You must have sat down to read J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia or the more recent Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. Guilty pleasure is written all over these pages. Dr. Seuss and Roald Dahl have given us an occasional eccentric fantasy character or two to fire our imagination, too.
Rewind a little further, beyond Robert E. Howard (whose Conan is iconic both in the literary form and the Arnold Schwarzenegger iteration), to Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and stop at the folk tales from the Middle East, some of which I had learned at the primary-school level. Perhaps you are familiar with the 1990s Disney movie adaptation titled Aladdin. Over a decade before the titular character had wooed Princess Jasmine, Indian actor Dharmendra had portrayed Ali Baba in a live-action film based on another story in One Thousand and One Nights, otherwise known as Arabian Nights.
While interning at a leading newspaper in Bangalore, I had discovered my penchant for satire. Given that I had once tried my hand at illustrations but failed to render even a single funny image, I had focused more on developing the language for humorous situations. I can thank Reader's Digest for inspiration and all the impressionists who had ever appeared on Cinemala, a television program famous for its portrayals of the influential politicians of Kerala.
You must be wondering what connection there is between fantasy and satire. Aren't the two genres chalk and cheese? Maybe to the casual reader. The answer is simple: fantasy can be used to disguise who you are satirizing, thus giving it a more universal quality.
Thus was born Arabian Knights, in which Aladdin and Ali Baba struggle to make sense of the scams and scandals in the political arena. There are very limited copies of this forgotten anecdote out there in the world. Chances are you will find them through word-of-mouth, the way you seek out most folk tales. Or ask a genie to bring it to you...
Rewind a little further, beyond Robert E. Howard (whose Conan is iconic both in the literary form and the Arnold Schwarzenegger iteration), to Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and stop at the folk tales from the Middle East, some of which I had learned at the primary-school level. Perhaps you are familiar with the 1990s Disney movie adaptation titled Aladdin. Over a decade before the titular character had wooed Princess Jasmine, Indian actor Dharmendra had portrayed Ali Baba in a live-action film based on another story in One Thousand and One Nights, otherwise known as Arabian Nights.
While interning at a leading newspaper in Bangalore, I had discovered my penchant for satire. Given that I had once tried my hand at illustrations but failed to render even a single funny image, I had focused more on developing the language for humorous situations. I can thank Reader's Digest for inspiration and all the impressionists who had ever appeared on Cinemala, a television program famous for its portrayals of the influential politicians of Kerala.
You must be wondering what connection there is between fantasy and satire. Aren't the two genres chalk and cheese? Maybe to the casual reader. The answer is simple: fantasy can be used to disguise who you are satirizing, thus giving it a more universal quality.
Thus was born Arabian Knights, in which Aladdin and Ali Baba struggle to make sense of the scams and scandals in the political arena. There are very limited copies of this forgotten anecdote out there in the world. Chances are you will find them through word-of-mouth, the way you seek out most folk tales. Or ask a genie to bring it to you...
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