Uncle Pai’s love for kids was extraordinary

I remember Anant Pai telling me once, more than 25 years ago, of how the first issues of Amar Chitra Katha were born.

The story of how he was disappointed in late 1960 — when some students could answer questions from Greek mythology, but not from Indian mythology — is well-known. What is relatively unknown are the beginnings of Amar Chitra Katha (ACK) in a cubbyhole office... If I’m correct, somewhere in Mumbai’s Fort area.

GL Mirchandani of India Book House was the publisher who had backed his idea to start a series of comics based on Indian history and mythology. The Pai-Mirchandani team began small and was taking a risk. What is firmly imprinted in my memory is of him speaking of the stink of the common loo wafting in his work area.

It was about 30 years ago that I met Pai in his basement office at Mahalaxmi Chambers, near Cadbury House, Mahalaxmi. The summer holidays after my standard X board exams were on and I had met him by chance. Pai wanted to know my plans for the vacations and that conversation opened up a summer job at ACK, as we called that office. I helped with the odds and ends, assisted during book exhibitions in Mumbai and went bookshop to bookshop, vendor to vendor collecting orders for ACK titles.

My very first sense of achievement from a job happened when a vendor in a shack placed an order for 10,000 copies of various ACK titles. I was stunned and Anant Pai was proud.

That experience with a newspaper vendor in pajamas taught me never to be fooled by first impressions. At ACK, I saw the birth of the entertaining children’s comic, Tinkle. I noticed the seriousness with which Pai treated letters pouring in from children — on postcards, inland letters and envelops. He was famous as ‘Uncle Pai’ and we got letters from all corners of the country; the smallest of towns and talukas. Since he could not reply to all individually, there were printed letters in handwriting font with his signature. I was quite impressed when I first saw those letters and helped in the chore of mailing them.
Pai did not like shoddy work and we were afraid of entering or being summoned to his wood-and-glass cabin.

The office had a friendly lot: Dennis, Olivia, Subba Rao, Nira Benegal. I remember his instructions to seniors — one had to be thorough with the research and no gory stuff in the illustrations.

Once a group of us school and college kids was at an event-exhibition near his Prabhadevi home and our lunch break happened at his flat. After lunch we were about to rush back when he waved and asked us to relax for another 10-15 minutes. I remember him saying, “Even a hard-working bull needs to take a break.” Pai was passionate about his love for children. He wanted them to overcome their fears, develop self-esteem, be confident and ambitious. He never saw his work as a business model — wanting to maximise profits year after year.

His Rang Rekha Features Syndicate issued interesting factoids and snippets, and I remember some of his publications and workshops for children from his Partha Institute for Personality Development. The Pais had no children and it amazed me to no end that they poured so much love and affection on the children around them. I left Bombay in 1987 and met him just once after that. In the last two months I was making and breaking plans to visit him with my family and seek his blessings. Alas! That day will now never come.