Ananth Pai

Ananth Pai popularly known as ‘Uncle Pai‘ was an Indian educationist and a pioneer in Indian comics. He is most famous as the creator of 2 comic book series Amara Chitra Katha, which retold traditional Indian folk tales, mythological stories and biographies of historical characters and Tinkle, a children’s anthologyHe was born on 17-09-1929 in Karkala. Venkataraya Pai and Susheela  Pai were his parents. He lost his parents  at the age of two. He was then brought up by his maternal grandfather.He persued his primary education in Karkala. Ananth Pai studied in Orient School, Mahim and he persued his higher education in Chemistry, Physics and Chemical Technology at the Institute of Chemical Technology, University of Bombay.

Career

He was endowed with a passion for publishing  comics and created a children’s magazine  “Manav”  which failed to make an impact on readers. This lead him to seek a career of a junior executive in ‘The Times Of India‘ books division. Then Indrajal comics, which was famous for publishing comic book series like Mandrake and The Phantom was launched by the Times Group. The idea behind starting a comic book series devoted to Indian culture and history flashed to Pai from a quiz contest aired on Doordarshan in 1967, in which participants could  easily answer questions pertaining to Greek mythology and were unable to reply to the question based on Indian mythology. He left the job and started Amar Chitra Katha, a comic-book series which retold traditional Indian folk tales, Hindu Mythology and biographies of historical persons. The series  went on to become a publishing milestone for the Indian comic book selling over  86 millions copies of about 440 titles. In 1969, Pai founded Rang Rekha features India’s first Comic & Cartoon Syndicate. In 1980, he started Tinkle under this syndicate. Tinkle too replicated the success of Amar Chitra Katha with the magazine  currently in its 669 issue. Pai launched Chimpu comics which included his own works like Ramu and Shamu, Kapish, Little Raji and Fact fantasy. Later the publication was stopped and  he sold ‘Ranga Rekha‘ Features to Hyderabad based animation studio named Color Chips. Pai was also a specialist in personality development. He founded the Partha Institute  of Personality Development in 1978, which conducted classes through correspondence for children and teenagers. Pai has written several books on personality development such as How to Develop Self-Confidence, How to Achieve Success, How To Develop A Super Memory and audio book Storytime with Uncle Pai. He has also written and produced 2 video films Ekam Sat and The Secret of Success both in English and Hindi.

Recognitions

Pai has bagged many rewards like – Lifetime Achievement Award at the First Indian Comic Convention, New Delhi (2011), Karpoorchand Puraskar of Uttar Pradesh Bal Kalyan Sansthan (1994), Yudhvir Memorial Award in Hyderabad (1996), Maharashtra Rajya Hindi Sahitya Academy Award (1996), Dr. T.M.A. Pai Memorial Award in Manipal (1997), Millenium Konkani Sammelan Award, USA (2000), Priyadarshini Academy Award (2002), Vishwa Saraswat Sammelan (2003).