Amar Chitra Katha

In the lives of comic book aficionados across the world, 20^th July 2012 and 22^nd April 2019 are red letter days. These were the release dates for the Dark Knight Rises and Avengers Endgame respectively. I don’t want to start a war between the DC and Marvel Bhakts here, but even if you are an agnostic , you cannot deny the impact these movies have had on the world. Even as comic books, DC and Marvel have proved that comics need not be mere diversionary tales, they can be philosophical in nature and help the reader develop a better understanding of the world.

As a child growing up in Mumbai in the 90s, I was a fan of comic books too. But the ones I read predominantly were the Amar Chitra Katha series. Published by India Book House, Amar Chitra Katha was the brainchild of Anant Pai (fondly called Uncle Pai). Each edition was of 32 pages and covered stories from Indian mythology and history. Legend has it that in 1967, Uncle Pai watched a quiz show on Doordarshan where students answered questions from Greek mythology with ease, but fumbled with questions from Indian Myths. He decided to do something about this and thus created the ACK Brand.

The ACK issues are broadly divided into 6 categories : Epics and Mythology, Visionaries, Bravehearts, Indian classics, Fables and Humour, and Contemporary Classics. They cover nearly every aspect of Indian culture. Keeping in mind India’s diversity, there are editions covering important figures and stories from all the major religions that have been part of India and from every period of Indian history: Ancient, Medieval and Modern.  Also, you have issues on recent heroes such as JRD Tata, Dhyan Chand, Jim Corbett, Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Kalpana Chawla and Uncle Pai himself. In fact, the recent issues have a graphic novel like feel to them.

So what was my journey with ACK? During my childhood, every year during the summer holidays, we used to go to Matunga and buy books for the vacation. These would invariably include ACK issues. Reading them was a source of endless enjoyment and learning. In fact, 90-95% of whatever I know of Indian culture – Mythology, History, etc. came from here. This helped me a lot, sometimes in very unexpected ways. In my 4^th std Social Studies exam, there was a question “Manipur is located in the __________ of India”. There were no options, of course, and I was stumped.  Suddenly I recalled having read in the ACK edition of the Mahabharata that when Arjuna travelled to the east of India, he reached Manipur.  So I wrote “East” as my answer which thankfully turned out to be right.

Reading good literature, in general, helps us to boost our critical thinking skills by making us understand multiple perspectives. This is something ACK achieves by having issues on various characters who occupied different ends of the spectra. So you have issues on Rama and Ravana, the Pandavas and Duryodhana, Akbar and Maharana Pratap, etc. While you may not end up agreeing with each character, you understand where he/she comes from. This boosts your empathy quotient too.

So will I recommend you, gentle reader, to go for ACK? A resounding yes!!  It’s a practical demonstration of the thought that Learning and Fun must go hand in hand.

During these days of the lockdown, in March, ACK had come up with a free one month subscription. I availed of it, downloaded their app and started re reading my favorite issues. For those few hours each day, I was transported to my childhood, to those days of coming face to face with my country’s past in such an engaging manner. Dear Uncle Pai, thank you for all this invaluable treasure and for the memories!!

This article has been authored by Anirudh Jayaram , a verbal faculty at TIME Mumbai