There will hardly be anyone who with his simplicity and story telling genius can do as much as Amar Chitra Katha & Tinkle Editor Anant ‘Uncle’ Pai has done to bring alive Indian heritage and ethos to generations of Indian kids, youth and adults worldwide.
It is no surprise then that the treasure trove of the Amar Chitra Katha collection and Tinkle are one of the most cherished gifting activity that the ever growing Indian diaspora loves to indulge in.
Last September Lalit Media, an enterprise owned by Uncle Pai had announced its tie up with New York based ITV Gold, wherein Lalit Media would create and supply culture based live action as well as animated content to the US based Broadcaster.
The delivery of the same commitment has been completed last week.
Speaking to Animation ‘xpress, Uncle Pai commented,”We are very glad to announce that we have created and delivered the first season of the live action quiz Our Land Our People as well as 10 x10 episodes of the mixed media animated series Story time with Uncle Pai to ITV Gold”
“With each episode the quality of animation has improved and I can say for sure that the final result is sufficiently good” he added.
In its 20th year of operations in the US, ITV Gold is a Television Channel owned by Asia Vision and features four hours of Indian and Asian interest programming for the South Asian Diaspora in the US. The channel is on Time Warner Cable as well as on five broadcast stations (Owned by Asia Vision) across the states.
ITVGold VP for Project development Dr B V Vishwanath told Animation ‘xpress,” I congratulate Uncle Pai on the great work that he has been ceaselessly doing. Indian parents across the world have grown up on his story telling and we are very happy to bring to our US based Asian parent viewers the opportunity of sharing and introducing to their kids, animation and Infotainment content created and produced by Uncle Pai”
Created by a Kolkata based studio for Lalit Media, the animation is a mix of 2D and flash and the visuals have an original appeal about them. Besides one of the major attractions of the content is that the story which is full of rhymes is narrated in Uncle Pai’s own voice.
Till date Lalit Media has produced close to 160 minutes of original animated content. While the mobile rights for all of Lalit Media’s content have been taken by Mumbai based Coruscant Tec, the company is in advanced stages of talks with Indian broadcasters as well as Home Video Publishers. “Though we are in advanced stages of discussions, we haven’t signed on the dotted line with any partner as yet and are still open to working with like minded partners” remarked Uncle Pai.
“One thing I definitely want to do is to give two free read along books with the VCD so as to induce in the children a habit of reading. When children read the book and see it come alive on Television, they are conditioned to love reading which is one of the greatest gifts that parents can give their children” he added.
“If a mother takes her little child on her lap and reads out stories aloud, it will fill in the child a fascination for reading and the kid even when grown up will always love reading” concluded the Genius.