Archives: literature

Who Wrote The Panchatantra?

Post author By Komal Narwani
Post date October 6, 2020
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A long time ago, there was a king called Amarashakti. He ruled the kingdom of Mahilaropyam in southern India. He had three sons, Bhaushakti, Ugrashakti and Anantashakti, who were not the sharpest tools in the shed. This was something the king wanted to change, so that they would become worthy of ruling the kingdom someday. However, there was very little hope of this happening, as the three princes were quite averse to the idea of learning.

One day, the king heard of an Indian scholar named Vishnu Sharma. With hope in his eyes, the king approached him and asked if he would take on his sons as his students and teach them some valuable life lessons. Vishnu agreed to the king’s plea and promised to educate them in six months. When Vishnu started the princes’ education, he quickly realized that traditional modes of teaching will not work with them, given their rather limited attention span and tendency to get bored easily. So, in order to make them learn, Vishnu Sharma decided to leverage the power of storytelling. He wrote down simple moral stories, segregating them into five books that he called the Panchatantra, pancha meaning ‘five’ and tantra meaning ‘principles’.

Book One: Mitra-bheda – The Loss Of Friends

The longest of the five books, this book contains thirty fables. They talk about the importance of the different causes that lead to breaking up of even the strongest of friendships.

Book Two: Mitra-labha – The Winning of Friends

This series contains ten fables, which convey the importance of allies. It shows how the right friendships can circumvent all odds and help us prosper in life.

Book Three: Kakolookiyam – On Crows And Owls

Comprising 18 fables, this series focuses on war and peace. The stories underline how a battle of wits is mightier than a battle of swords.

Book Four: Labdhapranasam – Loss Of Gains

This book contains 13 fables and is in complete contrast to the first three books. If the first three books talk about ethical behaviour and what to do, the fourth book and its successor talk more about negative personality traits and what not to do.

Book Five: Apariksitakarakam – Ill-Considered Actions

With 12 fables inside, this book talks about the ill-effects of decisions taken in haste.

Every story in this collection spoke about different moral values that an upstanding citizen would abide by. His stories were so powerful, even today, millennia later, the lessons conveyed in each of these can be easily applied to various real-world situations. As for the three princes, they were so enamoured by Vishnu Sharma’s stories they inadvertently ended up learning a lot, fulfilling their father’s wish of becoming dependable leaders.

Read the vivid retellings of Panchatantra tales from our huge digital library now accessible on the ACK Comics app and Kindle.

Profile: Salman Rushdie

By Nitya Menon

Salman Rushdie is a storyteller and the author of 13 novels including the critically acclaimed Midnight’s Children and the highly controversial The Satanic Verses. He has contributed to literature in a big way, while always standing by his beliefs and maintaining his firm stand on the necessity of free speech and expression.

Born on 19 July 1947, he studied in Cathedral and John Connon School in Bombay, and further went on to study History at King’s College, Cambridge. He then moved to Pakistan with his family in 1964 where he worked in television for a while, later moving back to England to work as a copywriter for an advertising agency. During this time, he started working on his first novel Grimus which was published in 1975. Even though the response to his first novel was not overly enthusiastic, he continued to write, publishing his second novel, Midnight’s Children, which created history by winning the Booker Prize for Fiction and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.

Salman Rushdie’s style of writing is a combination of magical realism and historical fiction. His books mostly involve connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Western civilisation.

For example, Midnight’s Children is about the life of a child born at the stroke of midnight as India gained its independence, who is gifted with special powers and has a connection to other children born in this new age and the birth of a modern Indian nation. Shame, which was published in 1983, talks about the political turmoil in Pakistan. Then there’s The Satanic Verses, which depicts the identity crisis and alienation due to migration from India to the west. This book earned him the ire of Islamic fundamentalist groups, with a fatwa being issued against him.

Covers: Amazon | Design: ACK Design Team

However, Rushdie was unfazed as he firmly believed that the production of art requires the confidence that an artist can freely express the vision that is in him, without suffering retaliation from society. He is often questioned on how he reacts to criticism against his literary works and he says that the best answer to someone trying to silence your voice is to speak with greater confidence. If offence becomes a criterion that prevents the expression of a certain idea, then there will be no expression. He believed there were other dangers, such as unnecessary self-censorship and excessive anger that would lead to revenge books, viewing both as ultimately self-destructive.

As an accomplished author, his message to young writers is that you wake up every day with a nudge of creative juice and you can either choose to use it or waste it.

“One must always imagine a novelist as a long-distance runner, and there’s a marathon. With no means is the marathon runner more gifted than a sprinter, but it’s just the kind of athletics where one has to chip away and let the mark post get by, and trust that, one day, the finish line will come.”

During the course of his career, Rushdie has received many awards such as the Golden Pen Award, Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Literature Award (Harvard University), Booker Prize for Fiction, Commonwealth Writers Prize and many more.

Profile: Jhumpa Lahiri

By Mrinalini Manda

“Pet names are a persistent remnant of childhood, a reminder that life is always not so serious, so formal, so complicated.”

– Jhumpa Lahiri

In the world of post-colonial literature, one of the most prominent and strong Indian voices is that of Jhumpa Lahiri. Her works have paved the way for many to understand and accept one’s identity in a foreign land.

Nilanjana Sudeshna ‘Jhumpa’ Lahiri was born in a Bengali family, who immigrated to the United Kingdom, eventually settling down in Rhode Island in America. Lahiri’s mother wanted her and her siblings to grow up sticking to their Bengali roots. One way that was made possible was by frequent trips to Calcutta to visit their cousins. Lahiri has claimed that those trips did eventually play an important role in shaping her characters for her various short stories.

‘Jhumpa’ was a nickname her family called her by, one that escaped the four walls of her home and stuck with her professionally as well. Growing up, she wanted to focus on English Literature, so she enrolled at Barnard College in New York. Over the years that followed, she earned three master’s degrees, and then, a doctorate in Renaissance studies at Boston University.

In 1999, Lahiri released her first book ‘The Interpreter of Maladies’, a collection of nine short stories. The stories give a glimpse of an American-Indian family’s life when they come to India for a vacation.

Then, in 2003, she released a second book, ‘The Namesake,’ which explored the life of a Bengali couple who moved from Calcutta to the United Kingdom after an arranged marriage, and finally settled in the suburbs of Boston in America. The Namesake was adapted into a film in 2007 by Mira Nair, starring Irrfan Khan, Tabu, and Kal Penn.

Jhumpa made a comeback in 2008 with the release of another book, another series of short stories titled ‘Unaccustomed Earth’ which was ranked number one on The New York Times’ best-seller list. The book revolves around a Bengali family and their immigrant lives in America, where they evolve their identity amidst racial disruption. In 2013, she released her second novel, ‘The Lowland’. The book was inspired by a true story she heard about two brothers while growing up, one who chose to become a researcher in America and the other took part in India’s Naxalite movement.

Covers: Amazon | Artwork: ACK Design Team

Most of Lahiri’s work focuses on immigrant stories, and the dichotomy of having to adapt to a new culture while still clinging on to your own. In the book ‘Interpreter of Maladies,’ it could be noted that her characters are relieved to have adjusted to their new world, but still carry a hint of regret for being detached from their original identities. There is the recurring theme of loss and isolation that can be traced in her work. She has stated in interviews that her experiences in Calcutta nourished her interest in seeing things from different perspectives.

Recently, Lahiri relocated to Rome and couldn’t be happier about the shift.

“Here, I’m able to accept myself in a way that I haven’t ever able to in the United States or India, because these two sides were always at war. I feel I could never please either, and it was always a battle and a loss.”

After the move, she has started reading and writing exclusively in Italian, releasing her first work ‘Dove mi Trovo’ in 2019. The book is a compilation of 40 Italian short stories, written by 40 different Italian writers, that she translated and edited. As of 2015, Lahiri also teaches Creative Writing at the esteemed Princeton University in New Jersey, America.

“I’ve uprooted myself not only from a physical place but also from a linguistic place. This double uprooting is artistic freedom and it’s dizzying. Once you taste that you can’t give it up.”

Memories of Uncle Pai

On September 17, 2020, we will be celebrating our founder Anant Pai’s 91st birth anniversary. To mark the special day, we asked three stalwarts from the Amar Chitra Katha team some of their fondest memories of the legend himself.

“It was 1994 and our office had been destroyed in a massive fire. We had lost everything we had – our library of 3000 reference books, all our copies of Tinkle and Amar Chitra Katha, three huge files of ready and approved scripts and three huge files of artworks ready to be scheduled for Tinkle. It was a devastating loss and we were a little paralysed. The Mirchandanis, who owned IBH and us, stepped in and immediately gave us space in their Mahalakshmi office. Mr Pai saw to it that all of us were settled in and as comfortable as possible. I was 35 years old at that time and the assistant editor of Tinkle.

The following day Mr Pai called me into his office and said, “The next issue of Tinkle has to go to print in 20 days. What are we going to do about it?” I looked at him and remembered what he had told me when he was relating the story of how Amar Chitra Katha had become such a big success. He had said, “If I had listened to all the criticism and discouragement I would have failed. You have to believe in yourself and what you have to do.” Without thinking I said, “Don’t worry, Mr Pai. We will send the next issue of Tinkle to the press in time. The children will not miss an issue.”

Brave words but how was I going to do it. I have learned that when you have your back to the wall that’s when the best ideas come. I got the team to sit down and write fresh content for all the special pages like Tinkle Tells you Why and Super Quiz. We quickly scripted single page Suppandi stories and sent them to Mr Ram Waeerkar who drew them in record speed. I wrote to all the artists to complete and send any assignment they had been given along with the scripts (no we did not have computers or backups). Once that happened the team worked at top speed to colour, letter, proof and edit the pages. In 19 days we had all 32 pages and the cover of Tinkle ready for print. Mr Pai was the happiest man that day. He congratulated the team. Besides, he said something that I hold dear to my heart even now. “If Reena says she will do it, I know she will do it.” Appreciative words, encouraging words. More importantly, words that increased my self-esteem ten-fold.

Mr Pai knew how to make one realize one’s own potential and work towards it. That was what was special about him. He was a real guru and the perfect mentor.”

“Uncle Pai for me has always been this larger-than-life Santa Claus like figure. He brought to me and thousands of other kids the gift of stories and comics that filled the pages of Tinkle and Amar Chitra Katha. So when I decided I wanted to make my career writing stories I went hunting for one of those who had sparked my imagination. However, I couldn’t meet him. But a couple of years later I got my opportunity when I applied for a writer’s position in answer to an ad for a researcher at Amar Chitra Katha. Yeah, wonky, but it got me my break six months later when a vacancy in Tinkle opened up! Plus! I finally got to meet one of my idols. Yes, Uncle Pai! It so happened that the editor of Tinkle who was to take my interview was not in yet and while I waited I got to meet Mr Pai. He was as gentle and kind as I imagined him to be. But… he wanted me to join ACK as a researcher whereas my heart was set on becoming a writer for Tinkle. It was a hard choice… it was Uncle Pai asking! Thankfully the editor of Tinkle came to fetch me for my interview and I ended up getting my dream job.

Do you know what was the icing on the cake? The day I joined happened to be Mr Pai’s birthday! And I began the day and my journey with Tinkle with sweets made by Mrs Pai whose birthday it also was and a shloka recited by Mr Pai in his inimitable style.”

“When he asked me, “What is it that you love to do best? Is it copywriting or drawing?” This question hit me like a thunderbolt because I had never thought of it earlier. And with a bit of hesitation, I said that I liked to draw. And then he said, “Join us as a staff artist in the TINKLE team”. Mr Pai had the ability to spot talents and nurture them with a lot of patience. With me having no qualifications or formal training in art he put that complete belief and faith in me through those formative years in Tinkle. And the day when he called me to his cabin to tell me that I will have to take up illustrating Shikari Shambu as Mr Halbe was to retire. This was a huge responsibility and I was petrified but he was sure. “Oh don’t worry,” he said with a wave of his hand. “You will be able to do it!”

That was Uncle Pai who believed and never gave up!”

Writer Write-Up: Jerry Pinto

Post author By Komal Narwani
Post date September 7, 2020
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Jerry Pinto is one of India’s most celebrated writers, contributed some iconic books to Indian literature. In 2016, he won the Sahitya Akademi Award and the Windham–Campbell Literature Prizes for his bestseller ‘Em and The Big Hoom’. Jerry’s words charm audiences of all ages alike. Interestingly, the secret to his captivating style is keeping no rules in mind while writing.

“The purest form of writing is putting down your ideas on paper without thinking about where it is going to flow. Thus, doing it for the sheer fun of storytelling.”.

Jerry’s popular title ‘Tickle me… Don’t Tickle Me…’ is a collection of humorous poems. In fact, one of the poems was created out of miscommunication between his sister and him. The author prefers poetry over prose, tracing his preference for verse to the womb.

“The first poem you ever hear is your mother’s heartbeat. It is the basis of all music you will ever hear. We pray in poetry and sing in poetry. Poetry is words set to music. Sometimes music plays and turns it into a song and sometimes the music is hidden, leaving it a poem. Keeping a poetry book by your side and reading one each day softens you, shapes you, and also makes you a better person.”

There weren’t many Indian writers who wrote exclusively for children back when Jerry was a boy. However, Mahatma Gandhi has been a childhood inspiration. Gandhji wrote letters to many people. He always spoke his mind and never shied away from owning his mistakes too, a trait Jerry truly admired. So how does he get such wonderful ideas?

“The world is the same for all of us. A writer just views it from a different perspective. For me, what starts a process is a series of ‘what ifs’. What if this happened? What if it turned out that way? It is all about the unusual angle a writer sees and presents in the story.”

Watch the video to learn more about Jerry’s journey so far, and to enjoy watching him read an excerpt from his book ‘Tickle Me… Don’t Tickle Me…’.

#ACKandFriends is a weekly live show by our Amar Chitra Katha editorial team, where we connect with India’s top children’s authors and give audiences a sneak peek into the creative process behind writing books for kids.

Krishna Speaks #1

Leading from this, one understands the body is a medium for the soul to perform its duties. When the soul is immortal, we should not let the material realm overpower us.

Illustration: ACK Design Team

Writer Write-Up: Shachii Manik

Post author By Komal Narwani
Post date August 31, 2020
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Shachii Manik loves to play with words, that’s how she came up with her impressive body of work. Over the years, she has made up jokes, puzzles, limericks, rhymes, and stories for kids. Her transition from the corporate world to writing for children was not planned though. It was after she became a mother that she first heard the call to tell stories. To keep her kids entertained, she started cooking up tall tales, and since then, there was no turning back.

Shachii has also developed a series of activity books for kids called ‘Inside India’. She recollects the great fun she had while creating the book because she researched all sorts of unusual things from different cities of India and compiled them in the form of fun activities in the book, accompanied by some fascinating factoids.

Her observation skills have greatly influenced her writing. Whenever she can, she tries to overhear the conversations of little ones around her to get a peek inside their world view.

“It is very important to see the world through the eyes of a three-year-old. They find joy in little things. We have to be like them and talk their talk if we want to teach them something.”

That’s how she realized that kids enjoyed poetry over prose, and made a conscious switch to writing in verse.

So how did her first book happen?

“My husband is my partner in rhyme. He’s my co-author on the book as well. We had gone to Goa and were hanging out at the pool, when our kids kept nudging us to narrate stories. My husband and I were on a roll too. That’s exactly how the story was developed. When we read it out to our family and friends, they really enjoyed it. Then the thought of putting it in rhyme and publishing came to us.”

Watch the video to learn more about Shachii and her creative journey. Shachii also does a short read from ‘The Magic Potion’ that is sure to get you excited about reading all of it!

An Open Letter About Piracy

Post author By Komal Narwani
Post date August 24, 2020
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Illustration: ACK Design Team

Dear Amar Chitra Katha Reader,

We know how much you love Amar Chitra Katha. For so many Indians, including me, reading ACK comics is an irreplaceable childhood memory, with nearly our entire knowledge of Indian mythology and history coming from ACK. Amar Chitra Katha is indeed a route to our roots.

Surprisingly, many people seem to think the company isn’t active anymore or that we are just re-printing/re-packaging old comics. Nothing could be further from the truth! Each year, the ACK editorial team, headed by the amazing Reena Puri, an ACK legend in her own right (she has been with the company for nearly 30 years) creates about 25 brand new comics. The new bestsellers include a fabulous six-part Ramayana series and titles like Saptarshi, Shakti, APJ Abdul Kalam, and Rama’s Ring, a beautiful book that contains lesser-known and rare stories from the epics. So, why am I sharing all this with you? To sell more books? A PR piece? No.

Last week, I received a forward on Whatsapp. It was a Google Drive folder with almost 30 titles of ACK, scanned cover to cover. The accompanying passionate but sad message said that since ACK content is no longer available, this is the only way to enjoy these stories. Every now and then, such messages get circulated and unsuspecting readers who believe these titles are put out by the company, download and read these.

Dear ACK fan- this is piracy, plain and simple. It is using/owning a product without paying for it, akin to stealing. Our sincere request to you is that please do not entertain these forwards, don’t open these links, don’t share and forward them. Tell the person who sent them to you, that what they are doing is both unethical and illegal. Our digital apps are reasonably priced and give access to our complete library of titles. We have nearly a million readers across our ACK and Tinkle apps. We are also on Kindle, Magzter, Alexa, GetLitt, Googlebooks and multiple paid, legal, digital platforms.

Amar Chitra Katha Pvt Ltd is alive and kicking, with lakhs of copies selling in India and around the globe. The company employs nearly 100 people, and we spend our days (and sometimes nights too) writing, illustrating, editing, printing, selling and marketing our books and magazines under three brands- ACK and Tinkle. Our founder Mr Anant Pai, devoted his entire life to creating this incredible body of work – a comprehensive treasure trove of the nation’s stories. We, the employees of the company today are working hard to keep his legacy alive and striving to make our content relevant for a new generation. We can’t do this without you, dear readers.

Please don’t encourage piracy. Don’t download that PDF. Don’t forward that Whatsapp message. If you come across an illegal website with pirated content from ACK, please do forward it to us at [email protected]

Let’s keep the ACK tradition going. You and Us. Together.

– Preeti Vyas,
CEO and President, Amar Chitra Katha Pvt. Ltd.

Writer Write-Up: Nandini Nayar

Post author By Komal Narwani
Post date August 24, 2020
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Nandini Nayar is an award-winning author who has written over fifty books and three hundred short stories in a career spanning over two decades. Some of her popular books include What Shall I Make?, Where is Amma?, The Great River Magic, Apoorva’s Fat Diary, and Camp Sweets. Apart from writing books, she has also worked on developing school curriculums and textbooks.

Nandini shares a history with Tinkle and Amar Chitra Katha, having written for both brands. For Amar Chitra Katha, she scripted Amar Chitra Katha’s retelling of Munshi Premchand’s classic tale, ‘Two Oxen’. “It was challenging to create a graphic format of the story but it turned out pretty good.” With Tinkle, she authored the magazine’s ‘Pranav and his Daadi’ series in the early 2000s, a project that is very close to her heart.

Nandini believes that food is a subject everyone can bond over. Hence, it is hardly surprising that food forms an essential part of all her books. For example, her best-seller ‘What Shall I Make?’ was, in her words, “one that was born out of necessity!” She had to come up with stories about food to keep her son distracted while she was busy preparing rotis. Every day, there were some improvisations in the story, based on her son’s reactions. Imagine the number of drafts she created for her story!

Digging a little deeper into the process of ideation, Nandini says, “Ideas can strike anywhere. I get most of my ideas while performing random tasks such as cooking or walking in the market. However, asking questions helps. Wondering about events around us and questioning historic events can leave you with interesting story ideas. I also take inspiration from my childhood memories.”

In her famous book, ‘Camp Sweets’, Nandini has tried to shatter the popular myth that cooking means following instructions to the tee. The story is about a mother who runs a sweet shop and wants her son, Raj, to be her heir. With an aim to make him better at preparing sweets, she sends Raj to a special summer camp. Raj, however, hates the rigidity of following instructions while cooking, and eventually meets a boy there who shows him the real charm of the culinary arts.

Watch the video to hear more from Nandini and listen to her read an excerpt from her book ‘Camp Sweets’!

Writer Write-Up: Ashok Rajagopalan

Post author By Komal Narwani
Post date August 14, 2020
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Ashok Rajagopalan is a veteran author and illustrator who has contributed to over 300 books and articles in an illustrious career spanning over 30 years! Ashok completed his Mechanical Engineering and took up a marketing job at Intel, becoming the IT behemoth’s only Indian representative at the time. However, he soon decided to explore a more creative route, switching to graphic designing and slowly making his way into illustrations and writing. He has a flair of adapting his art style to the tone of the story he’s working on. From making you go ‘Awww!’ at the chubby cheeks and glittery eyes of super cute characters he doodles, to having you roll on the floor with laughter looking at the completely exaggerated features of the more wacky personalities he brings to life, his penmanship is almost chameleon-esque…

The adorable elephant from his iconic series Gajapati Kulapati has already found its way on the shelves of thousands of libraries across the world. When asked about the inspiration behind the charming pachyderm, he says,

“I had attended a poetry workshop then. I was amazed to see how poetry could be incorporated into prose. The book is a result of the direct influence of the poetry workshop. In fact, the book was initially written for a kid’s reading session. That is one of the reasons why it is fun to enact the book. Gajapati Kulapati was supposed to resemble the walking sound of the elephant.”

A jovial personality, Ashok is very fond of humour, which prominently shows up in his books. When we asked him if humour as a genre is underestimated, especially in children’s literature, he laughed.

“Something that makes you laugh cannot be taken seriously. P. G. Wodehouse, one of the most widely read humorists, never won a Nobel prize but he is my inspiration. Any art form that makes people laugh gives satisfaction to its creator. Doesn’t this hold true for actors too? Romantic and action heroes command more appreciation but comedians are not so admired. I am happy about creating funny books for kids.”

Ashok’s bestseller ‘Ha… Ha… Hasya!’ is a book featuring a humorous take on a dispute between the devas and asuras in Indralok, where the asuras are in no mood to fight and thus arrive weaponless. Ashok said,

“I do not like unkind humour, so for me, the challenge was to write a lighthearted conversation while keeping the regality of the characters. I was very careful to not offend the beliefs of people. One deliberate attempt was to pick those characters which are usually portrayed in a fun way. I also created a new demi-god.”

Watch the video to listen to Ashok read an excerpt from his book ‘Ha… Ha… Hasya!’ and learn more about his journey.