Thanks to the interview I had with Hadji’s season one actor Michael Benyaer, I learned that Benyaer partly based his interpretation of the character on Mahatma Gandhi. So I thought it’d be neat to compare Hadji’s personality/attributes to his real-life influences.
Attributes of Sabu in Hadji
Screengrab from The Jungle Book
Of course, the easiest thing to see is that Hadji got his looks from ’40s film star Sabu. When Hadji was created in the ’60s, he was based loosely on Sabu, who was still popular from television. But, it’s nice to see that Sabu’s physical influence stayed with the character, even as he aged.
Both Hadji and Sabu were orphans. I’m not sure the creator of Hadji actually went that far into Sabu’s history as to make Hadji an orphan also, but it’s a neat coincidence. Where the two diverge, aside from one being a real-life person, is that Sabu was raised by his father (a mahout, or elephant driver)’s employer, the Maharajah of Mysore; Hadji’s caretaker was a street-wise (and surprisingly worldly) peddler named Pasha.
Both were/are highly enigmatic. The fact that Hadji was based on Sabu, a person whose fame is partly owed to his Indian heritage being showcased to an Anglocentric America, shows how pervasive the idea of the exotic is. There were other reasons Hadji was created, but the fact remains that his exoticism lent a well-traveled air to the show’s authenticity. Also, the idea of Hadji knowing “magic” tricks added to his mysteriousness (as well as the notion that all Eastern people dabble in magic). Thankfully, this “magic” stuff was tampered down in the first season of Real Adventures, but once season two came rolling in, everyone else, including the co-producer Peter Lawrence (who backed the decisions to make Hadji a representation of a three-dimensional Indian person) and Benyaer went out, and the season was less than stellar, especially since it marked the return of “mystical” Hadji.
Aside from the mysticism bent, the idea of Hadji knowing quotes from famous authors and other persons of interest lends an air of mysteriousness of a different nature. One thing that’s a constant in life is that extremely smart people tend to be either misunderstood or thought of as deep and cryptic. This is one of the reasons Jessie is always drawn to him in the Real Adventures show (even that second season). (Jessie/Hadji is written into the Writer’s Bible, so I’m only using their words, here!)
Both were taken away from India in order to have the finer things in life. Maybe I’m being to sensitive, but keep in mind that I’m not insinuating that you can’t live a full, productive, rewarding life in India. What I am saying is that both Sabu and Hadji were on one of the lower rungs of society, and fate came in and took care of them. For Sabu, fate came in the form of the Flahertys, who made documentaries and films of exotic locales (Robert Flaherty made a name for himself in his Inuit epic, Nanook of the North); for Hadji, it was the arrival of Dr. Quest and crew.
Attributes of Gandhi in Hadji
Gandhi statue by Fredda Brilliant, Tavistock Square, London. Credit: Strt (Flickr Creative Commons)
Both have elements of a British education. While Gandhi went to Britain to study law, Hadji was characterized by Benyaer as having traces of a British education. The extent of Hadji’s education isn’t mentioned in either version of the show, but since Benayer used Gandhi as inspiration, it’s worth making a note of.
Both were/are also deep thinkers. Not to say Sabu wasn’t a deep thinker, but, in his lifetime, Gandhi said a lot of extremely profound things. What Gandhi said are words to live by, and I think Hadji’s characterization has many of Gandhi’s teachings embedded in him. And as I said above, Hadji’s ability to quote at will–and know the meaning of what he’s quoting–shows a high IQ. Even though they aren’t part of the same religion, Gandhi’s method of nonviolence lines up with the nonviolence (unless extremely provoked) teachings of Sikhism, something I’ve been promising to write about (it’ll happen; give it time).
To be fair, both Sabu and Gandhi shared a high tolerance and acceptance of different cultures and different modes of living; Gandhi not only traveled to Britain, but also South Africa before he developed his nonviolence ideology. Sabu (along with his brother, Dastagir) traveled to Britain to promote Elephant Boy and later traveled to–and lived in–America. He even served in WWII as an American soldier. If cartoons were aware of their inspirations, Hadji should be glad to know that he is abstractly related to such good, important, and notable people.
To learn more about Gandhi, click here, and to learn more about Sabu, click here and here.
