''Chandamama'' was a classic
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
n monthly magazine for children, famous for its illustrations. It also published long-running mythological/magical stories that ran for years. Originally, "Chandamama" was started in
Telugu
Telugu may refer to:
* Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India
*Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India
* Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language
** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode
S ...
by
Chakrapani Chakrapani may refer to:
People with the surname
* Aluri Chakrapani (1908–1975), Indian film multilingual writer, producer and director
* Chuck Chakrapani, Indian research methodologist, educator, and author
* M. G. Chakrapani (1911–1986), I ...
and
Nagi Reddi
Bommireddy Nagi Reddi (2 December 1912 – 25 February 2004) was an Indian film producer and director mainly in Telugu cinema. He set up Vijaya Vauhini Studios in Chennai, which was then Asia's biggest film studio. As his elder brother (who was ...
, who later became noted Telugu film producers. It was edited by
Kodavatiganti Kutumba Rao
Kodavatiganti Kutumba Rao (28 October 1909 – 17 August 1980), also known as Ko Ku, was an exponent of the Telugu literature in the 20th century. He believed that literature which criticises and enriches human life and ultimately reforms the h ...
, a very close friend of Chakrapani and a literary colossus in
Telugu literature
Telugu literature is the body of works written in the Telugu language. It consists of poems, short stories, novels, plays, and song lyrics, among others. There is some indication that Telugu literature dates at least to the middle of the first ...
, who edited it for 28 years, till his death in August 1980.
In 2007, Chandamama was bought by Geodesic, a Mumbai-based software services provider company. They planned to take the then 60-year-old magazine into the digital era. However, the magazine is currently defunct as Geodesic itself was found defaulting on outstanding loans and was ordered to be wound up by the
Mumbai High Court
The High Court of Bombay is the high court of the states of Maharashtra and Goa in India, and the union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. It is seated primarily at Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay), and is one of the ol ...
.
As of July 2016, the current status of the magazine is unknown - as the parent company Geodesic is under the liquidation process and the Chandamama brand and IP is expected to be sold off in due course. The official website of the magazine was allowed to expire and drop by the magazine owners and the current website is not associated with the Chandamama magazine.
The Magazine
The main features of
Indian Mythology were completely written by
Kutumbarao, who also developed the magazine by encouraging young writers in Telugu and adapted them to suit the Telugu written style that he made so popular in Andhra and the Telugu speaking people for decades. Some of the stories and the folklore features were written by Dasari Subrahmanyam, who made serials like Patala Durgam, etc. also very popular.
It was revamped in November 2008 and had gone contemporary in terms of language, presentation, artwork, and content. While it continued to carry old favourites like Vikram-Betal and mythological tales, there were several new additions including contemporary stories, adventure serials, sports, technology, news pages, etc. Considering the new trends in children's literature and the emerging importance given to academic study and analysis of the same, Chandamama had striven to keep its editorial policies in line with the times. As the oldest brand in the field, Chandamama had taken up the responsibility of delivering entertaining, sensitive, and educational literature for its young readers.
Chandamama was published in 13 languages (including English), and had a readership of about 200,000.
[Disney set to tell Chandamama stories](_blank)
/ref>
Unique style of storytelling
The magazine started the unique trend of telling a story, almost always bound by a common thread of moral values, with a grandparents' style of storytelling in the most flexible third-person narrative mode, on print.
The stories published have been drawn from numerous historical and modern texts in India, as well as from other countries. Mythology, epics, fables, parables and even useful hearsay were spun suitably to feed the impressionable minds so that they seek the right direction in life, even while entertaining them thoroughly.
The stories embedded in the never-ending story of King Vikramāditya
Vikramaditya (IAST: ') was a legendary king who has been featured in hundreds of traditional stories including those in ''Baital Pachisi'' and ''Singhasan Battisi''. Many describe him as ruler with his capital at Ujjain (Pataliputra or Pratis ...
and Vetala (Vampire), an adaptation of an ancient Sanskrit work Baital Pachisi
''Vetala Panchavimshati'' ( sa, वेतालपञ्चविंशति, IAST: ) or ''Betaal Pachisi'' ("''Twenty-five (tales) of Betaal''"), is a collection of tales and legends within a frame story, from India. It is also known as intern ...
, brought wide repute to this magazine, and were also featured in popular TV serials. In each issue, the Vetala, in order to prevent him fulfill a vow, poses a typical catch-22 question to king Vikramāditya, involving a moral dilemma. The wise king answers correctly, and is thus defeated by the Vetala, forcing the king do it all over again and again.
History
The first edition of Chandamama was released in July, 1947. The founder editor of the magazine was Chakrapani Chakrapani may refer to:
People with the surname
* Aluri Chakrapani (1908–1975), Indian film multilingual writer, producer and director
* Chuck Chakrapani, Indian research methodologist, educator, and author
* M. G. Chakrapani (1911–1986), I ...
. It was printed and published by Nagi Reddi
Bommireddy Nagi Reddi (2 December 1912 – 25 February 2004) was an Indian film producer and director mainly in Telugu cinema. He set up Vijaya Vauhini Studios in Chennai, which was then Asia's biggest film studio. As his elder brother (who was ...
who later became a leading film producer in South India. Chakrapani Chakrapani may refer to:
People with the surname
* Aluri Chakrapani (1908–1975), Indian film multilingual writer, producer and director
* Chuck Chakrapani, Indian research methodologist, educator, and author
* M. G. Chakrapani (1911–1986), I ...
, a friend of Nagi Reddy, was the force behind magazine, and his vision, perception and understanding of the target readership brought name and fame to the magazine.
Chandamama was first published in Telugu
Telugu may refer to:
* Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India
*Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India
* Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language
** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode
S ...
and Tamil
Tamil may refer to:
* Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia
** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils
**Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia
* Tamil language, nati ...
(as Ambulimama) in July 1947. Kannada
Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...
edition first appeared in July 1949 followed by Hindi in August 1949. Marathi
Marathi may refer to:
*Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India
*Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people
*Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece
See also
*
* ...
(as Chandoba) and Malayalam
Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam was des ...
(as Ambili Ammavan) editions appeared in April 1952 followed by Gujarati
Gujarati may refer to:
* something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India
* Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat
* Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them
* Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub- ...
in 1954, English in 1955, Odia
Odia, also spelled Oriya or Odiya, may refer to:
* Odia people in Odisha, India
* Odia language, an Indian language, belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family
* Odia alphabet, a writing system used for the Odia languag ...
(as Jahnamamu)[http://JahNamamu.com] and Sindhi in 1956, Bengali
Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to:
*something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia
* Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region
* Bengali language, the language they speak
** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
(as Chadmama) in August 1972, Punjabi in 1975, Assamese in 1976, Sinhala in 1978, Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
in April 1984 and Santali in 2004. The Punjabi, Sindhi and Sinhala editions were published only for a short period. No English editions were published from October 1957 to June 1970. The magazine ceased publication in 1998, owing to labour disputes. However, the magazine relaunched a year later. It was available in 12 Indian languages and English.
For many decades, Chandamama's illustrators defined the look of the magazine. They included such names as M. T. V. Acharya, T. Veera Raghavan, who signed his work as Chithra; Vaddadi Papaiah
Vaddadi Papaiah (1921–1992), name sometimes spelt Papayya, pen-name Vapa, was a painter, cover artist and illustrator for Telugu magazines, known especially for his covers for the children's magazine ''Chandamama''.
Childhood
Vaddadi Papaiah ...
, who signed as Vapa; Kesava Rao who signed as Kesava; M. Gokhale; and K. C. Sivasankaran, alias Sankar, who joined Chandamama in the year 1951. Later artists such as Shakthi Dass; M. K. Basha, who signed as Razi; Gandhi Ayya, aka Gandhi; and P. Mahesh (Mahe), also continued the tradition into current times. Initially, the covers were printed in four-colours, while the illustrations inside used line drawings. Each page of Chandamama had an illustration, although in the strict sense of the term, Chandamama is not a comic book, with the exception of the Chitra-katha column.
Ownership
The magazine has been in family hands since foundation, and the current publisher, B Viswanatha Reddy, continued the tradition after taking over the affairs of the magazine from his father. In 1999, the company was floated as a public limited organization, with Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment management and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in more than 41 countries and more than 75,000 employees, the fir ...
taking a sizable stake in the company.
The last editor was Prashant Mulekar of Geodesic.
In August 2006, it was reported that Disney was set to buy a stake in Chandamama. In 2007, Chandamama was acquired by technology company Geodesic Information Systems.
As of July 2016, the current status of the magazine is unknown - as the parent company Geodesic is under the liquidation process and the Chandamama brand and IP is expected to be sold off in due course. The official website of the magazine was allowed to expire and drop by the magazine owners and the current website is not associated with the Chandamama magazine.
Chandamama in the 21st Century
With the acquisition by a technology company, Chandamama has announced that it will digitize and make available much of its content via digital libraries and on the web. In addition, Chandamama Multimedia CDs have also been published.
In late 2007, Chandamama released its revamped internet presence to better cater to readers who demand information and content beyond the printed publication. It has also tied up with satellite radio service provider Worldspace to bring the Indian storytelling tradition live through radio.
In July 2008, the publication launched its online portal in Telugu, English, Hindi and Tamil. It declared that all 60 years publication in all Indian languages would be put online soon.Chandamama Tamil/Hindi sites launched
/ref>
Chandamama has stopped publishing in all languages from March 2013, without issuing any press release and without giving any notifications or refund to subscribers. A message was given on the official Facebook page of the magazine on 30 May 2013 saying that they could not publish issues from March 2013 because of technical problems, and the magazine would restart publishing from July 2013 onwards. However, the official website of the magazine also went down in July 2013, saying "We are currently doing some enhancement and upgrades to the website. We will be back soon."
In July 2016, the original website of the magazine was allowed to expire by the parent company and it was dropped. Currently, the website is no longer associated with the Chandamama magazine or the parent company.
In Aug 2017, website Chandamama.i
Link
was started to preserve the Chandamama culture for future generations. This website has more than 10 languages and growing with the community support. The website provides access to old magazines for free of cost.
References
External links
*
Archive of Chandamama issues
An article about Sankar in The Hindu
New Chandamama Site
GEODESIC Fraud Details - Medianama article
{{authority control
1947 establishments in India
2013 disestablishments in India
Children's magazines published in India
Defunct magazines published in India
Indian comics titles
Magazines about comics
Magazines established in 1947
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Malayalam comics
Monthly magazines published in India
Multilingual magazines