Anant Pai
was born on 17th September 1929 in
karkalla, Karnataka. His father was working in Mumbai. He had an elder sister named
Prema. A few months later his father passed away by suffering from typhoid. At
that time a sister was born named Savita. When Anant was 2 years his mother passed
away. Their grandparents looked after them.
When
Anant started to go to school he loved school.
He was very good in every subject. All teachers loved Anant. Soon
Savitha also started to go to school.
The next year a new headmaster came who taught Anant Hindi. When Anant
was 13 his grandfather passed away. They grew up with their cousins in Mumbai. When
they were going to buy admission in a school they said there is no admission
for them because they don’t know English.
After
a week they got admission in a orient school called Mahim. The first day they
all teased Anant, in the first semester exam he scored 80 out of 100. Time flew
and Prema got married to a doctor named V.R.Prabhu. Soon Anant was going to apply
admission in Wilson College. He got admission in that college.
One
wet monsoon morning he came to college wet. His headmaster asked him to go home
and change his clothes. Anant said he don’t want to miss his class. So he asked
to come to first floor and ring the bell. Anant rang. The headmaster said now
the college is over you can go to home now.
After
studying in the Wilson College, Anant studied Chemical Engineering at U.D.C.T.
At that time he was in the final semester when he started taking
hindi classes at Vanamali hall in dadar. A young student impressed the new
hindi teacher. On the way Anant was going to his house he saw the student who
impressed him. Anant asked her name. Her name was Lalitha. They started talking
and they became close friends. Anant wanted to marry her. He asked her father
about marriage. Her father said okay. They got married.
Savitha
was also married, Anant wanted to resign his job and go and work with Vinoba
Bhave. He spent time working with Vinob Bhave. He also wrote a novel called
“BEECH KI KADI”. Soon he was back in Mumbai with yet another idea. He was
thinking about start a magazine about mental, physical and spiritual health.
He
was confident and Manav was launched. He learnt the ropes of creating and publishing
a magazine. Manav ran for few years but it was closed. He took up a job with a
book company, marketing books to schools and colleges.
After
some months, Anant got a job in Times of India books division. Indrajal comic was
launched. Phantom and Mandrake came to India. They were instant successes.
Kunju Pillai, gurus club came to life. Anant was full of ideas and loved
discussing them.
A
few years later, Anant and Lalitha were in Delhi on work. With them came
Lalitha’s father. There was a quiz show on T.V. Anant was watching that. On the
T.V show “group A- Your question- According to Greek mythology, who is the
ruler of the oceans? Your options
are Zeus , Hades , Poseidon. He answered “Poseidon” correctly. Next question: “according
to Indian mythology who was Rama’s mother? Your options are Kaikeyi, Kunti, Kausalya.
He answered “Kaikeyi um…no Kunti”. Wrong answer! The correct answer was Kausalya.
A few months
later there was a get-together in Anant’s house. His nieces and nephews created
a magazine themselves. His nephew made a story about a boy called Robert who
lives in Warrington but dreams of going to London. And his niece wrote a poem
called Daffodils. He thought these children are forgetting to think like
Indians. The thought stayed with him. He decided to resign the job and wanted
to make Indian comics for children.
Anant took his
idea to G.L and H.G Mirchandhi of India book house. Publishers and distributors
of books and magazines started in 1952. They said we already publish 10 western
comics. Anant asked what are you going to do after that? They said after that
we will publish your comics. Anant said the first lot will be ready. They asked
“what’s your first comic?” Anant said it has to be Krishna. They asked what’s
the comic name? AMAR CHITRA KATHA.
Anant wrote the
script. As the script was nearing completion a cartoonist came to him. His name
was Ram Waeerkar. He asked “can I illustrate Krishna?” Anant said I don’t want
an illustrator. The next day Ram Weaker again came asked Anant to see some
cartoons. Anant said it was fantastic! And said you can be the illustrator for
Krishna.
Anant gathered a
select band of young writers and illustrators around him. Besides Ram Waeerkar,
he bought in Prathap Mulik , P.B.Kavadi and Souren Roy as illustrators. As more
scripts and artworks arrived, he felt the need for fulltime assistants. Kamala
Chandrakanth joined him as the assistant editor. Finally, the artworks for ‘Krishna’,
was complete with text and colour guide and sent for printing. So Rangarekha
Features Limited was born.
It was the one of
the earliest Indian companies to produce and supply Indian comics to newspapers
and periodicals in the country. Ramu Shamu and little Raji were famous. Little Raji
was Anant’s neighbourhood child. Vikram ,Kapish ,Azad, Garud ,Faster Fenay,
Majnu, Rekha and many more came out of the Ranga Rekha stable and became instantly
popular.
The first Amar
Chitra Katha, Krishna rolled out of the press in Febraury 1970. That evening
Anant gave a little gift to Raji. It was the Krishna story book. At IBH, the
head of accounts was worried because sales were not good. Even after five
years, ACK, as the series was called, failed to break even. Anant went from shop
to shop for sales. Soon ACK was seen in Restaurants, Chemists Shops and
doctor’s waiting room.
Despite Anant’s
efforts, ACK sales were slow. Later ACK had started breaking even. Anant
expanded his team by inducting Subba Rao, a school teacher. Anant held a
seminar in Delhi on the roll of Amar Chitra Katha in school education which was
inaugurated by the then Union Education Minster. School principals and
educationists took part in the seminar. Anant came out with a press campaign.
To perfect the
quality of the comics, Anant requested the eminent poet Nissim Ezekiel to vet
the scripts. To make ACK a household name, Anant’s team came up with another
unique idea. During summer vacation, have ACK reading week in 20 centers.
Children came in large numbers to read the comics. Fancy dress competitions
were held for children. They came dressed as their favourite ACK character. A
function was held in Aurangabad to mark the release of the ‘ACK ‘on Chokhamela,
known for his devotional poems in Marathi called ‘Abhangs’.
Anant Pai formed
Partha clubs of personality development in different parts of the country,
Urging children to have self-belief and work towards their cherished goals,
unmindful of temporary setbacks. Meanwhile, ACK was emerging as a powerful tool
for national integration.
In the mythology story
of the Mahabharata needed to be told. Artist Dilip Kadam had already worked on ACK
titles and proved his mettle. Thus was created the 42-comic telling of the
great epic. It was hailed as the world’s longest comic story. The script was
written by number of writers including veteran comic script writers like Yagya
Sharma and Margie Sastry.
As the popularity
as ACK soared, the IBH management wanted more titles. G.L wanted ACK weekly.
Then came TINKLE. Luis Fernandes and Pradeep Sathe joined the team to work on
TINKLE. To introduce TINKLE, Anant organized story telling contests in schools
all over India. The next day all the 35,000 copies were sold out. They have to
reprint 10,000 copies.
A few years,
Anant invited readers of ACK and TINKLE to children’s day celebration, under
the big dome of the Gemini circus which was holding shows in Mumbai. At the end
of the show as children clapped as a parrot screamed - UNCLE PAI WE LOVE YOU,
WE LOVE YOU UNCLE PAI.
He passed away in Feb 24, 2011.
Anant the endless
one.
Resource: ACK titled "Anant Pai"
