A foreignor in the year 1970 asked Prabhupad, the founder of ISKCON. What will happen to the society and the Krishna conscious movement you are striving so hard for after you pass away? His reply was " My books will keep me alive and continue this movement." If the same question had been put to Annant Pai the answer will be alike. His books are keeping him alive in the heart of children and the people who have read the Hindu mythology in such a simply English and thought provoking manner. Amar Chitra Katha in Hindi or English will remain living like him.
A true Karamyogi, Anant Pai must be remembered through his comic books on Hindu , Historic and hilarious happiness-giving books for the children in the form easy understandable English. My children were given to understand Hindu religion through the energy this great man had done for them I will say he is still living through the books he published. Ravinder Nath Watts
Yes, people like Pai and several writers who worked from the unknown era of Vishnu Sharma of Panchantantra for enlightenment of children on thier creative imagination. In my strong feeling and observatios, the media like TV is killing the fertile imagination of children and their ability to dream the stories
Pai uncle did enormous work for not just kids but for the entire humanity, may his noble soul rest in peace
India's version of Disney land with rides and themes.
Just like Mickey, Donald, Goofy and other characters are the attractions in Disneyland.
Suppandi, Shikari Shambhu, Kalia, Naseeruddin Hodja, Kapeesh and other can be/should be seen strolling Pai-Garhs and signing autographs and entertaining children with anecdotes and jokes.
There can be theme parks with animal automatons or real animals with Shikari Shambhu being the tour guide who accompanies you on a train ride etc.
The ideas can never stop once you open your mind.
Tenali, Birbal and so many characters can come alive in Pai-Garhs
Only Indians do not realize it.
Uncle Pai is as great or greater than Walt Disney and a whole theme park industry can be spawned and made to generate revenue and entertainment for future generations of Indians.
It is for Indians with zeal and imagination to take up his stories and implement them in theme parks called Pai-Garhs.
These Theme-parks can have monorails crawling up artificial mountains and small lakes and gardens and so much more.
Re: Uncle Pai has given us a treasure trove of characters to desi
by jay b on Feb 26, 2011 03:48 AM
basically we need to have a kids version of Kingdom of Dreams (Noida)
Re: Re: Uncle Pai has given us a treasure trove of characters to
by Vishnu Sharma on Feb 26, 2011 04:08 AM
Kingdom of Dreams needs to be renamed Pai garh and Tinkle characters can come alive in it.
Once it is a success in one place another park can be opened in the South.
Pai. His 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," he says 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 sold 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 spoonfuls 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 r
In the spring of 1967, Anant Pai was standing at the junction of Ajmal KhanvRoad and Gurudwara Road in New Delhi, waiting for a lull in the traffic. At that crossing, he had what he calls an "An Epiphany ", 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 anglicized 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
I work as a doctor in a prestigious hospital. We often have to quote some situations from mythology for making issues more understandable. I was smitten when I found one of our doctors, Christian by birth and practice, was eloquently quoting from hindu mythology. I was really taken aback by the perfection of his knowledge on Hindu mythological characters, which I am quite good at. On inquiring him, I found out the common source of our knowledge: AMAR CHITRA KATHA. I think Uncle Pai has done much much more to the generations of this country than any university could do. Hope we will not let all his hard work and great vision perish. If we cannot continue his legacy, retaining what he has done hitherto itself will be a great service that we can offer.
Re: Uncle Pai and transcending religion barrier
by BHARATIYAN on Feb 26, 2011 12:19 AM
Without people like Anant Pai Sir the Majority would never have been knowledgeable abt our GRT history and our Hindu culture.If Congiis had their way they would have said Mughals were the most secular of the Kings India ever had. JNU is the agency who is doing Congii and Leftist work of distorting Indian history...All the Indian history books from JNU are a pack of lies where only Congii leaders are praised and allocated pages while grt men like Bose WHO SPEND HIS WHOLE LIFE FIGHTING the British where given only Paragraphs mention just because his ideology was different to Gandhi.Shame on Congress/JNU...........In order to push Sickularism down the throat of Majority they Sickularised Indian History...........Where there is no mention of the atrocities committed against the Majority by the Minority starting from the reign of Mughals........Shame on these Vermins who are teaching the children false history.
From this moment onwards, I decree and also follow the Birthday of Shri Anant Pai as Children's day.
From this day onwards November 14th will be an ordinary working day unremarkable in every respect.
This is what we NATIONAL DEMOCRATS propose and expect millions of Indian's to follow our example.
The true Cha-cha was Shri Pai and from now on he will be known as Cha-cha Pai.
He did for Indian children what Walt Disney did for American children. He was India's Walt Disney in every sense.
Time to expand on the concept of Pai-Vatika or Pai Garden with its rigorous theme of exposing Indian kids to Indian history, Mathematics, Grammar, Sanskrit classics, epics and mahapurushas and bringing in concepts like animations and movies and rides into the Pai-Vatikas which will be constructed near 6 metros.
This opens up a large reservoir of ideas for willing idealists like you and me.
Re: Time to mark Sept 17th as Children's Day
by jay b on Feb 26, 2011 03:46 AM
This is the way to go . We already have so much of the other stuff but have missed giving the much deserved importance to Shri Pais work . This would ultimately benefit our own kids.
I work as a doctor in a prestigious hospital. We often have to quote some situations from mythology for making issues more understandable. I was smitten when I found one of our doctors, Christian by birth and practice, was eloquently quoting from hindu mythology. I was really taken aback by the perfection of his knowledge on Hindu mythological characters, which I am quite good at. On inquiring him, I found out the common source of our knowledge: AMAR CHITRA KATHA. I think Uncle Pai has done much much more to the generations of this country than any university could do. Hope we will not let all his hard work and great vision perish. If we cannot continue his legacy, retaining what he has done hitherto itself will be a great service that we can offer.
