Anant Pai
Anant Pai (born 1937) is a reknowned educationist and creator of Indian comics, in particular the Amar Chitra Katha series, which retold traditional Indian folk tales, mythological stories, and biographies of historical characters, and Tinkle, a children's anthology.
Originally from Karkala, Karnataka, he lost his parents at the age of two, and at age twelve, came to Mumbai, where he studied in Orient School, Mahim. He studied chemistry, physics and chemical technology and was a dual degree holder from the University of Bombay(now Mumbai). Endowed with a passion for publishing and comics, his failed attempt at creating a children's magazine (Manav, 1954) was followed by a career as a junior executive in the Times of India Books Division, putting him in the thick of affairs when Indrajal comics was launched by the Times Group. Indrajal featured reprints of popular American strip characters like the the Phantom, Mandrake the Magician, and later, indigeneous characters like Bahadur and Dara.
The idea behind starting a comicbook series devoted to Indian culture and history came to Pai from a quiz contest aired on Doordarshan in February 1967, in which participants could easily answer questions pertaining to Greek mythology, but were unable to reply to the question "In the Ramayana, who was Rama's mother?". He left his job and started Amar Chitra Katha the same year, with the help of G.L Mirchandani of India Book House, when most other publishers from Allied Publishers to Jaico had rejected the concept. Later, he took on the role of writer, editor and publisher. The series went on to become a publishing milestone for the Indian comicbook scene, selling over 86 million copies of about 440 titles.
In 1969, Anant Pai founded Rang Rekha Features, India's first comic and cartoon syndicate, and started the children's magazine Tinkle in 1980. His involvement with the above, and the rapport he shared with his readers earned him the title "Uncle Pai".
Pai's other works include a number of books on personality development for children and teenagers, ("How To Develop Self-confidence", "How to Achieve Success", "How To Develop A Super Memory", UBS Publishers) and a series of audio book versions of Amar Chitra Katha stories, "Storytime with Uncle Pai"(where he plays the role of narrator-storyteller).