While Hari Sankar and I were the master performers of the glorious
Meghadooth theatre, there were some notable guest appearances over the course
of the years. Sometimes this involved our respective cousins, but also those occasional
child candidates who popped up as residents in Meghadooth III.
The two names that I can remember now are Chinthu and
Shyama. Chinthu was, of course, a pet name. I cannot recall her real name. I
think she was younger than us, and the other more enthusiastic one who came
after Chinthu was Shyama, who was our age.
However, their stay at the ill christened Meghadooth III,
was so short that I cannot shed light on any particularly memorable events
involving them.
It has to be said that the real addition to our gaming
company was made when Malu, my sister, turned old enough to run and climb small
heights. Unfortunately for her, she was at the mercy of two tyrannical older
boys who cast her in the least wanted roles in many productions. Sigh. The hierarchies
of the playground were a bit cruel, as is the custom with most children.
Hari Sankar’s own younger brother Ravi, never really joined
in as much, at least not to my recollection. He was a somewhat quiet kid, who
preferred to play indoors, I suppose.
One game we played that made an adequate investment in the
memory bank, probably because of its silliness, was the wonderfully pointless
game of ‘Superhuman Samurai’. It was a television show that aired back then,
and I must say, as I'm typing this the theme song just began playing in my
head.
Let me give you a brief into to Superhuman Samurai. No, it
was not a cool, modern or classic take on a Samurai warrior with superpowers.
If only.
The story was set in a high school or college in America.
There was a guy and a girl, as there often are, who were the heroes. The bad
guy, who I still vaguely remember, was a guy dressed all in black - Malcolm.
I remember this because when the credits were rolling, I
always noticed the name Malcolm. This was mostly because I couldn't understand
why there would be a second ‘L’ in the word, when they did not seem to pronounce
it at all. The strange ways of foreigners, I thought, impressed with the
novelty of the language none the less.
Basically, the plot goes thus. Things would be said in
English, which we mostly didn't follow. Then the lead guy would play his
electric guitar and get transported in a weird ‘Tron’ like world, where
computer chips and processors were buildings and towers. But not as himself.
No. He would appear as a Power Ranger type figure, who would be fighting
Malcolm, who would be controlling a Godzilla type robo - monster. Then the lead
guy would transform into a giant robot himself with various other characters
forming his various robotic limbs and such.
Sounds confusing?
It was. We just wanted to see the giant robots fight.
The game, that would follow one of the half hour episodes of
the Superhuman Samurai, was just the transformation into the giant robot and
then a pretend fight with… well, air.
And before you imagine a nifty scene with lots of props, I
shall tell you that the giant imaginary robot was formed by me pretending to be
a robot head, holding my hands in various abstract shapes while making hissing
and whirring noises. Then, Hari Sankar would run at me and stand on my right
pretending to be a robot arm or gun. Malu, having no call in the casting
process, became a robot shoe, crouched unhappily near my feet.
That about sums it up. Yeah, it wasn't a shining example of
creativity.
(concluding part to
be posted soon)
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