The realities of life...as in the words (and sketches) of Bill Watterson

Almost each one of us who has ever been a kid has always been a comics lover. And almost every comic lover has read the brilliant work of antics by Bill Watterson. The Reuben Award winner who gave us the comic strip called - "Calvin and Hobbes".

There are few wellsprings of humor more consistently reliable than the mind of a child. Most cartoonists, being childlike, recognize this, but when they set out to capture the hurly - burly of the very young, they almost always cheat, shamelessly creating not recognisable children, but highly annoying, wisecracking, miniature adults. Chalk it up to either indolence or defective recall, but most people who write comic dialogue for minors (up to and including the perpetrators of Cosby kids) demonstrate surprisingly little feel for - or faith in - the original source material , that is, childhood, in all its unfettered and winsome glory.



It is in this respect that Bill Watterson has proved as unusual as his feckless creations, Calvin and Hobbes. Watterson is the reporter who's gotten it right; childhood as it actually is, with its constantly shifting frames of reference. Anyone who's done time with a small child knows that reality can be alarmingly situational. The utterance which an adult knows to be a "lie" may well reflect a child's deepest conviction, at least at the moment it pops out.



Fantasy is so accessible, and it is joined with such force and frequency, that resentful parents like Calvin's assume they are being manipulated, when the truth is far more frightening, they dont even exist. The child is both king and keeper of this realm, and he can be very choosey about the company he keeps.

Of course, this exclusivity only provokes many grown ups into trying to regain the serendipity of youth for themselves, to, in effect retrieve the irretrievable. A desperate few do things that land them in the Betty Ford Centre (A Drug Treatment Centre).

The rest of us, more sensibly read Calvin and Hobbes.

While going through this strip, one can very well connect their own childhood with that of the little mascot of innocence, the little boy being Calvin.

Preface

Hi Guys!!
This is the first post of my blog and thus, it ought to be about me. After all, you should know who's the author is, what does he do and why the hell is he here....

So, here it goes..
I'm Rachit Gandhi, a poor boy stuck into the trap laid by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India...and a lad stupid enough to be overtly ambitious about his life. The ambition that helped him get through to PwC (Price Waterhouse Coopers) for his CA internship.
It was the twenty ninth day of august, the year 2007. My first day at PwC and there it was....DAMN!!
It was a day then, and its a day today, my life's been revolving around Journal Entries, Expenses, Bank Accounts
and blah blah!!
Friends began to just invite me for the hang outs rather that insisting on me to come (how i miss that!!).

Rewinding a little...I did my schooling from Ryan International School. Like every other "grown up" (though I'm just 20 yet...but i do go to an office!!), I too become a little nostalgic about my Alma Mater days. Those Thirteen Years (no, i did not flunk..I'm including the Montessori session too..) were about putting my nose into everything...be it basket ball, roller hockey, debating, and other activities like being punished for not completing my homework...getting red cheeks for not getting the "Incomplete" notes signed by my parents..trying my hand at writing stuff...reading harry potter under my Business Studies book.. (yeah..i did that in my eleventh grade)...bunking classes to play basketball and then invite the same teacher to play with us...getting zillions of wounds and bruises while zipping around on the skates...
How i miss those days... how i miss the creative and the witty side of me. It all ended on the day...the twenty ninth of august, 2007 (now u know why i said...DAMN!!!)

After one and a half year of working...three years of being barely in touch with my "chaddi buddies"...and three years of doing anything except the things that I said I do in PwC...here I am, putting in a conscious effort to recreate myself...this blog being a barometer of my reinvention process.

This was the most concise way in which I could have given you an insight into my life and thanks to the cold that I've got some time to rest and start this blog which has been in mind since a few weeks now...

See you later with other things to discuss about....
As ta la Vista...