Batman in Marathi: Wagle. Nikhil Wagle.

I miss Marathi version of Phantom: Vetal वेताळ. Read more about it here.

I don't think Batman has ever has been translated in Marathi. Not that lovingly anyway.

If I were to attempt it, I would translate 'Batman' in Marathi as 'Wagle'; in Devanagari: 'वागळे'.

Mr.Bal Thackeray's newspaper 'Saamna' derisively called Nikhil Wagle, the editor of a Marathi news-channel IBN-Lokmat आयबीएन-लोकमत , 'vatwaghaLe' (वटवाघळे).

It's a pun on Wagle's name. In Marathi, 'vatwaghaLe' means bats. It becomes a taunt because in popular Marathi culture bats don't get much respect.

Now they should.

I don't like majority of Indian electronic media and print media. I particularly dislike journalism of Wagle's boss: Rajdeep Sardesai and Times Now's Arnab Goswami. (I often imagine how Jon Stewart would have handled these two if he were in India.)

But I admire the courage of Nikhil Wagle. It reminds me of Mahatma Gandhi's Satyagrahis.

By saying this, perhaps I am thrusting too much of greatness on him. However, like the protagonist of R K Narayan's "The Guide", he deserves it in the end.

(By the way, taking financial risks, Wagle has published some excellent Marathi books.)

Wagle is brave. Like Raju-the-guide. Like Batman.

But I don't understand why IBN-Lokmat's tagline reads "चला, जग जिंकूया!!!" ("Come, let us conquer the world!!!".) What has journalism even to remotely do with 'conquering of the world'?

(Even a publication like 'The Economist' would go for a tagline like: "Come, let US conquer the world!!!")!

But now that I find Batman-like quality in Wagle, maybe the tagline makes sense. He really wants to conquer the world.



Artist: Danny Shanahan, The New Yorker, June 12 1995

My caption:

"I do love you, but I love you as a Shiv Sena fighter."