Sustaining the interest of readers is difficult. More so, if they happen to be children. That Tinkle — the monthly magazine launched on November 14, 1980, by Anant Pai, the founding editor (popularly known as Uncle Pai) — has come out with its 34th anniversary special last month, speaks volumes about its ability to engage young minds.
For Manas Mohan, Chief Executive Officer, Publishing, Amar Chitra Katha (ACK), the journey has been an eventful one and full of happiness and caring. “We have kept alive the culture imbibed in the magazine by Uncle Pai. It has evolved from a magazine to a way of life. Tinkle has undergone changes at many levels, namely the quality of art and drawing, the language in order to relate to the target audience, continuously introducing new characters to avoid stagnation and altering popular characters to suit the present times.”
Elaborating on the changes, Rajani Thindiath, Editor of Tinkle , explains, “Suppandi is no more a servant, Shikari Shambu, the hunter, is now a conservationist and Tantri, the Mantri, has access to new and modern weapons.”
The magazine comes out with a holiday special every May with more pages besides special issues. “For such issues, we go all out in terms of content and art and include lots of puzzles and special games for children,” says the editor.
The theme of the November issue was “Wish upon a Tinkle Star” wherein children were invited to suggest what situation or setting they wished their favourite Tinkle characters to be in. Story concepts that got the maximum votes from readers were featured in the issue. These were “Heir-raising experience!” (Tantri the Mantri), “Best of both worlds” (Shikari Shambu) and “Fish `N' Fangs” (Billy). Children’s demand for bringing the Super Weirdos together for a story was also fulfilled.
“There is a contest ‘The Tinkle and I selfie’, with some exciting prizes up for grabs, in this issue. We had asked our readers to send a selfie or ussie (a group selfie) with Tinkle in it to reach us before November 30,” says Rajani.
Surprisingly, the monthly magazine has been able to sustain its popularity for over three decades despite the onslaught of a multitude of games on computers, mobile and other devices and the consequent decline in reading habits among children.
Mohan says, “I have no complaints about the reading habit going down. It is still intact, though there is challenge and pressure from other mediums like computers and television. We have kept the content and entertainment intact and ensured that portrayal and detailing of characters is different to keep its readership going.”
Giving her perspective on this issue, Rajani says, “Children have changed since the time the magazine was conceived when other forms of entertainment were limited. We have braced up to the challenge by interacting and listening to our readers. Not only new comics have been included, the classic ones are featured with more complex stories and plots. The horror series ‘Dental Diaries’ has a humorous tinge while avoiding being gory and violence as per the publication’s founding principles. Similarly, Super Weirdos is about children with weird powers and is funny in genre. We also incorporate games on places, animals, word play and detection –– all to engage the children and improve their different faculties.”
Last month, ACK launched Tinkle Star in Hindi and Tamil based on its in-depth in-house market research and feedback from different stakeholders like distributors, retailers and readers. “This was done with a two-fold objective of adding value to local publishing and inculcating reading in local language. Hindi was chosen as it has a bigger market whereas Tamil has a focused one,” says Mohan.
Optimistic about Tinkle Star , he remarks, “What we achieved in our English publication Tinkle we expect to do it faster in the case of Tinkle Star .” Obviously both versions will feature the popular characters like Suppandi, Shikari Shambu and Tantri the Mantri. Also new content will be created specifically for the two.”
“Instead of pure translation, we have adapted our old stories in those languages while keeping the sensibilities of the region in view. For this we have engaged good local language writers. The tales chosen are such that they could be based anywhere in India but are relatable to the audience.”
Excited about the future, the CEO perceives that Tinkle through its story telling will inculcate reading habit among children. Besides it will improve their English as they will grasp its nuances through comics and characters. “We want to drive home the point that language is important,” he says.
About competition from foreign comics, he comments, “As far as international and global characters are concerned, Tinkle is uniquely positioned as it has Indian characters and is in Indian English. Its experience is vastly different from the international comics.”
