Local heroes

Every year before Durgapuja, publishers in Bengal put out special Puja shankhya editions of their hit children's comics. This season's biggest draws are some of the oldest series

The strong man whom bullets cannot pierce and who can lift heavy iron pillars without effort is just a neighbourhood boy who wears vests and half-pants and speaks colloquial Bengali. The title character of Batul the Great was created by Narayan Debnath, the famous cartoonist of Shuktara, a Bengali monthly children's magazine. The generation that read these books during the 1980s and 1990s swears by comic strips like Batul the Great, Handa Bhonda and Nonte Fonte, as well as Bengali translations of the adventures of Tintin, Asterix, Dennis the Menace and the Phantom.

Do these old cult comics still work? Now is the right time to ask, as the bookstalls fill with Puja shankhyas, the special annual Durgapuja comics collections.

 

“The popularity of the monthly children magazines can be attributed to the comic series in them. Both Shuktara and Anandamela, the two leading children’s comics magazines, were defined by the comic strips they published,” says Arabinda Dasgupta, proprietor of the Dasgupta & Co bookshop in College Street.

“Shuktara, with Narayan Debnath’s comics, is popular among beginners, while Anandamela is popular among teens,” says Aninda Das, owner of a College Street bookstall. Das says that on the very first day after the release of this year’s Anandamela Puja Shankhya, he sold 86 copies. Such is the popularity of the children magazines, he says, that every day young customers come to ask when Shuktara’s Puja edition will be released. It is due to come out by the end of the month.

"I like reading Nonte Fonte and how they overpower Keltuda, a senior bully, with their wit. I have a similar bully in my school," says Anirudha Sengupta, a 6th-standard student of South Point School who dropped by at College Street to check on his favourite Shuktara Puja edition.

"The language, simple flair and comprehensive nature of Debnath’s comic strips has made them a hit with beginners, while Anandamela has introduced Bengali translations of the adventures of Tintin and Asterix," says Dasgupta of Dasgupta & Co. Debnath does his own illustrations, and the simple story plots are set in a Bengali cultural environment, so he connects with his readers. “Owing to the popularity of these cartoon strips,” Dasgupta adds, “independent publishers have brought out compilations which are bestsellers among children's books.”

Various publishers have Bengali translations of contemporary Hindi comic strips like Chhota Bheem, Amar Chitra Katha titles, and so on. But the demand for Batul the Great, Handa Bhonda and Nonte Fonte remains unequalled. Animated programmes based on these series even show on vernacular TV channels.

Debnath, who is 86, says that it is the characters that he created for Shuktara that keep him going. “One day my editor called me and asked me if I could illustrate a Bengali comic series, and I couldn’t say no to my boss,” he says, giggling.

His first comic strip was Handa Bhonda. Handa and Bhonda, the boys who are the title characters, Debnath drew from his memories of childhood and of his pishemoshai (father's sister's husband). “The success of this strip led to the creation of Batul the Great and subsequently to Nonte Fonte,” says Debnath.

His characters have grown from black-and-white to full colour, and Debnath has remained unfazed by age. “I am always thinking of story plots for my characters,” he says, “and to date I sketch my characters myself.” He is not pessimistic about the future, unlike many of his readers. “I am sure there are talents who can create similar original works like these or better than mine,” he says.

Despite the onslaught of cartoons online and on the TV, there does not seem to have been any fall in the readership of these magazines. “In Anandamela we have tried to kindle children's imaginations and to make them look at a world beyond the everyday one, that too with a mind's eye,” says Poulami Sengupta, Anandamela's editor. “Cartoon TV notwithstanding, Bengali children do read. Retaining readers has not been a problem with Anandamela till date. Now we also publish our own comics by local artists, where the stories are by the illustrators themselves or by eminent writers. These are also liked and do create a stir.”

Durgapuja is looking good this year, for the publishers as well as their young readers.