From: Mermaid . (britannica@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Mar 19 2002 - 19:08:33 MST
See Dubyaman: http://203.199.93.9/today/dubs.html
Indian comic strip spoofs US president George Bush
NEW DELHI, March 19 (Reuters) - "It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's
Dubyaman making the world safe for democracy."
Dubyaman, an Indian comic strip superhero, is a parody of the gaffe-prone
U.S. president, George W. Bush, and his blustering oratory through a host of
problems from Afghanistan and the India-Pakistan spat to religious riots in
northern India.
The controversial comic strip -- being exhibited in New Delhi -- was
launched in one of the country's leading newspapers, The Times of India,
after Bush vowed to bring Osama bin Laden to justice "dead or alive" after
the plane attacks in September.
"The situation has all the elements of a black comedy. I saw an American
style superhero -- in the mould of a comic book Superman -- but one who had
the knack of tripping over his tonsils every time he opened his mouth," said
Jug Suraiya, the writer of the comic strip.
"And so Dubyaman was born. A deranged superhero destined to skid on the
banana peel of his own ineptitude," said Suraiya, India's answer to Art
Buchwald whose column has kept readers in splits for years.
Dubyaman, a Caped Crusader in a red cape and a blue bodysuit, gets his name
from Bush's nickname Dubya, which is also the way the Texans pronounce "W."
Suraiya teamed up with veteran cartoonist Neelabh Banerjee who regularly
illustrates his column to produce the cartoon.
One strip showed Dubyaman using his Dubyastrength and Dubyavision to find
Imad Mughniyey, who some newspaper said was responsible for the attacks on
the United States.
At the end of it, Dubyaman tells a news conference Osama was to blame for
the plane attacks. How did he figure that out? "I used my super Dubya
pronunciation. I can pronounce Osama but I can't pronounce the other guy's
name."
In another strip, a confused Dubyaman jogs his memory to remember the name
of the place he has to attack: "Foreign names are hell to remember. It
begins with an A. Albania? Alcatraz? Ayodhya?"
He finally decides that if he can't remember all he has to do is "take out"
every place with A and "make no mistake, sooner of later I'll get the right
one!"
"And heck... If I'm wrong about it beginning with an A, I can always try the
Bs... And so on all the way to Z."
HATE MAIL
The comic strip has delighted thousands of Times of India readers but has
received reams of hate mail as well. Critics say the comic strip is
tasteless and offensive.
"You make me sick. Instead of making fun of the president of a great nation
why don't you pick on India's corrupt and inefficient leaders," said an
angry Dolly Bhattacharya in an email to the Times of India.
But Suraiya, who says he was "appalled by the atrocity" on September 11,
says the strip seeks to bring alive the dangers of fighting terrorism with
terrorism.
He says he isn't anti-American, pro-terrorist or "some sort of commie" as
one U.S. diplomat described him.
"But while the rubble of the twin towers was still smouldering George W.
Bush began to make his first Rambospeak pronouncements. 'Osama: Dead or
Alive' and 'We'll smoke them out'."
"We can't fight terrorism with the blitzkrieg tactics employed in
Afghanistan where bombs and food packets were dropped side by side. The
Afghanistan campaign probably gave rise to more terrorists than it
destroyed."
So, in one strip you have Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh telling
Dubyaman that a newspaper report says terrorists are now threatening
Kathmandu.
Dubyaman's response? "Kathmandu? Kabul, Kunduz, Kandahar and now Kandahar!
Don't these Afghan guys have any place that ain't spelt with a K?"
Suraiya's satirical eye doesn't miss the grisly burning alive of 58 Hindu
devotees in a train in Godhra town in western India by a Muslim mob last
month that triggered a wave of revenge killings in which some 700 people,
mainly Muslims, were slaughtered.
One series has Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee telling "Dubyaji"
that people believe Pakistani intelligence was behind the Godhra incident.
"Gee, that's great! It means that your fanatics and their fanatics are
working together in a spirit of cooperation -- your first joint venture
exercise," says Dubyaman.
Suraiya says people can love Dubyaman or they can hate him.
"In either case, today Dubyaman is no longer an individual but a state of
mind: a combination of arrogance, ignorance and intolerance."
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