Maus by Art Spiegelman

A comic book is typically written for children, and in many cases for the “child” in adults. However, here is one comic book that dealt with a serious topic of Holocaust – at a very personal level, from the author’s and his father’s perspective – bringing out the horrors of the World War 2 and the innumerable sufferings faced by the Jews across Europe.

The author creatively uses animals as the face of his characters based on the nationalities – cats for the Germans, pigs for the Polish, dogs for the Americans, frogs for the French, antelopes for the Swedes and mouse for the Jews. (Wait, but could Jews be called a separate nation by themselves? Food for thought!) There are also instances where the Jews in the story need to take up other nationalities – the Polish Jews would be wearing a pig’s mask on top of their rat face and so on.

The crux of the story deals with a first person narration from the perspective of the author’s father – Vladek Spiegelman – the travails that he faces as he travels through the dangerous periods of the 1940s – his family, his love life, career, failure, war, deportation, Auschwitz and many more. What makes this all interesting is that the entire narration of events is set in the past – while Art and Vladek’s conversations to reveal this past is set in the “present”. This also brings out a flash back to the author’s own inner demons of a largely absent father, his scorning of his mother when she was alive, dealing with a generational gap between his father’s point of view about the world and his own point of view as well as more nuances. The entire story is spread across two volumes – which together makes for a very fast-paced and gripping read.

***Spoilers ahead***

There were so many panels that left a huge impact on me. Sharing a few here:

At the very beginning, was a hard-hitting one:

Vladek’s character is brought out very nicely in multiple places – how he gets along with his second wife (Mala), his spendthrift attitude, how not to waste food etc.

Vladek’s quick thinking, enterprising attitude and a quick presence of mind comes is detailed clearly by Art across the book. To survive an event like Auschwitz requires large doses of intelligence and luck.

At the same time, Art also brings out his own inner demons, no thanks to the survivor pangs that he inherited from his father. This is what makes the entire story so personal and relatable.

Art doesn’t shy away from revealing his father’s fallacies – after all, each of us have our own from the perspective of others and the convenient lens of history.

Meanwhile, he also goes to lengths to show how his father had been clever enough to design his way out of dangers.

The life of a displaced person, caught in the web of evil… Shown succinctly with one image

Krishna Jayanthi

Wish you all a Happy Krishna Jayanthi!

Krishna Jayanthi

A Trip to New Frontiers

Before I start off with this post, I have a confession to make. It took a combination of events – happenings over the past few months, my long time dream of visiting the one region of India I had always wanted to visit and the fact that a new year has born – to really make me shrug off the utter laziness that has crept over me in the past one year. Now that I’ve got this out of my way, let me get on to what I had set out to write!

As I boarded the flight in Chennai to Kolkata, I had a strange feeling. Here I was, flying to the place I had so much wanted to experience. At the same time, I was unable to forget the indeterminate amount of news about Assam, the many wishes of luck & ‘safe trip’ and other misgivings. All these thoughts were floating through my mind only till I boarded my connecting flight at Kolkata to Jorhat. After what seemed like a half hour of normal flying, the plane took a sharp turn to the right. A look out of my window gave a sight to behold. I was floating in a sea of clouds, with the mighty snow-capped Himalayas providing a perfect backdrop.

I landed in Jorhat – one of the smallest airports I’ve ever seen. It consisted of a runway and a short apron for handling one flight at a time. I got down from the flight and took a walk to the terminal. Here I was, in Assam. In the so called “North East India”.

What I got to experience in the next seven days was pure bliss, unexplainable beyond words. From the daily life in Cinnamara, to the hills of Nagas, to the forests and rhinos of Kaziranga, to the ocean of a river known by the name Brahmaputra and many other events, it was an unforgettable week.

Instead of rambling along, I’ll try to use the limited photos took using my Nokia 5800 to show this pristine and serene beauty of a place.

It makes me feel happy that India still has got places that we can hope to run or fly in, to escape from the routine, stress-filled and chaotic life that we all live. As I look back at my week-long sojourn, an epitaph in Kohima’s WWII cemetery crops up in my mind:
Dearer still, as the years depart
His memory lives within our hearts

The Journey Begins…

… leaving the past behind, to be reminisced only occasionally.