My Childhood Fantasy and Super Heroes

Childhood is a very exclusive and special time in once life. Childhood is full of innocence , full of energy, ready to do any adventures, story readings about super heroes and dreaming, behaving, seeing themselves as their super heroes. That is childhood, like any other normal kid I too read and fantasized about the super heroes. I want to take you some 35 years back into my childhood. In those days in India we didn't have TV. We used to read comics and adventures story books in our spare time or in holidays. Today I want to describe some of the super heroes. In those days in India we had Indrajal comics and Amar Chitra Katha.

In Indrajal comics following super hero's stories used to be written- Phantom "The Ghost who walks", Mandrake the magician and Bhahadur the local hero.

Phantom "The Ghost who walks"

Phantom's stories like "Jungle Olympics" was the first comic I had read in my life. The story depicts: Jungle Olympics games that were held in thick Jungle and the Trophy was made of Gold, Gems and Jewels. Some town thugs when hear about the priceless Trophy they plan to steal it , and they come and they succeeded in stealing the Trophy. But when Phantom was called he went out and not only caught the Gangster but brought the Trophy back to Jungle. He went along with the Wolf Devil and his horse Hero. They say when Phantom hits on anybody his mark of ghost (the skull) from his ring remains on the thugs face. Phantom legacy remained secret and passed from the father to son and from one generation to another. So the innocent Jungle folk thought that Phantom never dies so they call him The Ghost who walks, the man who never dies. And the legend continues.

Lee Falk, Creator of "The Phantom".

http://flame.ay.com.au/~kunama/phantom.html

I remember the next story which I studied was "Fling Devils" Where any body wearing Yellow dress would be picked by trained Vultures. These vultures were used by the villain created havoc in the jungle. When people requested Phantom to help them, he too wore yellow dress and he too was carried by these Vultures. He than alone fought valiantly with the bunch of criminals and rescues the innocents.

What I want to impress my readers that Phantom was my super hero and I was very much impressed in my childhood. Phantoms's height, brave individuality, his fighting style, his endurance to help people in need, bring criminals to Justice was what impressed me most.

I used to dream that when I grew up I will grow like Phantom strong, tall and brave, ride white horse and bring criminals to Justice. Like me millions of children must also under gone this fantasy in his or her life. Child's mind is like butter very tender and sweet, it all depends on the society how it can mold.

Since we didn't have TV we used to read books, which I see, the new generation is lacking. New generation are missing what my generation had enjoyed i.e reading books.

Mandrake the Magician
Mandrake the magician with his friend Lother would help the whole world with their magic and bring the world a place safe to live.

Stories of Mandrake the magician also impressed me very much; I wondered how he would by his magic help world to fight against evil and criminals. His friend Lother with his big muscles helps the poor victims and fought against the wrong doer. Fight of good over evil.

These stories fantasized a child's psychology when he reads this kind of stories. Then the child enjoys and some times dreams himself to be superheroes and also acts and plays with his friends.

Amar Citra Comics

Amar Citra Katha used to be more Indian traditional and mythological stories based. The stories were about Brave Kings like Prithviraj Chauhan, Emperor Akbar, and Shivajee etc.

From Mythological stories like Ramayana, Mahabharata, Ganesha etc. Some times stories were from Indian Freedom Fighter like Shubash Chandra Bose, Chandrasekhar Azad, and Bhagat Singh and so on so forth.

These stories used to give inspiration to fight like these freedom fighter or some time dream like Rama or Krishna and fight against demons.

So I wanted to give message to today's children please read books and enjoy and gain knowledge about your history and about your cultures instead watching TV. Books are the best friends to you so keep reading books and enjoy simultaneously gain knowledge and wisdom from Great people. So develop the habit of reading.

Therefore theme of my story to children is "Read books and books are the best friends".