Three magicians ). One guy was capable of crossing 100 miles in one step, other guy was capable was drinking the whole ocean and the third guy I don’t remember. Their exploits to save a princess from an evil guy whose life was secretly vaulted inside a small flower that resided underneath an ocean which is beyond a million mountains blah blah, was simply awesome and I was really empathizing with the princess was mighty worried about her life ( Now I know why I am worried about the welfare of women and get friendly with them , it’s all because of the comics ). It used be great fun.
The second genre was comics translated from English. We had Phantom, Magician Mandrake, Irumbukkai Maayavi, David & Lawrence etc. While in most comics the characters just appeared as it is with the same name and just translated, irumbukkai maayavi alone had this special name. Was he any good!!! Don’t even ask, all my life I only wanted to be him. He had this steel hand from the wrist and if he put his finger into an electrical socket he will disappear. In the seventies, I guess there was nothing more exhilarating than this. Book after book I read and still it was always insatiable. And even after I grew up, I still have this craving to read about his exploits and been researching in the Net to figure out more.
And I hit pay dirt recently. I learnt more about my hero. He is Louis Crandell a.k.a Steel Claw. A British secret service agent at a later date, he starts as a Lab assistant who loses his hand in an accident and the metal prosthetic he fixes makes him so powerful. He gets invisible when he comes in contact with electricity. He becomes a crook first and does evil stuff with his newfound ability and later becomes a good guy. Now I am hopeful of getting some Louis Crandell comics from the US and read to my heart’s content.
Come to think of it, I guess these are the stuff that forms you as a person. What you read, what you believe while you are very young. Sometime so naïve to believe everything ( I once tried putting my finger into a socket like him and had a huge shock and thrown a few feet off . Hasn’t told anyone about this foolish exploit till now, then because of fear, till now because of shame.
Most times these days when I see my daughters glued on to the TV, I start cribbing that they miss all the fun in life, maybe it is the Parent ego state in me talking. But somehow I am certain that it was more fun then than what they have now. Graphics simply has killed the imagination of the kids.
Even now sometimes when it is kinda depressing I wish that I could become Maayavi and become invisible for a while. Or when I come across stupid but lucky guys, I wish I could just scorch them to ashes as a Maayavi.
The boy in you never dies!!! Or the idealist in you never sleeps!!!
http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/s/stclaw.htm
1 comment:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_comics
and this
http://tinyurl.com/3dqk9q
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