I Am The Maitreya

I like going to book stores. Every visit makes me feel like a kid in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. First thing I do is: grab a cup of coffee, and loiter around aimlessly from isle to isle, suspicious attendants always catch up with me, to see, if I were lost or needed any help. 

Occasionally, they ask me– ¿Tiene que usted ayudar? (Do you need help? In spanish) Mostly, these are the young kids who want to practice their high school Spanish, with an authentic Chicano. Yep! That’s me. Not to break their hearts, my reply is always: ¡No! Gracias, Sinoriata. They shoot back some more, which I don’t understand at all, and I just nod my head and smile not to give away my true identity with occasional Gracias. Eventually, they leave me alone to dawdle through more isles.  

Most of my time is spent at the ‘Graphic Novel’ section—Japanese Manga. Few of their series are excellent, the ones I like are—‘SamuraiX’, ‘Kyo’ and ‘Samurai Champloo’. Had I been born in old
Japan, I would surely have been a samurai, I guess. Though, I am not a macho type, but the idea sure is romantic, at the slightest provocation make a ‘kima’ out of another guy, and sit down to write a poetry or origami as if nothing happened after a dual. I would have my ‘Katana’ made by the finest sword-maker, probably from Hitori Hanso in ‘Kill Bill.’ Their blades are metallurgical wonder for such a low tech era.

The other day, I bought a T-shirt of ‘Samurai Champloo’, and wore it proudly. Friends mocked– how can you wear a cartoon T-shirt? I shot back ‘same way you enjoy Salman’s movies.’ At the core both—Anime and Salman are outright stupid, nevertheless we enjoy them.

Characters from Champloo

General perception is that—magnas are for kids, something like Mickey or Daffy, but my friend was at disbelief to find pencil sketched characters having sex in these books.     

So, you read these cartoons for sex? My friend asked, at that, I couldn’t help conjure up the image of SpongeBob SquarePants panting away while banging Little Mermaid from the rear, porno style.  Now that’s called comic sex, in literal sense. I laughed at the crazy thought inside my head, and reassured him that I no longer derive a pleasure watching cartoon sex anymore. I have long graduated from ‘get-horny-on-pencil-sketched-female –genitals-in-Biology-textbook’ class. I explained to him, how the story flows in these novels, how the animators build the characters that you grow to like or dislike them by the end of the book, as if the pencil characters would spring out of the pages with full of attitude, vileness, amicability or raunchiness whatever they inherit inside the rectangular frames of comic strips. Unlike Disney characters—dead and bland, and yes they do have sex.  My friend reluctantly seemed to concede to my explanation, but I know, deep inside, he still thinks I read them for sex. Otherwise, why would a grown up man read comics at all?   For that matter, I still enjoy reading ‘DC’ and ‘Marvel’ series, the Indian series ‘Indrajal’ was classy too, but ’Nag Raj’ killed it. I liked European series too—‘Asterix and Obelix’, I must have read each one of them over hundred times, but for some reason I didn’t like ‘Tintin’, I always wanted to beat a shit out of that brat, if I ran him around the corner.

While talking about sex, I found ‘Kamasutra’ under ‘Eastern Philosophy and Arts’ section. I mused to myself, how our (South Asian) deprived-ness has become philosophy and art for Westerners. I guess abundance turns anything into an art form, especially for the anatomies concerning belly and one right below that, for instance food, for us simply means calories for them cuisine and culinary, sex for us– procreation and for them–recreation.

I took the book out of the shelf sheepishly, and turned few pages. Every position had a detail explanation on its astrological significance and health benefits, and the pictures were paintings of some disproportionate ‘Maharajas’ with their concubines at bizarre positions with their sexual anatomies almost a feet away from where they are supposed to be, just to reach a right place. With such an acrobatic prowess and misplaced sexual anatomies, one would qualify for a mutant.

This wasn’t the first time, I was looking at ‘Kama Sutra’, but this book was a little different than its predecessors, in the sense, every picture had a neat table at the side of the page, with what to eat before the act, and how much calories would a couple burn during the act. Calories were divided by gender, female burnt more calories than the male for every single position, while men seem to be doing all the acrobatic works, talk about gender equality. And, how they (women) always complain we (men) don’t do much around the house. Duh?? We burn more calories in bed, and since the bed is within the four walls that qualify for house chores.

No matter, how ridiculous the book was, but you can’t help wondering at the marketing genius of these (white) people, beside– sex sells. 

Dawdling further down the isle, I came across Samrath Upadhaya’s ‘Guru of Love.’ I have spent a good chunk of money in the past buying worthless and stupid books, and I had already picked ‘Calvin and Hobbes’.  That was a moral dilemma, ‘Calvin and Hobbes’ or ‘Guru of Love’, ‘Guru of Love’ or ‘Calvin and Hobbes’. Finally my sense of patriotism prevailed over my addiction of cartoons. I said what the heck, $12 for my country man. So I bought it. Surprisingly, it turned out to be a good read.  Certainly, you can’t compare Mr. Upadhaya with literary giants like – Hemingway or Steinbeck, not even with ex-pat writers like Naipul or Rushdie, but hey, these giants didn’t get big overnight, and beside their societies had hundreds of years of literary culture behind them.  

I commend Mr. Upadhaya for breaking into the Western market, all right, I concede, his books are not that great, but he can always get better, more importantly, he has shown that ‘it’ can be done. He has given a confidence for the other young English-Nepali writers, who knows there might be Marquez or Dostoevsky in making in the gullies of Kathmandu? We might be reading shortly—‘Ek Satapdi in Solitude’ or ‘The Brothers Moktans’.