Slips Between The Lip And The Strip

Tehelka - India's Independent Weekly News Magazine: "WHEN ANANT PAI, an engineer from Karnataka, started Amar Chitra Katha in 1967 he wanted to bring entertainment into the dull lives of schoolchildren. He and the team that worked with him in India Book House created a runaway success. Gods, humans, demons, saints and revolutionaries frolicked, fought and loved within brightly coloured panels. Equally acceptable to children and parents, Amar Chitra Katha (ACK) was to become an authoritative source for Indian mythology. Everyone from costume designers of mythological serials to school teachers and trivia hounds saw familiar and unfamiliar tales through the ACK lenses. The selfstyled Uncle Pai was told decades later by then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee that only he could fill the warm spot left empty by ‘Chacha Nehru’."