Why I gave this topic the title "
Oh Calvin! My Calvin!!!" I don't know... Calvin always fascinates me with his antics and activities. His innocence, skills, evilness, imaginations always help me wonder how would my elders felt if I tried to act like Calvin when I was a child. Nevertheless when I look back to my pre-10 years of age life I try to relate my work with that of Calvin, somethings match and somethings I missed and regret it which is obvious. All in all Calvin is that comic character which takes me to childhood without leaving me from my adult body.
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| Calvin & Hobbes |
A little about the Comic:
Comics are a wonderfully versatile medium. With the potent combination of words and pictures, the comic strip can depict anything a cartoonist has the imagination to envision. Even the reader could be left to extrapolate the meaning and message that the cartoon would have liked to convey. The reader is always left the choice of understanding the meaning he wants. Comic characters doesn't grow which is why some of them are really hard to put down and Calvin & Hobbes tops the list for me.
Calvin & Hobbes is a comic strip written and illustrated by Bill Watterson.
Calvin the lead is 6 year old boy named after a 16th century French theologian.
Hobbes named after a 17th century philosopher is a stuffed toy tiger of Calvin. But for Calvin, Hobbes is alive, he is energetic, he talks to him plays and fights with him and discuss issues with him. A reader can see Hobbes coming magically to life infront of Calvin or they can see Hobbes a product of Calvin's imagination. Calvin sees Hobbes one way while everyone else sees Hobbes the other way. What is real it doesn't really interest me, there are two versions of reality each one seems to make sense to the participant who sees it and that is how life is.
Calvin parents wasn't given a name by the creator. Both are loving and want him to be obedient, eat vegetables, sleep early, play little like most other parents. Well there is a girl called
Sussie Derkins of the same age of Calvin. I suspect both of them has a mild crush on each other but never show. Sussie is a smart girl, always wondering why is Calvin so weird and Calvin is unnerved by Susie being a girl which makes Calvin even more weirder. None of them seems to understand what's going on, which is dynamic and brings in the masala in the comic.
Miss Wormwood is the class teacher who is always annoyed of Calvin's explanation.
My understanding:
Calvin is a fun comic to read. There is not a single day when I have not read Calvin. Newspaper strip, internet, borrowing Calvin comics from library I read it everywhere....I have a passion for Calvin. The comic has everything which any good movie has. His imagination makes you think "Oh my God! was that also possible!?" Calvin is an impulsive, imaginative, energetic, curious, intelligent, and often selfish six-year-old. Despite his low grades, Calvin has a wide vocabulary range that rivals that of an adult as well as an emerging philosophical mind. “You know how Einstein got bad grades as a kid?” he says. “Well, mine are even worse!” He commonly wears his distinctive red striped shirt. His activites in school and preparing for assignments makes me laugh. He would say "As a math atheist, I should be excused from this" , "This one’s tricky. You have to use imaginary numbers, like eleventeen …" Whenever Sussie would accuse him of being lazy and unknowledgeable he would reply "I’m not dumb. I just have a command of thoroughly useless information" He often gets stuck in his assignments, he woudn't know how to start it and when Hobbes tries to inspire him this is how their conversation would go
"Calvin : You can’t just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood.
Hobbes : What mood is that?
Calvin : Last-minute panic."
His child/crush/love fight with Sussie is always a treat to read
“Hello Susie, this is Calvin. I lost our homework assignment. Can you tell me what we were supposed to read for tomorrow?”
“Are you sure you’re not calling for some other reason?”
“Why else would I call you?”
“Maybe you missed the melodious sound of my voice?”
“WHAT? Are you crazy? All I want is the STUPID assignment!”
“First say you missed the melodious sound of my voice.”
“THIS IS BLACKMAIL!”
Some of the quotes which relate to his school work:
“Aaugh! It’s a half-hour later than it was half an hour ago! Run! Run!”
“I’ve got plenty of common sense…. I just choose to ignore it.”
“Homework, I command thee, BE DONE!”
Calvin: Psst… Susie! What’s 12 + 7?
Susie: A billion.
Calvin: Thanks! Wait a minute. That can’t be right… That’s what she said 3 + 4 was.
Hobbes often teases Calvin regarding Sussie and this is how Calvin replies back to him
“Girls are like slugs, they probably serve some purpose, but it’s hard to imagine what!”
Calvin is a kind of lazy boy. He wants to play all day long but doesn't want to copmplete his homework, neither take a bath nor eat his food.
“Work fascinates me, I can watch it for hours" He enjoy holidays, want them them never end. Even weekends seems to be like a vacation for him.
"Weekends don’t count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless." He doesn't like to eat his food, especially when it's vegetables
“I ‘m not a vegetarian! I’m a dessertarian.”
He want to enjoy his life and his childhood
“Childhood is short, maturity is forever.” He consider himself as a superhero saving everyone from evil which usually his parents and teacher
“I want to be introduced as “Calvin, boy of destiny.” But you have to say it right, pause a little after “boy,” and say “Destiny” a bit slower and deeper for ephasis. Say it, “Boy….. Of Dessstiny,” Like that!”
Hobbes is a great friend of Calvin. They often discuss about affairs of life, its meaning, the present and the future.
“I’m a simple man, Hobbes.”
“You?? Yesterday you wanted a nuclear powered car that could turn into a jet with laser-guided heat-seeking missiles!”
“I’m a simple man with complex tastes.” They also fight which is delicious as a dessert
“Life’s disappointments are harder to take when you don’t know any swear words.” "Its no use! Everybody gets good enemies except me" After their fight they also make up for the sake of their friendship.
I can now understand why I wrote "Oh Calvin! My Calvin!!!" As time flows my love for Calvin increases and I search for different sources where I can read more and more of Calvin stories.
Since I have already stated my school's name, yes it is Shree Jain Vidyalaya, I would like to say something about it. Well, ofcourse it is of high standards. The percentage of first division is about 80% of total students. To enter into 11th standard was itself an achievment on my part. The teachers always said that "2 Ps" are famous in this school, one is Padhai(studies) and the other is pitai(punishment). They believed in "spare the rod, spoil the child" concept. That was 7 years ago, I don't know how the school behaves now. To me that was good. The students always studied out of their interest and high ambition so no case of "pitai". I took a lot of pride in my school's library. It was full of all kinds of book. In those days no friend of mine from other school ever said anything about their school's library that could make me believe that they had a better library than mine.
2 years was well spent in that school. I never went back for 4 years after class12 even though I always remembered them. I would often recommend it the young talented students. 4 years on after clearing my Higher Secondary exams there was a urge in the students of our batch to meet up again with the teachers, a kind of re-union. Not of a grand type but yes we did meet with a few handfull of us and no teacher. Nevertheless it was experience of reliving that part of school life that had a huge contribution of making us what we are today.
