Page 16 - Seniorstoday December 2023 Issue
P. 16
Nostalgia+
Revisiting the Fun World of Archie Comics
Whether Boomer or Gen X, if you grew up English-speaking and middle
class in India, you turned to Archie comics, writes Ranjona Banerji
Technically, I belong to the generation British context. No village mukhia, no
which Americans call “boomers”. That tree under which elders gathered, no
is born between 1946 and 1964. In the cows, no lissome lasses collecting water,
American sense, this was the post-war no colourful clothes being washed, no
generation which grew up in an economic caste discrimination, no evil zamindar
“boom”. The generation immediately after and all those other cliches. No twee little
is Gen X, which did not grow up in such a shops selling tea and scones, no cricket on
boomy time and therefore are supposedly the village green with the vicar, no rose-
hardier. It is another matter that their covered cottages, no manor house and no
children are known as millennials, who are blacksmith.
portrayed as very needy. Or rather, all those things re-imagined.
But whether Boomer or Gen X, if you Not that we realized it in the beginning.
grew up English-speaking and middle Rather, the welcome strangeness of it all
class in India, once you had rushed beguiled us. The 1970s in India was a
through Enid Blyton and her picnics and time of socialistic thinking and policies.
mysteries served with lashings of colonial Materialism was scorned. Not that there
superiority, a soupcon of racism and a hint was lots of material stuff available. And
of post-war rationing, where did you turn? yet, here it was. Pop Tate’s, burgers,
It was to Archie comics of course, to the cheerleaders, love affairs, clothes, “high
golden period of Americana. school”, friendship, rivalries. All the joys
The town of Riverdale was unlike any of a young life, but without the freedom to
other, whether in the Indian or the colonial experience it yourself.
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