The Madras of today might be synonymous with technology, but in a quiet street in the city’s Ekkatuthangal area, a bunch of people are busy packaging the timeless, ‘once-upon-a-time’ era which has a king and a queen who go on to live happily ever after.
It’s the era our childhood belongs to, and when I say ‘our’, I mean you, me or anybody in the age group 18 to 80. Ask your grandfather if he has heard of Chandamama: chances are he would have even read it, if not read its stories out — to your father, that is.
For three generations of Indians, Chandamama and Childhood have gone hand in hand. Over the years, Superman and Spiderman might have elbowed out the valiant kings and princes in the imagination of pre-teen minds, but Chandamama manages to hold its fort as it approaches its 60th year.
2 comments:
Enjoyed your piece.
The Tamil version was called "Ambulimama". It was a smash hit for over a decade before the brand was "remade" into Hindi as Chandamama in early sixties.
"Ambuli" is "Moon" in classical Tamil. I wonder why you chose ignore the rather long, early phase of the brand's history.
and then you went looking for it, for your book. It was one book, papa always bought and suddenly it vanished.
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