42

Somewhere in the vicinity of 2: 30 pm of the Sunday afternoon of June 3,2007 a familiar voice called me up to announce - "I hold in my hands as I speak to you,number 21 in the series of 42 ..Arjuna in Indraloka"

It seems ages ago...

The beginning of every month, in those long ago times, entailed an evening visit to Mylapore with my grandmother. The idea was to buy a pair of bananas and a coconut and offer it up to a god -the first expenditure of the month...the month's second expenditure invariably turned out to be a book for me (through sheer pester power) These book buying expeditions took my grandmother and I to the seemingly endless numbers of magazine/devotional books/college school textbook shops of Mylapore.

I must have been around six years old when I kicked off this Amar Chitra Katha Maharbharata obsession of mine, almost by accident. I bought a book called "Enter Karna' at the magazine shop just across the Luz Terminus Bus Stand, for Rs 4.50- the entire book budget for the month (I could have borrowed some 2 Enid Blytons with a bunch of Tinkles to boot, for that much money at my 'lending library')

I kept it back but my grandmother, for once in her life, was actually ready to give me so much money because Karna happened to be her favorite character in the story. ( I later figured out that Karna has the largest female fan following in India when it comes to mythological characters...if any one remembers them anymore that is)

Like most things that I am obsessed with for a lifetime now, I hated the Amar Chitra Katha Mahabharata at the beginning. The illustration was very different from those of the friendly cartoonish Tinkle. The language was a bit abstruse at times and the style given to slipping into poetry now and then. Worse, there were so many characters I had no clue about...(Chitrangadha?)

I couldn't figure out what on earth was going on but one image haunted me ... Indra clouds out the Sky as he watches a young Arjuna perform amazing feats and the stadium is dark and foreboding- a little patch clears up in one corner of the frame and sunlight streams through, shining on one man alone- Karna... I was hooked! I was doomed now to an obsessive search that broke completely loose when Doordarshan, as if by wilful intent, started off with it's Mahabharat series that very year (or was it the next?)

Gita Devotional Books Stores1 and 2, Vijaya Textbooks, Baba Bookstore, assorted book exhibitions...all endured monthly Rs 5 budget visitations from the two of us (later upped to Rs 10 and Rs 15 as the obsession reached its peak and the search for every successive title became more and more difficult). Obviously the books were bought in no real order and any that wasn't part of the collection yet was grabbed at -so what if one was "Enter Drona" and the other "Drona in Command" (the one where he dies i.e.)?

The Maharbaharta, hence, unfolded for me as a jigsaw puzzle put together by the finding of numbered pieces in endless heaps of "Devotional Books" every month ( If not for the possession of some prior knowledge transferred during bed time stories by various people, I am sure my interpretation of the Mahabharata would have been very modern and Tarantinoesque)

So it continued for almost 4 years...I now had 41 of the 42 issues -there was one missing- 21 of 42- Arjuna in Indraloka...I tried very hard to find it...but none of my usual sources had it (one offered to get me the tamizh version)..all in vain!Anyways, I knew what happened to Arjuna in Indraloka ( he gets cursed) so I resigned myself to the futility of the search.

The 41 volumes were bound together as 4 volumes (in order) and I got to read the great story for the first time in the chronology it would want its reader to adhere to.

A little later, Amar Chitra Katha stopped bringing out Rs 5 titles and decided to reinvent itself as a glossy Rs 2o (plus?) series composed mainly of its 'bestsellers'. The Mahabharata definitely wasn't one of those... (I can't think of too many people hunting around for all 42 like I once did)...and so all hopes of getting the elusive 21st were given up with a sad finality...

Now I have all 42...20 years after!

PS1. This is ACK's website updated for the modern times with all ACK idiosyncracies intact -where dark skinned people are purple in colour and even rakshasas talk poetry

Ps2. The Mahabharata, Arjuna, Bheema...as you can see I think of these neither as Arjun, Bheem etc nor as Arjunan, Bheeman etc...don't know how many exist this way- belonging neither here nor there ('there' being a huge majority which claims cultural superiority for the 'article free' versions of these names). My love affair with these names however continues defying all cultural anchors!