Who watches the Watchmen?

Shakespeare was a genius. To be or not to be …that is definitely the question.

Earlier I used to think that he was just a 16^th century play writer who had a long sight to write screenplays for some of the current bollywood movies.

Not anymore. He captured the human dilemma in just one simple sentence.

The sudden reason for my epiphany about Shakespeare is a book called Watchmen which I finished recently (Finished reading. Not finished making airplanes out of its pages or drawing moustaches to characters which is what I usually do with books). The book is old. But since I have taken extraordinary efforts to distance myself from the serious literature, it’s new to me. And this book is a serious material though I was somewhat deceived by the fact that it’s a comic. Besides being a serious book, it’s also a very disturbing book. The only book which disturbed me more than this was a book on “puberty issues”. Given to me in my late teen years. The person was a few years too late in giving me that book and I never went beyond first few pages. But whatever I read made me feel as if I was going through that phase again. It was horrible.

Watchmen is disturbing because it makes us ask questions of which answers we already know but don’t want to acknowledge that we know and ignore them. See what I mean? It made me write a completely incomprehensible sentence just for the heck of it.

It makes you ask things like what is right and what is wrong? Who is right and who is wrong? Who decides that? Is everything worth in the end? More importantly it forces you to make a choice in the end.

Personally I don’t like to choose. I can’t even choose between ice cream and chocolate. I prefer my ice cream topped with chocolate rather than choosing any one of it. That’s why all that Shakespeare quote and dilemma thing up there. And I am not good at asking questions. Come to think of it I am not very good at giving answers either.

The book deals with superheroes and their mentality and psychology behind their masks. I mean what sane person would wear his underwear over his tights? Why would he wear tights in public in the first place?

There are many books out there which deal with similar storyline. But its approach and the fact that it’s a comic book – a graphic novel if you will – is what makes Watchmen different. You don’t expect comics to behave in such a way. You don’t want comics to behave in such a way. Being a comic lets it not only tell but show you things that are very real. Or could be real.

There a reason why this book is the only comic to win a Hugo Award and to be listed in the Time magazine’s all time 100 greatest English novels.

“You introduced me to Harry Potter, I give you Watchmen”. My cousin told me solemnly while handing me the book. His entire demeanor was that of king presenting someone the knighthood.

Harry Potter’s is a world where we don’t live in but want to. At least I do. And Watchman’s is a world where we live in but don’t want to.

One thing I can say without dilemma is that this maybe the first Alan Moore book that I have read but it definitely isn’t the last.