Chandamama - The magical magazine

Today I saw my childhood's favorite magazine Chandamama for the first time in more than 2 decades. My friend Srivatsha Joshi writes a weekly column 'Paraga Sparsha' in the Kannada daily Vijaya Karnataka. In his recent writeup he had written about the wonderful days of one's childhood. Starting with Jagjeet Singh's ghazal "yeh daulat bhi lelo" about getting back childhood, he had gone on to reminisce about one's younger days. It is a beautiful article. The link to podcast version is provided at the end of this article. While I enjoyed the article for many reasons, one thing that hit me deep was that it pointed out a link to the website of my childhood's favorite magazine 'Chandamama' - the colorful publication which came every month and contained colorful illustrations and stories. As soon as I heard about Chandamama's web presence I was there looking up the web page. The website is pretty cool with links to Chandamama in various Indian languages as well as in English. It has various categories and you can look up older stories. You can go to the archives and choose older issuea and read them as if you are flipping the printed magazine. The link to Chandamama website is at the end of this article.

Looking at the various pictures and stories I was transported back to my primary school days in Bangalore. During those days we got the English daily Deccan Herald, delivered to our home. Once a week (on Wednesdays) we would receive 'Sudha' the Kannada magazine which had a loving fan-following among Kannadigas. It was a very dignified weekly which catered to refined tastes with serial stories (dharavahi), cartoons, photo comics, interviews and a decent film section. Reading it and discussing its contents formed part of the family's activities. As children, I, my brother and my cousins enjoyed reading comics strips such as Dabu, Majnu, Shuja, Inspector Azad.

I remember that one day I had gone to my aunt's house with my mother. A small book sized magazine caught my eye with its colorful pictures and grand representations of Indian mythology. Flipping through a few pages was enough to suck me into the wonderful magical world this small magazine, namely Chandamama, had created. That particular issue had a picture of Hanuman, his tail wound to form a huge pedestal for himself to sit on. From this tall perch he was staring down at Ravana. Besides this, there was the image of the most spectacular Ashoka Vana, which occupied one full page. When my mother noticed my excitement at reading Chandamama in my aunt's house, she made the decision to subscibe it and I became a regular reader.

Thinking about it now, I feel a lot our mental pictures of ancient India has been painted by magazines like Chandamama and Amar Chitra Katha. I still remember the beautiful representation of Amaravathi - the beautiful capital city of the gods in heaven. I can also recall that eerie picture at the end of the Mahabharatha epic, the picture in which Yudishtira accompanied by a dog, crosses the Vaitharni river to enter the 'after-life' world.


At the beginning of the magazine was the Panchatantra series by Vishnu Sharma. Panchatantra taught valuable life lessons through stories involving characters like foxes, elephants and humans with names like dushta buddi (evil mind) and paapa buddi (bad mind). It was with uncontrollable excitement that I would hold these magazines as they were delivered on the appointed day in the month.


Oh how can one forget the series involving Raja Vikramaditya and the Beethala (ghost). In between all these there would be stories which involve normal human beings. There would be stories about villagers, sanyasis, old time businessmen with names like Ratnayya Sreshti. This was the world from a by gone era. That world was untainted by modern life, technology or vices. Once, I had felt odd when a small story referred to a radio. How can the wonderful world of Chandamama have a radio which is from our 'realistic' world.?

It was mainly through Chandamama that I learnt to read longer Kannada passages. At that age I was perhaps the only kid in my English medium school who could read Kannada stories so fluently. It feels great to experience again that thrill from my child hood days. Here is the link to Chandamama online. Hope you will enjoy it too.

Here is a link to Srivathsa Joshi's Kannada podcast article 'Give me back my childhood.'

Kannada Movie: Beru (The Root)

Title: Beru (2005) (Kannada with English Subtitles).
Starring: H.G. Dattatreya, Suchendra Prasad, M.P Venkata Rao, Baby Sowmya, Neeta, Vidya Murthy, Lakshmi Chandrashekar, T.N Seetharam
Direction: P Sheshadri
Produced by: Mitra Chitra
Music: PraveenKiran
Photography: S Ramachandra
Story: J M Prahlad
Screen Play: P Sheshadri and J M Prahlad

Verdict: An excellent movie which brings out the extent to which corruption and apathy has seeped into the social fabric of the Indian society. Winner of 2005 Indian National Award for "Best Kannada Film" and 2005 Karnataka State Award for "2nd best Kannada Film". This DVD is available in Cupertino Library.

Score: 9 out of 10

Corruption in public life is not a new theme in Indian movies. We have seen many commercially successful as well as critically acclaimed movies before. But Beru by P Sheshadri does a very good job of showing to the audience the entrenchment of corruption and the damage it can cause in the Indian society. We are not talking of corruption in the corridors of power but in everyday lives of the common man.

The story in this movie involves a young and honest government official Raghunandan who takes charge of a Taluk office in a remote village called Karadi Gudda in Karnataka, India. Within a few days he faces his first challenge. A minister's visit is forthcoming and his superiors in the government give him the responsibility of making lodging arrangements for the minister in the government Inspection Bungalow (IB). As it turns out, his own subordinates have used the IB as an excuse to misappropriate funds. At the center of this misuse of funds is the head clerk Venkateshiah played by Dattattreya. Venkateshayya is a regular family man but allows himself to misuse the government funds because he thinks his financial problems are a valid excuse. A central theme that runs in the film is that the house of a poor man is about to be destroyed by the creeping root of a huge tree. He needs government permission to cut the tree and save his house. But the government officials are so corrupt that they barely look at his plight. The director uses the metaphor of the house to show the possible destruction of the Indian society by the deep rooted corruption.

The movie is really beautiful in the sense it has characters which are quite complex and human. The best effect the film has is that it puts us inside the minds of the characters and challenges us to think what we would have done if we too were faced with similarly difficult situations as the characters. Sheshadri the director ensures that movie stays tight and focused without any slack in the pace of the story.

Music by Praveen-Kiran provide a good backdrop with folk tunes. One minor thing I found odd was that the theme music and during some situations (like meeting the Meti) the back ground music try to set a mysterious mood which is not the intention of the movie.

The actors have given superb performances. HG Dattatreya as the corrupt head clerk Venkateshiah simply lives the role. Suchendraprasad as the official Raghunandan is a great study in character. It is very rare to see an Indian movie in which the characters lead the story's movement and display interesting behavioral changes. But this movie is an exception. His role develops so well that we get the satisfaction of seeing and understanding a person up close. Venkat Rao as Goravayya and baby Sowmya as the little girl shine in their roles. Neetha as the wife of Raghunandan's turns in a beautiful performance. All others provide excellent support.