Anant Pai popularly known as Uncle Pai, was an Indian educationalist and creator of Indian comics, in particular the Amar Chitra Katha series in 1967, along with the India Book House publishers, and which retold traditional Indian folk tales, mythological stories, and biographies of historical characters. In 1980, he launched Tinkle, a children's anthology, which was started under Rang Rekha Features, India's first comic and cartoon syndicate, that lasted till 1998, with him as the Managing Director.
Today, Amar Chitra Katha sells about three million comic books a year, in English and more than 20 Indian languages, and has sold about 100 million copies since it inception in 1967 by Anant Pai, and in 2007 was taken over by ACK Media.
Contains 5 stories about Krishna. I likely will not remember many details, but I have a sense of the story now. (I will remember flying elephants, because who would forget that?)
The first section, by Anant Pai, about Krishna's youth is the one I enjoyed the most. It is available as a stand-alone Krishna. The other four stories are by Kamala Chandrakant. All 5 have different illustrators.
A little pre-Janmashtami visit to the naughty cowherd's son/ protector of the Universe.
This was probably my earliest introduction to Lord Krishna via the straight-forward storytelling of Amar Chitra Katha. An origin story if you will.
It tells us how the eighth reincarnation of Lord Vishnu came to rid the world of many nasties (ranging from murderous uncles to poisonous nurse maids to startled water snakes spewing venom etc), scooped up his future (already a smitten kitten) wife, Rukmini under the stunned eyes of many a prospective suitor and one rather vengeful brother-in-law to be, went on to protect his impenetrable city of Dwaraka from blood thirsty emperors and nether-world baddies....all while maintaining his twinkly-eyed charm and mischievous smile.
A fun way to introduce young ones to the maakhan-loving cherubic who went on play a pivotal role in one of the greatest battles of the world.
Stories of Krishna by Anant Pai is another Amar chitra katha comic I really admire. I just love reading these stories although the comic version is quite short. The illustrations are absolutely captivating.
one of my hobbies is reading about different nations’ mythological stories; persian, greek, roman and so on are a few of them. one of the live mythologies of the world is the indian’s. by live i mean people still “believe” in it. the stories are not just stories, they’re facts around which people live, and the heroes are their role models. stories are firmly rooted in people’s cultural heritage and in a way it is fair to say that it defines their way of living.
anyway, i was recently introduced to amar chitra katha’s by one of my coworkers. his family is originally from india, but he was born and raised overseas. according to him these books are his only way of learning about his indian culture and religious background. kids usually like comic books and to teach stuffs to a kid using comic books is very effective, as he/she is reading the text while looking at pictures, which helps more toward conveying the idea.
created by anant pai, amar chitra katha is one of the largest comic books series in india. as far as i know the books are all about real mythological vedic stories, epic and fables. i found two of them, “krishna” and “ramayana” and read them as soon as i got them. the stories are very well written, very simple and easy to understand, and faithful to the source. krishna is a hindu deity and an avatar of vishnu, the supreme god. i know krishna from bhagavad gita, one of the best books i’ve ever read (i haven’t finished it yet). ramayana is an indian epic ascribed to valmiki, a hindu sage. ramayana together with mahabharata are two of the greatest indian epics. it is the story of rama another avatar of the vishnu, and a king of ayodhya.
The late Anant Pai the writer, creator and editor of this book, also known popularly across India as Uncle Pai, was also one of the pioneers and creators of Indian comics, in particular the Amar Chitra Katha series in 1967, of which this volume is a part.
In Hinduism and ancient India, scriptures are about Lord Vishnu, the preserver of the universe appearing in numerous avatars to save the world from evil and there would be a total of 10 avatars of which Krishna is the 8th avatar and the 10th avatar is awaited. Krishna is the most popular because of his childhood which was filled with fun and adventures including fights with demons sent to kill him because of a prophecy. The popular Harry Potter series has many similarities with the Krishna story and could share some common inspiration.
This particular volume is a collection of five stories from different times of Krishna's life and starts with one of his visits to Heaven the kingdom of Indra, king of the Devas (gods).
The stories are fun and interesting and also provide the reader an insight into the Indian hsitory and scriptures. Victory of good over evil is the underlying principal and abhorrence to hurt anyone who has not caused hurt and or the art of forgiveness is all a part of the psyche.
This was so much fun to read again. I'm pretty sure I read some of these in my childhood when I used to read comic after comic. Also, thanks to this book, mom and I had a lot of discussions on some of the story elements and how she remembers the actual story/mythology. And my pronunciation was wack due to fact that the English spellings for some of the names were weird. Overall, super fun.
What a way to begin the year! I was delighted by this collection of graphic novels (comics) by Pai. The artwork was terrific and very engaging. I really enjoyed learning about Krishna through these very dramatic and fascinating stories.
I think upper elementary students and upwards to adults would all really enjoy this collection.
Who knew that all Bheema had to do to defeat evil King Jarasandha was pull apart his legs until he split him in half? You might have thought that Krishna would have mentioned this fact to Bheema sometime before the 27th day of the fight. All's well that ends well, I suppose.