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India Today
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- India Today
Chacha Chaudhary ‘ka dimag computer se tez': A 90s comic tribute
Before smartphones hijacked our attention spans, before the internet made everything instantly accessible, there existed a quieter, more magical world - one ruled by comic books, secondhand paperbacks, and the thrill of renting stories with pocket vacations in the 90s weren't about screen time, they were about story time. With schools shut and afternoons too hot to play outside, children across India turned to their trusted companions: comics, tattered novels, and borrowed books. Rented from local lending libraries or neighborhood bookstalls, these treasures were devoured under ceiling fans, exchanged with cousins, and re-read until the pages almost fell MONEY = COMIC CURRENCY Back in the 90s, a 2-rupee coin had the power to buy happiness - in the form of a rented comic book. Whether it was Nagraj, Super Commando Dhruv, or Phantom, kids treated their rented comics like treasure. "I remember renting Nagraj and Super Commando Dhruv for Rs 2 a day," says Gaurav Mehra, 38, a banker in Agra. "We had a secret club of sorts in our colony - a bunch of boys would exchange comics every evening after cricket. It was like our own barter system."COUSINS, MATTRESSES & PAPERBACK CONFESSIONS Summer holidays meant sleeping on mattresses lined up in living rooms and whispering storylines late into the night. Books were exchanged like secrets - especially the more "grown-up" ones. Girls, on the other hand, often leaned towards the world of romance and emotion. "Chicken Soup for the Soul felt like it was written just for us," laughs Shweta Kapoor, now 39 and a school teacher in Delhi. "I'd save my pocket money to buy Mills & Boon novels, hide them inside textbooks, and then discuss the stories with my cousins during family vacations."LOCAL LIBRARY LOVE AFFAIRS advertisement Every neighbourhood had that one dusty shop or corner library where kids gathered like bees. These "bookwalas" knew every kid's taste and often doubled as unofficial summer camp Tinkle, Champak, Chacha Chaudhary, and Amar Chitra Katha to Phantom, Mandrake, Archies, and Calvin and Hobbes - comic books offered humor, adventure, and escape. For the more emotionally curious, paperbacks brought in romance, inspiration, and dreamy narratives. Everyone had a favourite character and an emotional bond with their neighborhood book rental guy, who always knew what "just came in."STORY TIME WAS SCREEN-FREEWithout phones or tablets, children of the 90s turned pages, not screens. Sleepovers, train journeys, and power cuts were incomplete without a stack of books to dive into."There was a shop near my nani's house in Kanpur. They'd let me sit and read for hours if I promised to return the comics in good condition," says Rajiv Bansal, 40, now an IT professional. "No Kindle, no apps, but so much joy." More than just entertainment, reading in the 90s was a social experience. Storylines were discussed during sleepovers, cousins argued over who got to read which comic first, and siblings would sometimes hide their books just to tease the EXCHANGE. REPEAT. Books were read, discussed, passed on, and sometimes never returned. This analogue version of Netflix kept the 90s generation entertained, bonded, and era also shaped reading preferences early on. "Those comics actually made me love mythology and Indian folk tales," says Nivedita Iyer, now a children's book author. "They were simple but powerful. I wish more kids today had that connection."ONCE UPON A TIME, BEFORE SMARTPHONESThe comic-book summers of the 90s may be gone, but the memories remain crisp - like the sound of turning a page in a quiet afternoon. It was a time when stories were shared, not mobile phones became smarter and attention spans shorter, these reading rituals faded. Lending libraries shut down, comic book stands vanished, and book exchanges became memories. But for those who grew up in the 90s, the scent of an old comic or the sight of a well-thumbed paperback still sparks something deep and those summer afternoons weren't just about reading - they were about discovery, imagination, and bonding. And for many, they were the beginnings of a lifelong love affair with stories.
Hindustan Times
22-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Book Review: Dream Girl Drama is a rom-com, passionate read? Yes! Riveting? Ahem
If you like your films light and entertaining, this book is your pick! There, we said it and that's exactly how author Tessa Bailey paints the picture in her latest novel, Dream Girl Drama. The book narrates the tale of a professional hockey player who falls in love with a beautiful harp player. This would have sure been a banal one for many, but Bailey gives this love story a strange twist. Ahem... not being a buzzkill by telling you the whole truth. But can tell you that you read it right in the underlying jist when you imagined a passionate, riveting love saga unravels in the pages. The central characters, Sig Gauthier and Chloe Clifford, cannot keep their hands off each other during their first meet-cute encounter. Soon drama unfolds when the male protagonist meets his father's new girlfriend, and alongside the GF's daughter, Chloe! Also Read: Book Review: Red Flags And Rishtas is a 'perfect match' for all die-hard romantics Without further adieu, must know that this book has all the elements of a newage Mills & Boon — love, passion, a taboo of sorts. Though the author puts in a lot of effort to keep the narrative engaging and entertaining at the same time, she only succeeds in pleasing half of the universe's population for the narrative of Chloe, learning the new tropes of living on her own, thanks to Sig, brings a smile on one's face. But further, at some points one begins to feel it's too elaborate. While the detailed descriptions paint a clear movie in the mind of the reader, things start to look tad monotonous and flat. Ofcourse the climax brings the attention back very quickly and one gets caught in the thought that what does the climax hold? Secretly, you do want to know what happens to the love brewing so strongly between Sig and Chloe! The last chapter is particularly well written and does justice to satiating the readers' curiosity. In the nutshell, this one is a potboiler of sorts with a strong tadka of passion and love, something that will definitely appeal to the regular rom-com fans. Title: Dream Girl Drama Author: Tessa Bailey Publisher: HarperCollins Price: ₹499 For more, follow HT City Delhi Junction
The Guardian
14-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Jess Kidd: ‘My older sister taught me to read with Mills & Boon'
My earliest reading memory One of my older sisters taught me to read using Mills & Boon romance novels. I grew up autistic and queer and feel a nostalgic bewilderment about this genre, which at that time was populated by strong heroines who would – predictably but unfathomably – go weak at the knees for their male love interests. Otherwise, we had few books in the house. There are talented storytellers in my family, particularly my mother. I preferred to hide under the stairs and deliver my stories by writing them down. The book that changed me as a teenager Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas. I had known it in childhood in the vinyl format, my late father had the Richard Burton recording. Even though it is a play for voices, I found reading the text myself thrilling. I loved the opulence of the language and the narrative range of it. The book that made me want to be a writer Conrad the Factory-Made Boy by Christine Nöstlinger. As a late-diagnosed autistic person I have only recently realised why this book resonated with me. Conrad is a child packaged in a tin can who arrives in the post by accident. His chance caregiver is the feral, endearingly anarchic Mrs Bartolotti. Neither of them play by the society-designated rules for adults or children. But Conrad must learn to be a convincing 'real' child if they are to stay together. Poignant and funny; for me, more so in retrospect. It made me think that telling stories was a way to understand the oddness of being alive. The author I came back to George Saunders. A college drop-out, I studied with the Open University when my daughter was young, then received a bursary to return to university to study for an MA and PhD in creative writing studies. A lecturer introduced to me to CivilWarLand in Bad Decline. I prefer reading short stories to novels because they are usually braver in terms of the use of structure or narrative voice. Saunders feels courageous across the board. For me, Lincoln in the Bardo is a work of genius, complete but fragmented, grotesque and poignant, with a bleak seam of gallows humour. I love the traffic between the dead and the living in his work. The book I reread We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Or in fact anything by Shirley Jackson, who is the perfect writer to lead me somewhere twisted and wry and difficult. The book I could never read again Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. Thinking about the story as a hallucinatory clash between good and evil – and the disastrous consequences that might arise if you had the freedom to act on your worst impulses – is fun and satisfying. But on the line, it's just a gaggle of wealthy bachelors bumbling around London. The female characters are relegated to a small girl mown down by Hyde and a maid who faints. For such a small book it throws a big shadow. The book I am currently readingI usually have two on the go, fiction and nonfiction. North Woods by Daniel Mason, which takes the setting of the same house in New England through four centuries. I'm also reading Joan Schenkar's excellent biography The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith which shifts dizzyingly through time, although not chronologically. It is strong and sinewy but light on its feet, like a boxer with a terrifying left hook. I came to it intrigued by Highsmith's obsession with snails and stayed for insights into someone as fascinating and disturbing as the fictional killers she invented. My comfort readAnything by Kelly Link. Her fiction is wonderfully off-kilter but makes perfect sense to me. She's been variously called a writer of magical realism, or modern fables, or postmodern fairytales. I feel she ought to be in a genre of her own. I wouldn't say the read would be entirely comforting, but her stories are always original and that offers its own comfort. Murder at Gulls Nest is published by Faber on 13 March. To support the Guardian and the Observer buy a copy at Delivery charges may apply. copy go to. Delivery charges may apply.
