Computers and Turbans: Exploring the Indian Middle Class through Pran's Comic World

Pran Kumar Sharma created his characters for the Hindi monthlies Lotpot and Madhu Muskaan in the early Seventies, and all of them went on to harbour separate titles as standalone comic books from the mid Seventies. This paper aims to unearth the socio-political layers of Pran’s world, pitted against the Goliath of globalisation, draw substantial parallels with the then-contemporary middle-cinema of Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Basu Chatterjee, and Sai Paranjpey, and affirm the battle between the Indian spirit of aatma-shakti and chintan-manan versus the looming danger of the very tangible yet enigmatic Western modernity.