Tinkle Comics has a new superhero. She's a girl. And she's from the Northeast.
That's
a spectacular leap, with many in 'mainstream' India still lost in the
belief that the Northeast is more China than India.
Mapui Kawlim
is a laidback 13-year-old from a middle-class household of Aizawl who
would rather play cricket with friends than be a wonder kid. Or
Wingstar, as she's called in the comic.
Tinkle is breaking a lot of ground with this series, some of it subtly.
Mapui
is a reluctant superhero with gadgets for 'super flight' and "super
strength" provided by her father Tashi Kawlim who is - hold your breath -
an inventor working for the Space Development Arm of the government.
Despite
her reluctance, though, Mapui clearly has a generous dose of her
father's genes and learns to use Rocket Thrusters, Iron Fists and
Reinforced Robotic Arms.
She also becomes her neighbourhood's
unofficial saviour in between attending school, dreading math homework
and keeping up with sleepover commitments.
To up her energy
levels and to give her a semblance of a normal life, her father decides
to give her a super-secret superhero boost.
Overnight, Mapui becomes WingStar
Photo: Tinkle Comics
The
new superhero may help dispel stereotypes associated with the people of
the eight Northeastern states who have been victims of so many racial
attacks in cities such as New Delhi and Bengaluru that authorities had
to step in to ban the use of pejoratives such as 'chinky'.
Tinkle
Comics' editor Rajani Thindiath doesn't see the new comic, which will be
unveilved in November, as particularly pathbreaking. "In Tinkle, we
have always had characters who hail from different parts of the country.
Mapui aka WingStar may belong to the Northeast but she's also a regular
teenage girl."
What she does see as pathbreaking in Mapui is perhaps the "first reluctant superhero".
Tinkle
has had two female superheroes previously -SuperWeirdos with Aisha in
the lead and Maya headlining the futuristic PsyMage series, set in an
era when magic is power.
"We need more iconic female heroes to
join the plethora of enduring male comic characters in the country -
Suppandi, Shikari Shambu and Tantri the Mantri. Over half of the
children in our country are female after all."
Tinkle was launched
35 years ago and despite losing some ground in recent years, still has a
dedicated following. In middle class households in satellite India,
grandparents reading out comics to their grandchildren or siblings
fighting over who reads the comics first is not rare.
This is the segment that Tinkle Comics is trying to target.
Says
Nitya Subramanian, Tinkle Brand Manager, "The comic is cherished in the
southern and eastern markets. The anchors being Mumbai, Chennai,
Bangalore, Trivandrum and Kolkata."
The fact that Tinkle is
published in English helps, as middle class India aspires to see its
children speak the language fluently. For the rest, it is translated
into Hindi, Tamil and Bengali, aimed at readers between the ages of 8
and 14.
There's also the Tinkle ezine, for whose who'd rather read online.
But
while the medium has always been trendy - comics are seeing a huge
revival, thanks in part to events like Comic Con, and to the rise of
graphic novels - what's most welcome is that the messgae is now equally
on-point.
Can't wait to meet you, Mapui.
Aizawl, Oct 26 :
At least 11 people including two pregnant women were killed and 21
others injured when a passenger bus fell into a deep gorge in South
Mizoram’s Lunglei district on Saturday night, officials said on Sunday.
Lalthianghlimi stands near the granite plaque commemorating her brother Zairemmawia. (Source: Express photo by Adam Halliday)
