The Long Way Back
A musing on comics, childhood, and the strange ways some things find their way back home.
About twenty-five years ago, on a hot Sunday afternoon, I remember hurrying home after Sunday school with a borrowed copy of Volume 2 of Batman: Black and White tucked under my shirt.
Amma had serious reservations about a grown man in a cape, wearing a mask, and snooping around on rooftops being the best influence on an eleven-year-old.
I remember rainy nights with that book. A companion through sick days from school. Friday evenings at the start of a long weekend, staying up late, convinced it would make the weekend last longer.
I held on to that issue for as long as I could before reluctantly returning it.
Only to borrow it again during the summer holidays.
And again around Diwali.
And a few more times after that.
Batman comics were never easy for me to own.
Every winter came with a reading allowance just before the long train journey home.
It was enough for two or three paperback novels, but never enough for a single Batman digest.
Two books from those years never really left me: Volume 2 of Batman: Black and White and The Long Halloween. I still remember reading The Long Halloween through a week of chickenpox.
About twelve years later, after I got my first job, I found that same Batman: Black and White volume at Landmark.
The price tag still won the argument.
I told myself I’d come back for it.
Another ten years rolled by.
I never kept my end of the bargain.
Someone else did.
Today, the entire Batman: Black and White collection sits on my shelf.
Every time I look at it, I think about that borrowed copy I carried home after Sunday school.
Some things take a little longer
to find their way home.
