Vandu Mama’s Bale Balu in English: Balu the Bully

Hi folks,

Apologies! Apologies ! Apologies and more of that. (is there a free soul kind enough to copy this and paste it for 1, 67, 000 crore times for me to make it up for all the delay and disappearance from the blogosphere? If so, let me know). I was almost non existent in this part of the world and with my designing work blossoming to a new level with lots of “Happening” things actually happening, am kind of allowed to disappear.

now, i was reading my regular dose of blogs and suddenly i read THIS post from Viswa and thought of breaking my ‘vrat’ from blogging. The only problem with that wonderfully written post was that it was in Tamil language instead of the regular English. Why am saying is, these are the posts and research works should be made available to most of the foreigners to Tamil language. I strongly believe that Tamil language has failed to give the due honour to people like VanduMama, Mullai Thangarasan, Charu Nivedita etc

As today is the birthday of the greatest ever story teller for children of all ages, am going to post one of my favourite childhood stories. Now, most of you would have thought that i will be posting something like Charu the smart (Oh, no – not this charu nivedita). However, i liked Bale balu a lot more than Charu the smart. Hence one of my all time favourite episode from that story line. Iam fortunate enough to have this story line in both the languages (Tamil & English) in my collection (Bless my chithra aunt for the collection idea). before it is a tad boring with my blabbering's, Friends, countrymen and bloggers, here i present – Balu the Bully in Tamil.

Now, this particular story was published in English in the English version of Gokulam from the year 2000 onwards. Let me narrate why this particular incident was more favourite than some of the better written stories of the same series.

I was studying in the 2nd year in my UG and during the summer vocations we travelled to our Aunt’s home in Vellore and there we had my nephew named balasubramanian doing almost the same tricky things that i used to do in my younger days – a la Bale Balu. so, when everyone else was calling him bala, i started to call him balu and he was curious to know why am calling him differently and i explained to him about the Balu character with my stories and also the latest Gokulam was available in the Mani aiyyar shop (next to that big pharmacy, oops i forgot the name of the pharmacy) and this was the story which was published in that particular issue of Gokulam.

Later on, he became almost a bully just like myself. now, let me get rid of those old memories and present Balu for the 1st time in English in the blogosphere. here is the same episode as that of the Tamil version.

Now, here is a BIG thanks to a person who made my childhood sweeter than anybody else. He is my companion, my knight in shining armour, my bed time story teller and my 4 AM friend in all those days when i was growing up. Thank you Mr Vandu Mama, You are my best teacher. In fact, You are the University from which i graduated with flying colours. Thanks for everything.

New Year Special post - Another small comics

Hi folks,

now that i got an answer for the last post's queries, am recharged to do more posts of such kind. these comics stories were lesser known and hence not much of information can be shared about these. Thanks to Viswa, now i know more about deviyin kanmani magazine (even my aunt couldn't remember those stories or the books in which they appeared).

Here is one more of such kind. this book was also in our shelves with lots of dust and there was an inland letter inside this book and hence this book was used as a latter bag for more than 27 years and last week only i dusted this off and found out that there was also a small comics story in this magazine. Now, again i do not know much about the artist or for that matter the author. even about the book itself. So, the usual request is also here: kindly share more info about the book and the creators behind this story.

As a story, this is very Senti type of question whereby the son longs to be rich and the reality is something else. Sacrificing mother and change of heart fro the son is the usual trend in those stories and the same is applicable here. Today being the new year, i thought of starting this year with a post on this. have a read.

Don’t laugh, now. Have a closer look at the title and you will understand that the font used is that of the old script and not the new one (என்றல் Vs என்றால்) and also the style of panelling (without any gaps between the panels in a page) – all old copybook style.

Have a blast for this year and will be back after watching tees mar khan, today.

Comics By N.C Mohan Doss

Hi folks,

it’s been almost a year since i returned to normality & the last 6 months am getting adjusted to the new house Home. Going is good and lets hope everything is good, as aamir khan says, All eez well”. Now, as mentioned in the beginning, i was getting adjusted in the new home and been placing things in one place and then in the next hour am not satisfied with the placement and i re adjust them to another place and after one day, all i do is place them in the original place. while doing so, i was getting most of my old books and magazine collection in the new study room and while looking in one of them, i found about 8 pages which were torn from a Tamil magazine (the middle 8 pages, from a centre pin magazine, a la rani comics).

When i looked inside those 8 pages, i found a comics story of 9 pages and suddenly i remembered that story (somewhere in the late 1993 or in the early part of the 1994) which i liked very much and tore it from a magazine which my aunt used to buy quite regularly. The best part is, i told this story in my school story telling competition and felt very happy when i completed the story (was it the 7th standard or 8th, need to get it confirmed with Mom). It was also a story which got me into reading the stories of the author NC Mohan doss. he was a quite prominent writer in those days in the dinamalar magazine’s Sunday book vaaramalar. He used to write the thodar kadhai’s over there and also some monthly novels. most of them were used to be quite good. A quick google search helped me to find out more abut him: About NC Mohan doss Link. Read on, it seems he no longer living in India and he is quite settled in UAE. Now, enough of this boring anecdote and here is the comics story that i got it from my old collection:

What a nice story, isn’t it? Now, don’t get me wrong; it was on those school days that this story took a quite likening to my taste (making it correct for all the wrongs you commit). So, as you have read this, you need to do me couple of favours on this.

1. Which magazine does this story appeared in those days? (will help you with some clues – Tamil magazine, monthly or something like that, could be a women’s mag – remember, my aunt used to buy this-, quite popular on those days). People who are familiar with old books and magazines such as saathaan, comics kadhalan, Venkateswaran, muthu fan, viswa can look into this. others are also welcome.

2. Who is this rajini artist? any other information about him?

Now that i have posted a decent thing on my blog, i request you guys to solve this small riddle which was part of my childhood and growing up. Help me out, guys – am counting on you people.