How Anant Pai Became India’s Uncle Pai

Despite the schools opening their doors and an influx of new readers through them, Pai was not extremely keen to use schools as the lone platform through which to interact with children. Since children from across the country had started writing directly to them, he wondered if they could arrange interactive sessions with the children regularly.

The idea was not taken up enthusiastically by any of the teams. Each team had its work cut out. The editorial team was laden with projects and coordinating with experts, writers, and illustrators, and the printing team itself was taking up all their time. Besides, some juniors in the editorial team were given the duty of reading and sortingthe letters from the readers, a task which they resented and thought of as menial compared to working on stories.

The marketing team was also not keen. Apart from advertisements and promotions through the conventional sales channels, on Pai’s insistence, they had to bear the responsibility of the school contact programme. In the last few years, since the schools had thrown open their gates to ACK, they had more than they could handle with the existing team. What they loathed was the unending coordination with the schools, where the approach was far removed from their usual book distribution network.

A testimony to this sudden increase in the school contact programme was the schedule that Pai and Lalita, who accompanied him to every school, followed. There were weeks on end when they would not return to Bombay, hopping from one city—where they would touch a dozen or so schools over a few days—to another, where a similar set of programmes awaited them.

ACK Reading Week

one to work judiciously on an idea once it caught his fancy, Pai created an exhaustive plan for these interactions. Thus was born the idea of “Reading Week”, another lesser- known brainchild of Pai. he loathed missing an opportunity to interact with his readers. Furthermore, this came with advantages. It would be completely under ACK’s control, which meant they didn’t have to go through the routine rigmarole and the cumbersome coordination with the school authorities.

o, during the summer vacation months in 1978, ACK had its first Reading Week in Bombay. It was lacklustre, to say the least. Many children enrolled and came to read comics. But Pai realised that they had not prepared anything and it did not qualify to be called an event. Children came, read comics, some spoke about their favourite comics, and went back home.

Pai knew the initiative wouldn’t sustain on such a flimsy model. he needed to include something that the children enjoyed when they assembled, something which gave them memories they could take back, cherish, and share with other children. Ideas were floated and after much deliberation, Pai decided to have a fancy dress competition based on the characters on whom ACK had developed comic books.

This was instantly embraced by the children. They dressed up as their favourite characters and delivered brief speeches or spoke of some facts about these characters that were not included in the comic books. Pai appreciated this part since he consistently maintained that the role of any book—more so of a comic book because of its concise format—is to coax the reader to read more and explore further.

Uncle Pai Is Born

These interactions grew every month, and Pai took them up with boundless enthusiasm. After all, this was closest to his heart. It was a coming together of the two loves of his life: stories and children along with his beloved, Lalita, who would accompany him to all these storytelling sessions. he couldn’t have asked for more.

The sessions remained a sight to behold. It was a completely different Anant Pai, from what everyone in IBH knew him as, who attended them. After the initial introductions, with the start of the storytelling, Pai would transform into a child himself, oozing enthusiasm and a childlike excitement that made the stories all the more interesting.

Almost all these sessions would extend beyond the allotted time; neither the school authorities and the students nor Pai ever objected to this. Pai realised that he shared an unusual bond with the children. It was as if he was a part of their extended family, a storytelling uncle whom the children looked forward to meeting during weekend family gatherings. Though the children invariably addressed him as “sir” in these sessions, there would be an occasional “uncle”.

On one occasion, while Pai was in Delhi to attend the International Book Fair, he was waiting to cross the road when he noticed a man nudge his son and point towards Pai. Next, the man told his son, ‘Look, there’s your uncle Pai.’

“Uncle Pai” would soon become his second name . . . or rather, the first name for millions of readers across the country, especially with the introduction of Tinkle.