Penry Pooch at Dilli Haat

Caught in that jam,I could see that the news stories had not exaggerated: cosplay had really,fabulously arrived in India. But the really big story hadn’t got any play: a comic culture had really,visibly,arrived in India. In Dilli Haat,the crowd was so dense that if a Naga sadhu or three had infiltrated it,you couldn’t have told it apart from the Kumbh mela. Except that there were several Batmen,a sprinkling of supervillains,whole armadas of women pirates and a spaceman doing the moonwalk. But then,the Kumbh is not without its bizarre visitors either.

The Indian comic market has rapidly broadened from the old core of Amar Chitra Katha and Chacha Chaudhary. They remain big draws but there is also deep stuff on the shelves now,like the work of the Pao Collective,published individually and collectively. Foreign publishers are bringing in titles that couldn’t be had earlier except on Amazon. And an ancillary industry of merchandising,like Rs 299 Minnie Mouse ears,has sprung up around this buzzing market.

Comics used to be peripheral to Indian reading. In the 20th century,the classics were prescribed,novels were frowned upon and comics were reviled. The longest-lived jingle,“Roshni deta Bajaj”,drew its strength by recalling the furtive joy of reading racy books and comics under the bed sheets,by torchlight. For me,that ad rekindled memories of superannuated comic heroes: Huckleberry Hound,the twisted English cheat Dick Dastardly and his disreputable dog,Muttley,Penrod ‘Penry’ Pooch,the oppressed janitor who leaps into a filing cabinet to emerge as karate-chopping crime fighter Hong Kong Phooey. I have long-forgotten comic dogs on the mind.

Comic Con demonstrated that the age of furtive reading is past. Here was critical mass,the abracadabra of numbers that genre publishing must secure to have the confidence to grow. Titles were being sold out. Buyers were marching on big international publishers like Random House with the inexorable determination of termites,of army ants,to strip their shelves bare.

India is ready to see the world through a comic panel. It’s a life-saving intervention in a nation which is sacrificing its sense of humour on the altar of political correctness. Financially,the urban Indian readership is willing to countenance all possible price points. Politically,it is eager to sample all styles. And it is quite happy to wear its heart on its sleeve and tog itself out in costumery.

But Helmetman is an unusual model for cosplay. Not exactly Sailor Moon or Captain Sparrow,is he? An Amitabh Kumar creation in two colours,he embodies the obsessive cult of security which has India in thrall and recalls the demonisation of the people of Azamgarh that followed the Batla House incident. Helmetman has a Raj Comics accent but is nevertheless a denizen of the world of the graphic novel. Which is a comic with brains,refinement and the ability to see reality from striking intellectual perspectives. Not cosplay material,unless it’s at the India International Centre,or some place equally rarefied.

Against all my better instincts,I must conclude that Helmetman does not exist. The object in my rear view mirror was just a cop with a bike and a siren. Lucky,because it was a no parking zone. If it had been an inspector in a jeep,he wouldn’t have let me park and I would never have made it to Dilli Haat.