Reading Chinmayi's post on Amar chitra katha comics, I immediately checked out their website - www.amarchitrakatha.com. The site is extremely well designed. Also, every comic's catalog listing is accompanied by a detailed introduction, which is very informational. Their Festival Focus section is a must-read too.
If you grew up in India, you do not need an introduction to Amar Chitra Katha comics. Their beautifully illustrated series cover a wide variety of subjects, right from Hindu mythology, Puranas and Jataka tales to stories about India's freedom struggle and great personalities (I even saw an issue on Kalpana Chawla's life)!
Every month, my parents would take me and my sister to Eshwari lending library in Gopalapuram. An elderly gentleman that works there is one of the greatest librarians in the world for sure (if you know his name, could you post it in the comment please). You can ask for any title, and he will know exactly where the book can be found! The library had bound copies, with 5 or 10 comics. I would borrow 4 of these bound comics and three Enid Blyton books. I read and re-read the 4 comics, till I could recite the entire stories perfectly (and ofcourse, my proud mom would then make me recite all these stories to my bored(!) but polite relatives). The comics even gave me an edge over my classmates in history class.
Here are some of the memorable Amar Chitra Kathas:
1) The one about how European discoverers tried to find India; It starts from Columbus sailing west, to Vascodagama finally landing in the shores of Kerala, and the events that leads to the birth of the East India trading company
2) Dasa avathar - We used this as reference, when we arranged our Dasa avathar dolls for golu!
3) The full mahabaratha series
I cannot remember the others for now, please do post your favorite titles!
When I think about the future, and where I would like to bring up my children, one of the big things in favor of Madras is the fact that I can take my kids to Eshwari lending library and they can spend their summer holidays reading all the Amar Chitra Kathas in print!
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3 comments:
Wasnt his name Palani??
I think Palani was the owner. We used to get into trouble all the time with him because we never returned books on time. I'm talking about another older gentleman. Do you remember?
Palani started acting too smart towards the end
Also, he conducted his son's wedding in AVM !
hehe
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