From Uncle Pai, with love

A Writer-educationist Anant Pai, popularly known as Uncle Pai, who has been associated with children’s comics Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle for long, is coming out with an album for children, alongwith Universal Music, titled Storytime With Uncle Pai. "They are four volumes of it, and in the form of an audio book. These four volumes will be released in the first go, after which we plan to release one album every month," informs Uncle Pai excitedly, "My album is different from all the kids’ albums available in the market. I have told the stories in the album in the form of rhymes so that a child can pick it up fast."

The album will be released in cassette and CD forms, with read-along books. "The CDs should do well outside India," feels Uncle Pai, "And I have experimented, in the sense that one side of the audio album is in English, while the other side is in Hindi. Now this has been done to soften the opposition to Hindi by the South Indian people, and in North India, not many know English, and prefer Hindi. The books, of course, will be in English because kids prefer reading books in English," he says.

The aim behind this audio book for children is to educate children in a "fun way" which makes for better absorption. The stories are from the Panchtantra and the Jataka tales, and some other folklores narrated with music. "I’ll market the album in schools to guarantee maximum reach and sales," says the educationist.

Uncle Pai tells us that before coming up with the album, he had meetings with top educationists and principals of different schools. "Everyone was worried about the increasing corruption in society, and were of the unanimous opinion that through audio books, one can impart value education. Stories narrated through songs, and tuned with catchy rhythms can attract children. So I spend a lot of time working on the album. After all there is a big market for audio medium, inspite of the growth of television channels and internet. And it has been proved that stories heard in childhood have a lasting impact throughout the life of a human being," he concludes.