REAL PAGE 5OCTOBER 28, 2012EXPRESS

GOVERNMENTOF DELHI PRESENTSAMAJOR THEATRE EVENT

TUGHLAQDIRECTED BY BHANU BHARTI

OCTOBER 28 TO 31 &NOVEMBER 2 TO 4, 20127 PMONWARDS

KOTLA FEROZESHAH,BAHADURSHAHZAFARMARG, NEWDELHI

The Hon’bleChief Minister of Delhi,Smt. Sheila Dikshit,will be the Chief Guest

A PLAY BY GIRISH KARNAD

1. ENTRY TO THE SHOW STRICTLY BY INVITATION / SEAT CARD2. THERE WILL NOT BE A SHOW ON NOVEMBER 1, 20123. ENTRY ON FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS

Smt. Sheila DikshitChief Minister, Delhi

SAGAR SHAH &KARISHMA KUENZANG

ON QUTAB Road in Sadar Bazar isRoyal Fireworks, one of the oldestfirecracker shops in Delhi. The ownerof the shop, Roop Kishore Srivastav,who is in his fifties, sits reminiscingabout his family business whilewatching the Diwali crowd swamp-ing this old market.

For many, bursting crackers on Di-wali is a sheer waste of money andcauses pollution. However, Srivastavhas a different opinion: “When LordRama returned from exile to Ayodhya,his devotees burst firecrackers to pro-duce smoke to ward off evil. So, I thinkit’s perfectly fine to burst crackers.”

In 1840, Srivastav’s ancestors es-tablished the company, Ram Parshadand Sons, which was primarily a man-ufacturer of fireworks. His familyowned a factory at Azadpur wherethey designed and produced theirown firecrackers. They also used toproduce gunpowder for the military.

They shifted the factory to Alipurdue to lack of space but, eventually,had to close it due to non-availabilityof good quality chemicals. A familyfeud ensued, which led to a split.Now, Srivastav says, all that is left is astore in Alipur and two shops in SadarBazar — Royal and New Royal.

Royal Fireworks stood out fromthe rest as they produced fireworksthat floated on water as well as thosethat could be burst during the day,apart from their fabulous designs

like Chinese Pagodas, Temples ofHeaven and the Qutab Minar. RamParshad, who started the business,even dedicated one design to Prithvi-raj Chauhan, during whose reigntheir family had migrated to Delhi.

Their hardwork did not go unno-ticed. They were awarded a goldmedal and a citation by the govern-ment for the quality of their fire-

works. Royal Fireworks has also de-signed arrangements (patterns inwhich the firecrackers were lit) forthe Kings of Bhutan, Nepal andAfghanistan, as well as the BritishHigh Commission for the GuyFawkes Day and the German Em-bassy for celebrating the fall of theBerlin Wall.

Ever since their factory shut

down, they have been getting theirsupply from Sivakasi, the firecrackerhub of the country, in Tamil Nadu.Srivastav says, “Earlier, people usedto ask for simple rockets, phooljharis,chakkars and bombs. However, nowwe have started stocking up multi-shot rockets, which have 100 to 200continuous shots. These crackers arein demand and cost around Rs2,000, far more expensive than thenormal firecrackers. The most ex-pensive firecrackers we have thisseason are the 1,000-shot rocketspriced at Rs 8,000, but they aremostly used at weddings.” He saysthe ‘Cock’ brand is the most popular.

Srivastav started helping his fa-ther at the shop while he was a child.He went to school in Delhi and as-pired to become an IAS officer. How-ever, he gave up his dreams to lookafter the family business followinghis father’s death.

Now, his daughter, Himani, is fol-lowing in her father’s footsteps, buton her own terms.

“I completed my BCom fromDelhi University but did not wish tostudy further since I’ve always lovedto sit at the shop,” she says. Himani isconfident that she can run the shopefficiently when the time comes.

“I already keep track of the goodsin the godown and the shop,” Hi-mani says.

Shah and Kuenzang arestudents of The Express Insititute

of Media Studies

The fireworks begin hereEstablished in 1840, Royal Fireworks is one of the oldest firecracker shops in Delhi

PRIYANKA KOTAMRAJU

Nagraj: Oh! To iska matlab haiki is baar Miss Killer aur Tho-danga milkar hum dono ko khatmkarna chahte hain.Super Commando Dhruv:Miss Killer ko to main jaantahoon, Nagraj, lekin yeh Thodangakya bala hai?

I N NAGRAJ Aur Bugaku, thefirst comic where the twosuperheroes get together tofight evil, it is suggested

that the two are greatest friends.When Anupam Sinha, 50, cre-ated Dhruv in 1987, he didn’tplan for this. Even when he tookover the Nagraj reins in 1996, hedidn’t see the friendship or theshared adventures coming. “Itwas simply presumed theywould be friends, when Bugakucame out with both of them.There was an informal introduc-tion, but nothing more,” he says.Sinha, after 25 years, is nowused to juggling both the charac-ters in separate storylines and to-gether, and casting a powerfulsuperhero net to rid the world ofevil, much to the delight of fans.

Nagraj, ageless and incompa-rable, turned 27 this month, in

his comic-book avatar. At DilliHaat, Pitampura, fans gatheredround Anupam Sinha, eager toshare their personal stories of Na-graj, pick faultlines in plots, andmeet the man behind the cult.Sinha, however, is plainly embar-rassed on such occasions. Over-whelmed and grateful, yes, butalso embarrassed. That a “gener-ation grew up and came togetherbecause of a fictional characteramazes me. People have learnedHindi to be able to read thecomics. They’ve found friendsthrough my characters,” he sayswith an air of disbelief.

At Rohini, on his home turf,Sinha is more open about his gen-eration-defining characters andwhere they came from. When Ra-jkumar Gupta, owner of RajComics, came up with the idea ofan Indian superhero, Nagraj, in1985, he got pulp-fiction writer,Parshuram Sharma, to write theNagraj novels, illustrated by thegreat artist, Pratap Mullick.Sinha, then, was making single-panel black-and-white cartoonsfor magazines. It was Gulshan Raiof Diamond Comics who drew hisattention to the comic-novel for-mat. At Chitra Bharti, an S Chand& Company comic, he wrote his

first comic, Space Star, heavily in-spired by Star Trek but with acompletely Indian cast. And hisfirst character creation was in thePrivate Detective Kapil comics.

In 1987, when Sinha got a callfrom Raj Comics for a superherocomic, the idea of Super Com-mando Dhruv began to takeshape. And in an industry whereillustrators were few and writerseven fewer, he was a unique crea-ture. He wrote, drew and inkedhis own comics.

For the first Dhruv comic, helooked for inspiration in unlikely

places. “I was reading Ripley’sBelieve It or Not. People could dosuch strange and powerfulthings. So I placed Dhruv in a cir-cus, where it would appear logi-cal that he could pick up all kindsof wonderful skills. I didn’t givehim an alter-ego. It’s such a West-ern concept. He is a superhero,not because of any special powerbut because he is smarter, morepowerful and more skilled thanordinary humans, in a completelynatural way.”

And then Raj Comics askedhim to take over the Nagraj fran-

chise in 1996. “I strived to goback and give Nagraj a logicalbackground, explain his powers— gave him venom in his whiteblood cells for the deadly vish-foonkar — and develop his backstory in a more mythologicalmanner rather than the lab-ex-periment way,” he says.

In one of Sinha’s favouriteDhruv stories, Mujhe MautChahiye, the antagonist is cursedwith immortality. “Zindagi kisaza di gayi thi use,” he says.While Dhruv struggles to unravelthe mystery of this villain, it’s the

evil itself that appeals to ourimagination — cursed, immortaland wronged. As is the case withmany Nagraj and Dhruv stories,it’s their villains that are the mostcolourful, with strange powersand odd fatalities. Sinha laughsand agrees: “My stories are cen-tred around the villains. Nagrajand Dhruv are one-dimensionalcharacters and they merely reactto the aggressors. So, I have tothink of ways to make my villainsmore powerful and exciting.Even the cities, Rajnagar andMahanagar, are replicas of me-

tropolises where the smallestthings — for instance, germs —can be used to depict evil. Mycities are planned to have water-fronts, jungles, swamps, densepopulations, dark narrow lanes,financial and scientific hubs —all with a possibility of evil. It’snot exactly New York or Mumbaibut not too different either.”

Sinha says new readers arefewer. “When the comic revolu-tion happened in the 80s, parentsdid not allow kids to read comics.Reading comics wasn’t consid-ered serious. But then, televisionhappened. And then mobiles,computers and games. Comicstook a backseat. But somehow,we survived. And I sense that theBatman, Spiderman and Watch-men movies have instilled newinterest in comics. And now thereis a movie on Doga too. I think it’stime for the Indian fantasy genreto bloom.”

And it’s this genre he has sethis eyes on. From purists findinghis recent Nagraj and Dhruvplotlines far removed from real-ity to his first proper novel, TheVirtuals, a paranormal thrillerwhich was launched at theevent, Sinha is letting fantasydo all the talking.

The man who made them superheroesAnupam Sinha’s comic creation, Nagraj, ageless and incomparable, turned 27 this month

Anupam Sinha thinks the Indianfantasy genre will bloom soon.

RENUKA PURI

Multi-shotrockets are apopular item atRoyalFireworks, onQutab Road,Sadar Bazar.(Right) Theywere knownfor designs likethe QutabMinar.

PRAVEEN KHANNA