Professional Career
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 at The Times of India and started Amar Chitra Katha, a comic-book series which retold traditional Indian folk tales, Hindu mythology and biographies of historical persons, the same year, with the help of late G. L. Mirchandani of India Book House, when most other publishers from Allied Publishers to Jaico had rejected the concept. He took on the role of writer, editor and publisher. The series went on to become a publishing milestone for the Indian comic book scene, selling over 86 million copies of about 440 titles.
In 1969, Pai founded Rang Rekha Features, India's first comic and cartoon syndicate. In November 1980, he started Tinkle under this syndicate. It is a children's anthology of short stories, jokes and educational articles in comic-book format. Tinkle too replicated the success of Amar Chitra Katha, with the magazine currently in its 603th issue as of November 2012. Pai's involvement with the above, and the personal rapport he shared with his readers earned him the title "Uncle Pai". In 1989, again through this syndicate, Pai launched Chimpu Comics, which included his own works like Ramu and Shamu, Kapish, Little Raji and Fact Fantasy. This venture failed to repeat the success of Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle and eventually its publication was stopped. Pai remained Managing Director of Rang Rekha Features till 2000, when he sold it to a Hyderabad-based animation studio named Color Chips.
Besides comics, Pai was also a specialist in personality development. He founded the Partha Institute of Personality Development in August 1978, which conducted personality development classes through correspondence for children and teenagers.
Read more about this topic: Anant Pai
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