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A Mighty Indian Girl

Created by Stan Lee and Sharad Devarajan, Leela (as her alter ego Mighty Girl) is hoping to be the kind of girl little girls look up to

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Raju Rai and Leela save the world as Mighty Girl and Chakra
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For long a male bastion, the pantheon of comic superheroes has had an interesting addition: Mighty Girl; what is more important is, she from India. Launched in November, Mighty Girl is the alter-ego of

Leela, best friend of one of India’s most popular superhero characters, Chakra the Invincible. Like Chakra, Mighty Girl is also the brainchild of the iconic Stan Lee, and Graphic India’s Sharad Devarajan. Lee is the famous name behind such superhero franchises as SpiderMan, X-Men, and The Avengers. Mighty Girl has also found some very powerful backers along the way thanks to Chakra’s early success: the United Nations and screenwriter Richard Curtis’ World’s Largest Lesson.

Together, they are all banking on Mighty Girl and Chakra to achieve a transformative change among schoolchildren. The two young superheroes, in their early teens, feature in four new cartoons themed around the UN’s sustainable development goals of access to quality education, gender equality, access to sanitation and clean water, and climate action. These cartoons are being distributed free in schools and their digital versions are available for free download.

In the most impressive of these four comics, Chakra aka Raju Rai, saves Earth from an asteroid hurtling towards it, but a piece of rock that he takes home as a memento triggers a reaction in which Raju and Leela transmigrate into each other’s bodies. So Raju is now Leela, who is ordered by her mother to do the dishes, sweep the floor and make tea while he would rather be playing with friends.

At the same time, Leela (who has become Raju) is spared household chores. When a monster attacks the city, Leela, in Chakra’s avatar saves the day. Raju realises the comforts boys take for granted and resolves to be an advocate for gender equality.

The ‘shero’ we wanted

Sharad Devarajan says that Mighty Girl was created after collecting feedback from girls around the country. “We asked them what superpower they would wish to have,” says Sharad. “The thoughts they had, the way they imagined the superhero to be, the kind of values they were looking influenced and shaped Mighty Girl.”

On fictional role models becoming a source of inspiration Sharad says, “Superheroes allow kids to look for the best role models because they exemplify qualities such as work ethic, tolerance, respect, and justice. Mighty Girl speaks to all of that. The more important aspect is Mighty Girl’s relationship with Chakra. We want to portray the great mutual respect they have for each other, the way they work together to solve problems and respect each other as equals.”

“UN global goals are big goals and abstract in one sense,” he says. “Richard Curtis and the UN were looking for a way to make these broad girls human, relatable and entertaining. Take the comic on gender equality. Many girls around the world, and not just in India, have to do a lot of domestic chores and do their homework too. Boys are just ignorant of these struggles. The goal of the story was to get the boys to walk in someone else’s shoes and hopefully that changes their perception.”

THE MISS & MAUSI OF INDIAN COMICS

In Yo Mausi, a plump middle-aged woman is the object of ridicule. Here goes one of the tasteless wisecracks: “Yo Mausi is so fat that she fell in love and broke it.” The cartoon was a regular feature on LiveMedia’s network of LCD advertisement screens stationed at popular fast food joints.

Miss Moti is the antithesis of Yo Mausi. The Miss Moti comic series is about a spunky woman who is plump. She uses her extraordinary imagination to dispel the boredom of her routine life. Some of the comics can be read on the creator Kripa Joshi’s website www.missmoti.com

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