Indian corporate

honcho and classical singer

Chandrika Krishnamurthy Tandon lost out on the
Grammy for the best contemporary
world music
album for Om Namo
Narayanaya: Soul Call to Bla Fleck (Throw Down
Your Heart, Africa Sessions Part 2: Unreleased Tracks).
Another US-based Indian
jazz pianist, Vijay Iyer, lost
the Grammy for best jazz
instrumental album, individual
or group to James
Moody (Moody 4B) at the
gala event.

One of the most well-loved personalities, especially among children and the creator of the Amar Chitra Katha and
Tinkle series of comics, Anant Pai (fondly known as Uncle Pai) passed away on Thursday in Mumbai at the age of
79. Pai was responsible for a sort of revolution in the world of comic books. A well-known educationist and creator
of Indian comic books, espe cially the Amar Chitra Katha series, Pai was born in Karkala district of Karnataka to
Venkataraya and Susheela Pai on September 17 in 1929.

Uncle Pai was known to be extremely warm and amiable. He loved children and enjoyed entertaining them by
narrating mythological stories. There is an interesting story that inspired him to create the comics series. In 1967, he
was watching a quiz show on Doordarshan, where he saw that a child couldn't answer the questions related to Indian
mythology, but easily answered questions pertain ing to Greek mythology.

He realised that children lacked basic awareness when it came to Indian mythology. Their responses led him to
create the ACK series, which had an extremely friendly approach to understanding mythology and learning more
about Indian culture. He studied chemical technology at Institute of Chemical Technology and took to creative
writing much later. He worked as journalist for some time and quit his job to create ACK in 1967.

After a few years, he created another famous comic book — Tinkle, in November 1980. They created some
memorable characters like Suppandi, Shikari Shambhu, Tantri the Mantri and Uncle Anu. Uncle Pai continued to
develop ideas till the very end – for the last three years he was working on the project — Glimpses of Glory — a
large format book that brought to life 40 defining moments from Indian history. –Deccan Chronicle 25/02/2011