Udhay Shankar N wrote: > Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote: [ on 08:43 PM 2/21/2006 ] > >> > Amar Chitra Katha does not have any propoganda? Why do you think all >> > heros are depicted as light skinned and all the asuras as dark >> > skinned? Ever wonder why there are an inordinately large percentage of >> > Rajput chitra kathas? Ever wondered about the favorable depiction of >> > sati in these books? Last year I re-read some 50-60 of these books and >> > found the jingoism in many of them nauseating. >> > That, however, does not really address Thaths' point(s), does it?
Well, to start with, Pai is from the konkan.. mangalore, udupi or someplace similar. That's more or less south indian. He started out as a distributor for Phantom, Mandrake etc - the usual DC and other comics in India. And apparently couldnt find a single indian comic around. A lot of the grist to his mill has been either hindu myth (mostly "north" centric) and Col. James Tod's "Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan". Precious few south indian stories around that I can see (Kannagi, Tenali Rama stories etc). Hindu myth = places where most heroes are actually described as fair skinned, with exceptions like Arjuna and Krishna carefully noted. And even if the central asian etc aryan migration theory doesnt get accepted, they were on a gradual push southwards which meant that us "darker" south indian types were either tribals, or "monkeys" (neanderthal type throwbacks is one theory i've heard), or "rakshasas" The rajputs seem to be fairly equally divided between fair and dark skinned heroes as far as I've seen. Sati he treats as a fact of life back then, like a whole lot of other things. He doesnt gloss over them and nor does he glorify them, that I've seen. And as far as I've seen his history has been quite meticulously researched, with a wide variety of what i'd consider fair sources. Porus? If you read the intro / editorial to that particular comic he does point out that the man was a small time border chieftain, and if he gave old Alex such a lot of trouble, the other, more powerful emperors in india proper would have given him lots more grief. I didnt read too much patriotism into what I remember of his telling of the story. Yes there's very little south indian / dark skinned etc content in there. And ACK publication is more or less just glossy reprints of old content these days. Talk to him sometime - he's still around in bombay and i'm sure he'll be glad to listen to you, and probably convince you far better than i've done.
