HVK Archives: Pai piper
Pai piper - The Sunday Times of India
Nina Martyris
()
3 August 1997
Title: Pai piper
Author: Nina Martyris
Publication: The Sunday Times of India
Date: August 3, 1997
In the spring of 1967, Anant Pai was standing at the junction of Ajmalkhan
Road and Gurudwara Road in New Delhi, waiting for a lull in the traffic.
At that crossing, he had what he calls an "an emotional experience", the
lasting impact of which can he seen in every book stall countrywide: the
Amar Chitra Katha.
"At the intersection of those two roads," says Pai, harking back to the
decisive moment, "was a TV shop. A programme - an intercollegiate quiz. was
on. One of the participating teams, St Stephen's, Delhi, was asked to name
the mother of Ram, and they drew a blank - though, mind you, they knew the
names of all the gods on Mount Olympus. This kind of ignorance was
alarming, and I felt I had to do something."
Later on, that fateful summer, Pai tried to gainfully occupy his nieces and
nephews by asking them to put together their own magazine. What emerged was
an anglicised little pamphlet. "They had written a poem on flowers called
Daffodils. there was a story on a boy called Robert who lived in
Warrington, and was yearning to see the lights of London city, Nothing
wrong with Robert or with Warrington, but it indicated how children's minds
were so swamped with the world of Blyton and the English countryside that
their imagination excluded their own home country. A mango tree has to have
the roots of a mango tree."
The twin impact of the two incidents was catalyst enough for Pai. H is
eagerness to promote the story of Ram and tales from the Panchatantra,
however, was not well received by the publishing powers of the time.
Finally, India Book House agreed. Beginning on a slimmer than shoe-string
budget, Amar Chitra Katha brought out its first issue: Krishna. Thirty
years and 436 titles later, Krishna remains the undisputed best-seller.
"Krishna has, to date, sold more than eleven lakh copies," says Pai
enthusiastically. "It has been translated into 38 languages including
Dutch, German, Swahili and Serbo Croat - and requests for translation
continue to pour in."
Children across the country took to this picturesque, inexpensive, and
highly digestible presentation of history, mythology and folklore with a
vengeance, Lakhs of copies soul every month, mail poured in, subscriptions
burgeoned. For the next 20 years, Amar Chitra Katha dominated children's
reading repertoire. At Rs 3, it was the cheapest and most welcome birthday
gift which the giver could partake of too. Though parents despaired of
their children ever reading anything without pictorial crutches, the ACK
was encouraged because it was educative. History - Sher Shah Suri, Hemu,
Qutubuddin Aibak, the Indian National Congress - normally abhorred, was
happily gulped in balloonfuls of easy information. And if children were
acquainted with words like Bodhisattva and Hitopadesha, again it was
because ACK had fulfilled its credo: the route to your roots.
Then in 1986 Nehru failed to sell even its initial print run of 32,000
copies. The slump, which was to last for a decade, had started. "By 1991,"
says Pai, "sales stopped completely." The route to your roots had been set
aside for an more colourful and easily digestible form of infotainment:
colour television. "Those were tough years. Titles like Gandhi hardly sold
at all," recalls Pai looking through an old unsold copy of Nehru, a
reminder of hard times. "Tinkle comics, which we launched in 1980, did not
suffer so badly, but ACK took a real beating."
What then has been responsible for the resurgence of interest in an age
where television has sprung so many more heads? Though sales figures are
nowhere near those initial magical years, Pai attributes the 60 per cent
jump in sales figures to two factors: television has lost its trump card of
novelty and simultaneously Amar Chitra Katha has indulged in some cosmetic
surgery and is bringing out slicker editions. The combination seems to be
working.
Through these fluctuations of fortune, however, the steadfast pole star has
remained 'Uncle' Pai ("The other day," says Pai, "even Gulzar called me
Uncle"). Beloved by children who write around 6,000 letters a month to him,
swamped by them on his regular tours through the country, Pai, who has no
children himself, says the adoration on the faces of the tiny tots makes
everything worthwhile.
"I am widely known for my role in ACK and Tinkle, but equally important to
me are the self-esteem courses 1 conduct for teenagers," says Pai. "I
always begin by telling them the story of my life. By the age of
two-and-a-half years, I had lost both my father and mother. I was brought
up by my maternal grandfather in Karkale. When I came to Bombay to enroll
in Std Eight, seven schools rejected me. Finally, I was admitted to Orient
High School, which didn't have a library or laboratory, but made up many
times over by its teachers like P. L. Deshpande. I always tell children: My
young friends, so many people rejected me in these hard times, but there
was one person who didn't lose faith in me -- myself."
Along with the fan mail that flows in, Pai has also received his share of
hate mail and madcap legal notices. Recalling one of the most harrowing of
such missives, Pai talks about the non-bailable warrant of arrest he
received after
Valmiki was published. "It was signed by a series of organisations,
accusing me of breaching Section 295 of the Indian Penal Code, which states
that you cannot criticise someone of another religion. The organisations
had taken offence at the statement that 'Valmiki was initially a dacoit'.
Well, I had to go to court in Jullunder. My effigies were being burnt in
Patiala and anti-ACK processions being held in Jullunder. The case was
finally dismissed, but it was an awful experience."
Fortunately for Pai, such trauma is more than balanced by affectionate
outpourings from children countrywide. One such gem from a Kashmiri girl
reads: I know there is a quarrel between India and Kashmir, but please,
Uncle Pai, can we be friends?
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