I am not sure when I first laid my hands on Tinkle or Amar chitra kadha, but ever since that it had been one of the important part of my childhood. I believe it is the same for most of us who has come through the 80s and 90s where our exposure to TV was less and that to the comics and children’s books were more. And while talking about these children’s books the first name that would come to the mind would be that of Anant Pai, whom everyone lovingly calls Uncle Pai. Anant Pai was an educationalist and the brain behind the creation of the Amar Chitra Katha series in 1967 which retold traditional Indian folk tales, mythological stories and other fables,and Tinkle In 1980, a children's anthology and India's first comic and cartoon syndicate.
Tinkle was not the only comic book available at that time, keeping aside the Malayalam ones like Balarama, Poombatta etc, there were Diamond comics, champak, chandamama etc from Indian side and marvel and DC comics from west, appearing in English print. But what kept Tinkle different from the league of other comics were their simple moral stories as opposed to the hyper heroic comics from other publishers. Well there are heroes in all the stories but of a different nature, in a way it was devoid of the comic version of mass-movie heroism. The most heroic character in Tinkle would probably be gun wielding Shikari Shambu! The stories ranged from various folk fables till slapstick comedies of Suppandi. This common-man’s stories surely made the stories closer to heart. The characters in Tinkle outsmarts the vile villains using their intelligence as opposed to muscle power, owing to the fact that most of these heroes were smaller in size that the villains – like the Kalia the crow or Kapish the monkey or the witty Naseeruddin Hodja.
One thing that attracted people like me to this book was, the a good portion of the published stories came from children written to the editor. I remember myself sending two stupid Suppandi jokes to Tinkle for getting published. But the jokes must have been really pathetic that it was rejected, I got a reply to my post from Uncle pai written in a very inspiring way stating that Arjuna didn’t get his aim right nor could hanuman fly in their first attempt, so I should keep writing. Few stickers were included in the mail as consolation. The mail must have been a standard one sent to all the rejected entries, but getting a response was a great experience.
Tinkle wasn’t just a comic book meant for entertainment, each issue or monthly digest would also contain plenty of facts and interesting things about science as well as culture. Articles on different cultures of the world, history of various practices wars and great historical leaders gave the children exposure to something which the other comic books couldn’t achieve, it educated children and let windows of free thinking opened up to them. There used to be a series called ‘Meet the ….’ About animal kingdom, like Meet the blue whale, Meet the Platypus, Meet the ostrich etc. With vivid illustrations such things helped in educating the children about thge animal kingdom. Since the book was illustrated, a child would invariable get drawn into pictures and drawings that would have then prompted him/her to read the written details as well. 'Meet the animal' used to be one of my favourites. As I didn’t have a subscription of Tinkle, I used to borrow it from a friend and then I would copy down all the ‘Meet the ….’ series into a scrap book for collection. That scrap book is long gone, buried under the rubbles of life gone by.
There were many similar series ranging from ancient knowledge on science like the history of ayurveda to the facts about the scientific inventions of modern times like the submarines. For couple of my science projects in school I used the simple science experiment series that used to come in Tinkle. It was a silly one ,looking back – a self inflating balloon. It was an experiment about anaerobic respiration of yeast in water I believe. The carbon-dioxide gas coming out of the yeast would be collected in a balloon which will eventually expand, and lo! that was magic. Another one was something using a camphor, now I can’t recollect it. Nevertheless those books had somehow helped me more than the NCERT text books.
‘Uncle Anu’, a scientist who would educate children from his neighbourhood about science through experiments, was one of his last creations. This character, which was really based on Uncle Pai himself, brought children closer to the science by encouraging basic observations and enquiry. According to him these were his educational experiments on tapping the intellect in each child. Anant Pai wasn’t considering his fans, mostly children, as childish immature beings seeking entertainment but more as a promise for the future, I believe. Being an educationalist himself, he made sure that by speaking through a medium which a child can easily understand, his/her outlook on education could be given a facelift by including the basic aspects of morality, brotherhood and personality development. Apart from these two publications, he had started many similar ventures for uplifting the educational standards and improving the personality amongst children.
I am sure other Tinkle fans would have many childhood memories attached to his legacy, be it Tinkle or Amarchitra kadha. Anant Pai passed away last night after a massive heart attack at the S R Mehta & Kikabhai Hospital, Sion, at the ripe age of 81. Like how Amar chitra kadha meant to him, his legacy too would never die from our hearts!
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PS. Much of his characters appears in Malayalam comics 'Balarama' too, like Kaalia, Kapish, Shikari Shambhu, Tantri the manthri, Naseeruddhin Hodja and Suppandi
