Childhood memories came flooding back as the eyes caught the headline "Uncle Pai no more". This uncle was one of those whom we had never met in flesh and blood but had charmed his way into our hearts. He contributed immensely to various facets of our personalities which are now appreciated as positive. Through the immortal Amar Chitra Katha series he lured every kid worth its salt into the habit of reading. The pictures of the characters in these comic books inspired us to attempt the art of drawing, painting and sketching. The stories were told in inimitable style maintaining simple sentences with an uncanny sense of introducing us to new words in each comic. This was soon to be followed by the Tinkle series which brought us nearer to humour and ethics besides fulfilling our desire of seeing action.
Treading down the memory lane, I could see myself wait for that golden moment of my quota of comics which were to compensate me for the various trinkets my sister would get on pay day of my father. A princely sum would be forked out to purchase a comic or two from the bookseller. We were undoubtedly spoilt for choices. The desire would be to grab as many but the budgetary ceiling would come in the way. After deliberations which even an international convention would fail to measure upto a couple of titles would be picked up with a shortlist for the next month. Experience did not teach us that by the next month there would be fresh titles on the stands. The books would range from mythology to history. The time taken to shop these books could leave any woman to fume that too much of time was being spent on shopping. It would be easy time for our parents to do some small shopping nearby leaving us under the guardianship of the bookseller as well as the invisible hold of Uncle Pai.
The wait to return home to savour the contents of these books was too much to bear. A novel device was therefore discovered much to the trauma of our parents ( as we realise now!!!). The comic book in one hand would be opened and the other would clasp the hand of our guardian angels. Confident that there would be no mistake made by them, we could relish the books on the way home. With two books, the choice of which title to be read by whom first was also an engaging conversation. As we now enjoy the conversation of the kids, these memories try to draw out the images of persons who were the beneficiaries of the free entertainment we provided for the folks around. Within the trek of a couple of kilometres the contents of both the books would have been devoured. This would not satiate the desire. Another round of reading had to be done in the name of eating our dinners. This was one of the habits which most elders detested but we continued undeterred. The collection of books were then bound into a volume which helped us befriend a printer near our house. Imagine this man, Babu ( much less my present age) would read the books before binding them. The charm of these books fetched us friends too. As in philately, the attempt to read the other titles which were in the possession of other contemporaries was but natural.
As time passed we came across a colleague of my father who had a bigger collection of this treasure. The manna from heaven for us was that his home was near the market. We still do not know what he would have thought of us. Muthukrishnan Uncle's home was a regular place to visit soon. His kids and we started exchanging volumes of these books. This habit though initially put us through Enid Blyton took us through the familiar growth curve of Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Alfred Hitchcock, Arthur Hailey, Jeffrey Archer right upto the Dan Brown of today.
It was only a couple of weeks back a good old friend of ours dropped in home and shared with us his old ambition to own Amar Chitra Katha comics and therefore his penchant today is to only gift them. The moment he said he had started acquiring volumes of them which is the new trend, it was a mutually understood fact that the old friendship was on revival track- the reason of course the love for the books more than for the friendship. Uncle Pai had again waved the magic wand.
The books that have been savoured, relished and cherished may be many but none could come near the sense of belonging given by these treasured ones. Imagine the days when we would actually quiz each other on the facets of these books. The nearest any set of books got to the sense of this belonging were Asterix and Obelix as well as to some extent Tintin. The reach of these books can be fathomed by the fact that a youngster who is new degree holder grew upon a staple diet of the success stories(?) of Shikari Shambhu and the wisecracks of Suppandi.
The best tribute one could pay to this legendary uncle is to cultivate the habit of reading, imagining, creating with the anchor firmly dropped in the familiar moorings of culture, ethics and morals. The ultimate tribute would be to restore the moral fabric of mankind by reaching out to the familiar and unknown at the same time. Uncle Pai is undoubtedly an eternal (AMAR) and picturesque (CHITRA) story (KATHA) in himself!!!
Treading down the memory lane, I could see myself wait for that golden moment of my quota of comics which were to compensate me for the various trinkets my sister would get on pay day of my father. A princely sum would be forked out to purchase a comic or two from the bookseller. We were undoubtedly spoilt for choices. The desire would be to grab as many but the budgetary ceiling would come in the way. After deliberations which even an international convention would fail to measure upto a couple of titles would be picked up with a shortlist for the next month. Experience did not teach us that by the next month there would be fresh titles on the stands. The books would range from mythology to history. The time taken to shop these books could leave any woman to fume that too much of time was being spent on shopping. It would be easy time for our parents to do some small shopping nearby leaving us under the guardianship of the bookseller as well as the invisible hold of Uncle Pai.
The wait to return home to savour the contents of these books was too much to bear. A novel device was therefore discovered much to the trauma of our parents ( as we realise now!!!). The comic book in one hand would be opened and the other would clasp the hand of our guardian angels. Confident that there would be no mistake made by them, we could relish the books on the way home. With two books, the choice of which title to be read by whom first was also an engaging conversation. As we now enjoy the conversation of the kids, these memories try to draw out the images of persons who were the beneficiaries of the free entertainment we provided for the folks around. Within the trek of a couple of kilometres the contents of both the books would have been devoured. This would not satiate the desire. Another round of reading had to be done in the name of eating our dinners. This was one of the habits which most elders detested but we continued undeterred. The collection of books were then bound into a volume which helped us befriend a printer near our house. Imagine this man, Babu ( much less my present age) would read the books before binding them. The charm of these books fetched us friends too. As in philately, the attempt to read the other titles which were in the possession of other contemporaries was but natural.
As time passed we came across a colleague of my father who had a bigger collection of this treasure. The manna from heaven for us was that his home was near the market. We still do not know what he would have thought of us. Muthukrishnan Uncle's home was a regular place to visit soon. His kids and we started exchanging volumes of these books. This habit though initially put us through Enid Blyton took us through the familiar growth curve of Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Alfred Hitchcock, Arthur Hailey, Jeffrey Archer right upto the Dan Brown of today.
It was only a couple of weeks back a good old friend of ours dropped in home and shared with us his old ambition to own Amar Chitra Katha comics and therefore his penchant today is to only gift them. The moment he said he had started acquiring volumes of them which is the new trend, it was a mutually understood fact that the old friendship was on revival track- the reason of course the love for the books more than for the friendship. Uncle Pai had again waved the magic wand.
The books that have been savoured, relished and cherished may be many but none could come near the sense of belonging given by these treasured ones. Imagine the days when we would actually quiz each other on the facets of these books. The nearest any set of books got to the sense of this belonging were Asterix and Obelix as well as to some extent Tintin. The reach of these books can be fathomed by the fact that a youngster who is new degree holder grew upon a staple diet of the success stories(?) of Shikari Shambhu and the wisecracks of Suppandi.
The best tribute one could pay to this legendary uncle is to cultivate the habit of reading, imagining, creating with the anchor firmly dropped in the familiar moorings of culture, ethics and morals. The ultimate tribute would be to restore the moral fabric of mankind by reaching out to the familiar and unknown at the same time. Uncle Pai is undoubtedly an eternal (AMAR) and picturesque (CHITRA) story (KATHA) in himself!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment