Malinda Words: Those fascinating ‘chitra katha’

The amazing ‘Mihira’ was a package of sweetness that came every Monday. The country and the world in a nutshell, that’s what it seemed to be. So much knowledge conveyed in simple language decorated with photographs beautifully laid out, long before there was designing software.

Naturally, the eye went to the visuals. The photographs, illustrations and the cartoon strips. And that’s how, as someone once said, many children acquired the ‘poth kiyavana pissuwa (the reading madness.’

I have written about ‘Mihira’ before and also of S A Dissanayake who gave us Boo, Baba, Thus, Batakola Archchi, Yodaya and so many characters who became our inseparable friends. I need not repeat except to say this once again, prathama premaya mihiramai (Mihira was undoubtedly the first love).

[ප්‍රථම ප්‍රේමය මිහිරියි, මිහිරිම කාලය හා “මිහිර“ මතකයන්! Memories of Mihira days and when life was so much sweeter]

We called them Chitra Katha, literally art-stories. Cartoons. They were not ‘animated’ but there was more than enough animation in the stories and in what they did to us and our imaginations.

Such books were frowned upon and teachers would often confiscate them if someone was caught reading them. So the various parts of ‘Landesi Hatana’ writte by Dharma Sri Caldera and illustrated by Susil Premaratne were surreptitiously read and passed around the class. There was ‘Sathuta’ which contained more than a dozen serialised stories. I remember eagerly waiting for someone to bring the paper to class on Tuesday so I could read the next part of ‘Megha.’ The stories in ‘Sathuta’ were continued in ‘Madhura.’

Then there was ‘Siththara,’ a tabloid if I remember correctly, put out by Multipax. It quickly supplanted ‘Madhura.’ I remember Janaka Ratnyake’s ‘Ithin eeta passe…(so…thereafter…)’ with his flowing signature and characters with almost unnaturally wavy hair. Years later, when I worked at ‘The Island’ I met Janaka Aiya, a quiet, unassuming and absolutely humble artist who delighted in his work and always sported a smile, an ahinsaka sinahava which is not translatable as ‘innocent smile.’

Back to cartoons. Chitra Katha. There was and still is a series by that very name. Almost. ‘Amar Chitra Katha.’ A neighbour had dozens of books, all stories from what is now called India. Stories from the Mahabharata, Ramayana and heroic figures of the myriad of histories in the subcontinent. Wars, miracles, austerities, gods, demons, humans, human love, they had it all. I am not a student of history and therefore I cannot vouch for historical accuracy. Nevertheless these stories fascinated me and made me want to explore deeper, to seek confirmation or refutation.

The kings, queens, princes, princesses, gods, demons, sages, ministers and ordinary folk all looked alike. Maybe a single artiest or a limited team of artists had been employed by the folk who worked at ‘Amar Chitra Katha’ or rather the publishing house that gave us those fascinating stories. Then again, each individual had a character, a personality, a complement of skills or virtues or both. These were indelible.

Tintin. Asterix. They had their slots in the wider archive of stories which included novels and epic poetry. Even what I thought was decidedly inferior such as US comic books of the world wars, romance and the Archie stories had their moments. Later, even as an adult, I delighted in the ‘funnies,’ Charlie Brown, Calvin and Hobbes and of course The Far Side of Gary Larson.

For all the words I’ve encountered, I’ve always been more amazed by the work of cartoonists who, with a few words (if at all), a few brush strokes and clever juxtaposition could say what I could have to use 1,000 words to express.

There are people like S A Dissanayake whose work is known but names unknown or forgotten. They’ve made us walk on clouds. They made us believe that there will be another Monday that will make the sometimes disappointing intervening days somehow bearable.

['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is a new series. Links to previous articles in this new series are given below]

28 March 2023

Those fascinating ‘chitra katha’

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