Comics like Tinkle and Amar Chitra Katha then became the primary and sometimes only source of relatable stories deeply rooted in their culture. Their choices were largely limited to Japanese animes like Digimon, Pokemon, Sakura or American toons like Scooby Doo, the Powerpuff Girls and Ben 10. But for the average Indian kid growing up in the 1980s and ’90s, there were no relatable Indian cartoons on air. Kids these days are avidly watching Indian cartoons like Chota Bheem, Motu Patlu and Roll no.21, which have Indian settings, relatable relationships and very desi names.
That’s when my mother bought my sister and me almost 2,000 Amar Chitra Kathas,” she tells ThePrint. Once they passed, my parents didn’t really have a reservoir of stories to read to me every night. My grandparents used to tell me at least one mythological story before putting me to bed. “Indian mythological stories have traditionally been passed down orally. The senior consultant at a leading not-for-profit organisation in Mumbai says that it was reading these books after the passing of her grandparents that helped not only her but her parents to keep up with Indian folk tales in their cosmopolitan lives. This is why they’ve played an integral role in Sneha Ramanan’s life, in shaping her idea of Indian culture as a child. The best part about Amar Chitra Katha is that the books were able to break down the extremely complex world of Indian mythology into easily readable stories, mirroring the ease with which our grandparents told us old stories. Shikari Shambhu is now an animal conservationist | By special arrangement | ThePrint Seminal work on Indian culture and mythology Both brands were acquired by ACK Media in 2007.
In the 1980s, Tinkle, the much-loved fortnightly children’s magazine that has given India some of its most popular comic characters like Suppandi, Tantri the Mantri and Shikari Shambhu, was launched by Uncle Pai under the aegis of ACK. He soon quit his job with The Times of India and, a year later, in 1967, he launched Amar Chitra Katha, a seminal series of comic books published by India Book House that have documented Indian mythology, folk tales and ancient and modern history. That’s the moment he conceived the idea of creating a series on Indian mythology and culture. While watching a quiz show on Doordarshan back in the 1960s, Anant (Uncle) Pai was disgruntled by the fact that while the participants knew a lot about Greek heroes and mythology, they displayed an embarrassing lack of knowledge on Indian mythology.
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