Page 39 - Seniors Today -Volume no1

Last Word

An Ode to the Perennially Irreverent Spirit

For our generation – baby boomers, flower children and now senior citizens - Mad was a
totem... a guiding light to make sense of a topsy-turvy world

By Manoj Maheshwari

The recent news that Mad magazine was
closing down hit me like a bolt from the blue. I
have for many years not read the magazine but
it still feels like the sudden loss of an old friend.
As I sit in my recliner (no...no, it is not about
getting old....it is about ergonomics!) and watch
the rain come down, I decide to write an ode.
My generation had a childhood where things
were difficult but life was simple. An era of
physical games, reading endless comics, sim-
ple pakoras and bun maska, chatting with
friends... all gave us immense pleasure. And
then we grew up into a rebellious world of the
60s and 70s... we gasped at the flower people.
Lit up an unfiltered cigarette imagining it was all kind. Mad was often rude, tasteless, and
a joint. Marvelled at the sheer in-your-face (or childish but as Gloria Steinem said: “There
was it up-yours?) attitude at Woodstock. And was a spirit of satire and irreverence in Mad
desperately wanted to break our conservative that was very important.”
shackles and embrace this new rebellious For our generation – baby boomers, flower
irreverence. children and now senior citizens - Mad was

Mad was our window to be part of the irrev- a totem......a guiding light to make sense of a
erent rebel cause. Its defining face of Alfred E topsy-turvy world as we learned from it to
Neuman with his gap-toothed grin, somewhat distrust authority, whether in the form of poli-
goofy but with eyes that gleamed with quiet ticians, advertisers or media figures.
intelligence, epitomised the magazine’s charac- Alas, the institution is finally closing down
ter. It was not trash – it was rebellion, irrever- as are a lot of its original core readers. The
ence and biting satire intelligently put together truth is that at some point, everything ends.
with an overlay of snarky humour. Month after Our most useful shield is to just laugh along
month, it turned out a compilation of insanity, the way. And it doesn’t really matter where
cheekiness and satire. No ego was too big to the laughter is coming from or what you are
puncture, no pretensions too small to prick. laughing at. So to all my Mad brothers all I
Who doesn’t remember President Nixon on the want to say is: Don’t forget we are the ‘The
cover in a spoof on the movie The Sting, with Oddfather’, of ‘Somedunce Kid’ and, for God’s
Mad calling it ‘the big con’ or the depiction of a sake, do not ‘Botch Casually’ as you fix the ‘An-
raised middle finger for one issue in the mid- tenna on the Roof’!
70s? ‘Spy vs. Spy’, the biting take on the Cold Mad is dead... long may you be Mad.
War is another treasured memory.
Mad spoke to the young about universal val-
ues of liberalism and exposed phoniness of

SENIORS TODAY | Volume 1 | Issue 1