Is that a cloud? Is that a plane? No, that is me trying to go home to return kindness that was taught to me. Spoiler alert: I do a very bad job.
Superman starts with a defeated superhero listening to his biological parents’ video (since that planet is no more), telling him why he is in this world. They want him to be kind, to serve, to be the man they know he is, a man who does the best in any circumstance, who wants to see the best in people, who thinks it is punk rocker to help.
Cut to the real world, where his world is poisoned with the day-to-day reality of what it is to be human without having parents who expect that out of you. Even though your adoptive parents are just as wonderful, they know you, they know your past, they know where you’re from and how you’ve been brought up, and yet they want you to do your best, whatever that means for you. And so do your friends, who are always challenging you to do better, always in your corner.
Superman, despite his superpowers, lives a wonderful life, having been put on this planet with a purpose. He has two sets of parents who just want him to do his best, a circle that roots for him and fends for him when he is down. All that 6’4” good looks, a horrible but cute dog, none of that changes the fact that some men just have all the luck.
With all that luck, what is not difficult for him is to understand what kindness can and will mean, what general empathy is and has been. You can have all the power and all the glory in the world, but you still may not know that genocide is bad. There are so many people I know who don’t have the privilege that Superman did, and yet they still know that… and that’s exactly my argument here.
I am a Savarna woman, with very liberal parents who also happen to be good people. They want me to do good and be good to the world, apart from believing in my potential to already do it. Their planet has picked the purpose for me as a Haryanvi woman (read: deleted embryos) who don’t see the light of day because of their gender, but I did. And I did not want to win a medal or be in NASA, but to just be myself, as long as I am kind and I never take the power of kindness for granted. I am still learning.
Cut to my beautiful family and friends (Read adoptive parents) who did the same: accepted me for who I am, and expected the exact same thing from me. Most of these wonderful people I know didn’t have the same upbringing as I did, and neither did my parents, making both my families these striking people who are better than any Superman ideology I have ever known. To come from a lineage of constant doubt and to give everything you touch hope to do better.
It is not the golden sun that makes Superman; it is the world that saw him and raised him and challenged him that makes him the person he is. Despite watching the illusion of his parents 'goodness" break in real time, he doesn't stop believing in the good of the world and what he can do for it.Making a child laugh, even if I am having a panic attack? Waiting on a stranger’s luggage because they forgot something in their cab, and they have a lot of stuff? Even when my beautiful parents and friends can’t see these acts, I do them because in those situations, I know if I don’t do it-I am deeply aware that if they found out I had the chance to do something good and I didn't, it would upset them.
However, these are small things. My main argument is that if everyone were as lucky as I am and as Superman, to have people goad you on for kindness, it still isn’t enough.
Someone last week sent me 3k for a blurry nude. I donated it to Gaza. Superman lost his reputation as a squirrel-saving hunk because he didn’t want kids to die in a nation that was being erased by another nation backed by a nation eerily similar to the one that owns dollar bills.
I am turning 30. Not enough people at the airport I can give joy to, not enough nudes I can sell to save Gaza, and Superman? Well, he isn’t real.
There is a nation of children starving and turning up dead by the minute. No amount of kindness from my circle or an actual Superman can fix that. You know what can help? Still doing your fucking best. It doesn’t matter if it’s donations or convincing a family member—it takes a village to change your village, too.
And if Superman, as a film, was “Genocide Is Bad for Dummies,” then do your bit. At the heart of Superman’s learning is: try to leave the world a better place than you found it. How does a world work with two-year-olds starving? The reason I won’t give you any political opinion here is very intentional—no two-year-old starving or an infant dying should be a political ideology. Children are dying, and genocide is bad. I don’t care if you were able to understand this because of Superman—you are here, with very little time on earth, and surrounded by tragedy every day. You can’t save the world, but what you can do is know that you and everyone around you are just as human as Superman was, who, in the face of his country doubting his immigrant status and confusing an immigrant with an alien, said:
“I’m as human as anyone. I love, I get scared. I wake up every morning and, despite not knowing what to do, I put one foot in front of the other and I try to make the best choices I can. I screw up all the time, but that is being human, and that’s my greatest strength.”
To end it with, we don’t have a Superman. We do still see people with certain names as aliens, though, and we punish them for it. The golden sun comes up whenever you want to wake up, and holding your little heart and doing better and being kind, even if it’s for the optics of your chosen family, does make you Superman, or, going by his definition, just a human doing their best.
Author's note: This piece is dedicated to all the Superman (mostly women) I know, and most of all, Deyir Nalo, who would care for the squirrels just as much as her city during a monster attack. I have sprinted towards a community of kind women due to you, and for that, I am forever indebted.
About the Author: Smriti Bhoker is an Urdu poet, lyricist, screenwriter, and culture essayist based in Mumbai, India, where she heads a techno record label. With a master's degree in sociology, she brings a deep understanding of culture and society into her creative work. Smriti has published two Urdu books that fall under the genre of political poetry. Smriti’s work often explores themes of identity, language, and social narratives.
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