A doodle , Anant Pai and remembering the mid 1990’s

Today (17 September ) was the day that Anant Pai, or as we all remember Uncle Pai, was born, and Google India has actually published a doodle to mark this Occasion.

Anant Pai and his comics Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle were a real source of awe and inspiration for my generation. When I was a kid I used to trouble my mother every night for a story and she would secretly look into the tinkle books for inspiration. Back then we did not have many TV channels and ones like DD were mostly news channels and broadcast the occasional cartoon, So I literally grew into my Teen years reading Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle, They did get boring somewhere between 2000 – 2003, But still I really cannot forget those memorable days of reading tinkle for innumerable hours.

The current younger Generation on the other hand has been corrupted by the innumerable number of Cartoons from every channel , and the worst part is that unlike cartoons from my childhood theses are rarely about Life Lessons. Kids today seem to be more interested in over the top heroism and violence . I really despise cartoons like Power Rangers  as they project an image that most of the problems can be solved by killing the main villan and causing as much violence as possible , One could argue that Power Rangers existed in mid 1990’s , but if you think about it they were never broadcast in India at that time , The cartoon I saw as a kid was Jungle Book and other miscellaneous Stories.

Now getting back to the topic , There was a time in the mid 1990’s , I think around 1995 that I saw for the first time a Tinkle comic , and I have to say that I immediately fell in love with it, I would spend hours and hours with my Tinkle and Amar Chirtra Katha Comics. And every month I would pester my dad  to get me the latest issue of the comics, I would secretly smuggle it to school and read it during Lunch times, I would also occasionally get caught reading it in class.

I still vividly remember the colourful stories of Shikari Shambu , Suppandi ,Nasruddin Hodja, etc , They were an abundant source of inspiration back then. Suppandi was one of my favorites , I would find suppandi stories funny even if I had read it for the 100th time, that was the power of those Colourful comics .

Oh I forgot to mention the most Intelligent Characters of them all, Birbal. His stories of wit, humor , combined with intelligence were a real source of exaltation. And most of the time each story had an amazing ending with a really good message . Here are a few that I found : Stories of birbal.Those were literally the Golden years of my education, I learnt a lot and learning was such a pleasurable experience back then , And like all Golden years it did come to an end , But Golden years are the ones that stay in memory for a lifetime . I have to thank Anant Pai for starting something that can never be forgot !!