Mirchandani of the India Book House (IBH) agreed to fund Pai’s venture. The proposal was declined and Anant Pai fortuitously quit his job.Īfter patiently knocking on numerous doors, Anant Pai finally found the portals that would welcome his passion for the cultural re-education of India’s children.
In February 1967, he watched a quiz show on Doordarshan where participants easily answered questions from Greek mythology but didn’t know the answer to the question “In the Ramayana, who is Rama's mother?" Consequently, he approached the Times management with a proposal to start a comic book series that featured stories from the Indian puranic, historical and other lore.
Indeed, the story of how Anant Pai left the Times Group to found ACK is interesting in itself. In irony-mixed hindsight, he went on to head the Indrajal Comics label of the Times group, which syndicated the Phantom and Mandrake titles. He became a junior executive in the Books division there. Hailing from Karkala (near Mangalore, then part of the Madras Presidency), he moved to Bombay and took a dual degree in Physics and Chemical technology and joined Times of India. The journey of Amar Chitra Katha begins with its founder Anant Pai, who would go on to earn renown as “Uncle” Pai. Three, it successfully held its own against the dominant and popular comic book series syndicated and redistributed from the West such as Phantom, Mandrake, Flash Gordon, and so on.īut first here is some data that shows the sheer scale of success that ACK has left behind.Īn Uncle from Karkala Becomes a Cultural Icon In hindsight, it is truly astonishing to note that Hindu minds could be decolonized even in this fashion. Amar Chitra Katha comics represent cultural unlearning and re-education. Two, it educated, nay reawakened at least two generations of Indians to the wealth of their own cultural and historical heritage in a fun and lively manner. One, it became an innovative, commercially successful, and path-breaking publishing phenomenon in a genre that was largely nascent and spawned a massive spurt in the comic-book industry by instilling confidence in others who had aspired to but hadn’t so far dared venture into the arena. What began in 1967 as a modest endeavour that was born out of a deep-seated cultural conviction achieved three things with great aplomb. Street-corner newspaper and magazine stalls and newsagents saw their profits bulge thanks to ACK and Tinkle.Īn Endeavour Rooted in Cultural Conviction
There was no school that didn’t stock multiple copies of the same ACK titles and Tinkle issues. It appeared that parents, more than their kids, were eager to see their boys and girls dazzle on stage with Uncle Pai. If memory serves me right again, this was the fifth or sixth edition of this annual quiz. Standing on stage with The Uncle Pai still remains one of the memories thousands of people from my generation greatly cherish.Ī truthful rendering of contemporary cultural history of India reveals how Uncle Pai became an unlikely legend in the prime of his own lifetime as we shall see. But even the vast number of children who gave wrong answers as Uncle Pai quizzed them on stage would be given a modest gift hamper containing various titles from the sumptuous stable of Amar Chitra Katha. The top three winners would get to visit the Amar Chitra Katha office in Bombay, apart from getting assorted goodies. By a process of elimination (who answered most of the questions correctly), a select few would make it to the aforementioned finale in different cities and towns where the venerable Uncle Pai would himself be on stage as the quizmaster. The occasion: a quiz competition, a grand finale of sorts, conducted by Uncle Pai.Ī few months prior to this event, schoolchildren across the country falling in the nine – thirteen age range were invited to fill out a questionnaire appearing in various titles of Amar Chitra Katha (ACK), and Tinkle issues.
In that enclosed desert devoid of airconditioners, cheap, rickety fans rattled loudly and tirelessly but were ineffectual in trying to keep the throng of children and parents cool but instead succeeded in circulating hot air and collective fumes of foul breath which had a unique stench of its own.
The 1300-capacity hall was home to a scene of a sea of humanity in the heat of summer holidays. If I recall correctly, the venue was Ravindra Kalakshetra, Bangalore, sometime in the mid-1980s.