orpheus78 had this interview meme on his Livejournal, in which he can ask a potential interviewee five questions, and those questions have to be answered on the latter’s Journal. I volunteered, and these are the five questions he asked me. Each question in itself would be fodder for single posts, but I have done my best to abstain from excessive verbosity.

1.What are the best and worst things about living in India?

The diversity. It’s like constantly being surprised by your surroundings. You travel to a place a few hundred miles away, and you find yourself in a locality that looks completely different, that has a different language, the food’s different – it’s like you are somewhere else altogether. Meeting people whose lifestyles are radically different from one another, and watching them get along. There’s just too much of this country to take in during one’s lifetime.

The worst thing about living in India is the tendency to “adjust” yourself to societal norms. I know that’s a problem everywhere, but more pronounced in India because of the volume of the population. You find yourself conforming to a lot of things just because it’s the acceptable thing to do, and not because you like doing it or would want to do it. It’s still a country where your future career would be decided by your parents and the people around you, and not by what you are interested in.

2.What do you think is the worst thing about being a collector of stuff, aside from the obvious two problems of spending too much money and running out of space?

Three things. Burning out. Running out of things to collect. The fact that my collection won’t be appreciated by my kids.

What worries me the most is that one fine day I might wake up and get the feeling that everything I own is worthless and does not deserve a bit of my attention, which for me is equivalent to burning out. Looking around for things to possess, that gives me the enthusiasm to look forward to every new day, and I do not want to lose that. I have begun collecting comics artwork because I had a scary thought last year – at the rate at which I was getting things, by the time I was thirty, I would own and read every comic I ever wanted. Original artwork would make it more challenging – I have a new set of goals in life now.

I constantly fear that my kids (that is, the progeny of me and my future wife) would be these gadget-crazy, coke-snorting, party-going animals who would think me a doddering old fool who has spent money on a bunch of useless artifacts. I have come out of that phase now. I will show those wretched ingrates who’s boss – I shall just gift my comics away to the first comicbook fan I find! (No donating to libraries, libraries in India are full of magpies who would rather lock book collections away than let people at them. Which is not a bad thing, really.)

3. What collectable have you spend the most time trying to acquire, and was it worth it when you finally got it?
This was the easiest to answer.

Before eBay, there was the humble Indian Book Store, where one could pick up scattered issues of comic series and try to make sense out of them. So it was with a miniseries called Batman: Black and White, which came out sometime in the nineties, with quirky stories related to Batman and his mythology, all of which were out-of-continuity, and written and illustrated by the best creators in the industry. You had everyone from Denny O’Neil to Katsuhiro Otomo to Simon Bisley to Brian Bolland to Neil Gaiman writing about Batman, and was it good or what!

I found issue 4 first, in 1997 in a bookstore in Guwahati. Issue 3 in 1998 in a dingy basement shop in Delhi, issue 2 in Hyderabad, in 2002, in a book-sale right next to my office. And I DIED looking for issue 1. It was nowhere to be found! I was tempted quite a few times to buy it on eBay, but refused to do so, out of the stubborn belief that I would find it someday, just like I found the other three issues.

Until I talk to a friend in Guwahati, and he casually mentions that among the comics he bought in a recent Book Fair, issue 1 of Batman:Black and White. It took a lot out of my Amazing Powers of Persuasion(tm) to get him to part with it. That, and a couple of issues of Ronin.

It was worth it, it was completely worth it. The Bruce Timm Two-Face story in the first issue alone made up for all the wait.

4. If you could ask Alan Moore one question, what would it be?

Now this question made me think a lot. Because there are a lot of questions I could ask Mr Moore that would get me a firm “no”. ( Examples that come to mind: “Would you have me for your son-in-law?”, “Can I come visit you sometime?”, “Could I kiss your fingers?”) or monosyllabic answers.

Hmm, sometime in the unforeseeable future, I would like to ask him this question, either in person or through mail. Pardon the long-windedness of the question, or the inherent conceit. Even though this *might* still get me a monosyllabic answer, it would at least make me happy to ask the question.

“Mr Moore, I am from India, and I have been part of this community that encourages comic reading and collecting throughout the country. We are organising the first comic-convention ever in India, and though I know that you do not frequent such events outside the UK, we would be honoured to have you as a guest here, and we promise you a good time and a lack of any autograph hounds during your stay. Would you be interested?”

5. What do you believe is the biggest misconception of you that people have?

That I spend too much money. Not really. I buy loads of stuff, true, but I rarely buy them at full price, or the price they retail for. I do not spend money on (what I inherently think are) stupid things – like full-price branded apparel, or shoes, or over-priced restaurants. $299 for an iPod, which will last only a couple of hundred battery cycles? Uh HUH! I would rather buy a Bill Sienkiewicz original page for the same price, and listen to music on my discman.

The second-biggest misconception people have is that I am obsessed, which is not really a misconception, because yes, I am obsessed. “Focussed” is the word I prefer, but I can live with obsessed, too. :-P