The story ‘ Rāji’ that was created by the young Yandamoori appealed to Kutumba Rao and it is said that he predicted that this writer will become famous in the future. Until then, imaginary Bhetāḻa stories were created by the editors. It is said that the popular Telugu novelist Yandamoori Veerendranath himself for the first time wrote a Bhetāḻa story and sent it to the Chandamama editor Kutumba Rao. Later I started enjoying them a great deal. If someone were to collect these stories and polish them a bit, that will become an anthology of ‘Modern Tales of Vetala.’ In the beginning, I could not comprehend these stories. It was Chandamama’s gift to the readers to add hundreds of imaginary stories to the original twenty-five. The original Bhetāḻa collection ( Bhetāḻapañcaviṃśati) had only twenty-five stories. The Bhetāḻa Stories are one among Chandamama’s specialities. I always offer my appreciation and adoration to them. Must have been Chandamama’s editorial board.
Who was the creator of all these interesting serials – I don’t know. The back cover with a glimpse of these was also drawn by Chitra. The pictures drawn by Chitra for these stories have become a good representation of Greek culture. Stories translated from the Greek poems of Iliad (as Bhuvanasundarī) and Odyssey (as Rūpadhārana Yātregaḻu) emerged in all their beauty. After that, the illustrator Chitra disappeared.
#Chandamama stories download serial#
By the time the ‘ Māyāsarovara’ serial was being published, the quality had come down. ‘ Śīlaratha’ and ‘ Yakṣaparvatha’ that came after Śitilālaya were not bad but they did not match the quality of the previous serials. I have often discussed with my elder brother as to why our Indian film industries never got around to making such stories into movies. The illustrations of ‘Chitra’ that used to fill life into these stories, created such intimacy that, to me, the whole story played out like a movie. This story had absolutely no superhuman elements and spoke about several exciting topics such as the crocodiles of the Brahmaputra river, the dense jungles of Assam, canals, ibhyas (possessor of many attendants), nagas, aghoris, and the peculiarities of the city of Kamakhya. I was so enthralled by the main characters in that story – Śikhimukhi, Vikramakesari, the priest from Śitilālaya, Nagamalli, and Śivāla – that I found them far better than reality. When I began reading Chandamama, ‘ Śitilālaya’ was the serial that was being published. Serials like the story of twin children, Dhūmaketu (comet), Makara-devate (crocodile deity), Marāḻa-dvīpa (island of corals), Mūvaru Māntrikaru (three sorcerers), Rakkasakoḻḻa (valley of demons), Pātāḻadurga (nether-world fort) Kañcina Koṭe (bronze fort), and so on were famous. We can start with the beautiful collection of novels like Durgeś-nandinī and Navāb-nandinī in Bengali. There was no dearth of excellent serials that were beautiful and filled with imagination. In the Mahābhārata serial, what was particularly disappointing was how they sped up the segment from the Droṇaparva until the Śānti-Anuśāsanaparvas, which are elaborated a great deal in the original. The language of all these stories was earnest and simple their strength lay in their details and thoughts. There are several attractive stories on the oral history of pilgrimage centres.
Stories chosen from the Vedic Saṃhitās, Brāhmaṇas, Āraṇyakas, and Upaniṣads are also a part of this publication. The main source of my initial knowledge of Purāṇas was Chandamama.
Chandamama’s stories fall into diverse categories: Rāmāyaṇa, Mahābhārata, Bhāgavata, Devībhāgavata, Manvantara stories, legends of Gods-Sages-Kings, thousands of stories from the world of Purāṇas. Once a grammarian had interpreted the meaning of ‘Chandamama’ as ‘ candasya māṃ lakṣmīṃ mātīti candamāmā’ – ‘that which can certify (or measure) the splendour of the moon.’ Let that be now we will proceed towards Chandamama’s world of stories. This publication, titled ‘Chandamama’ in the Sanskrit version was called ‘Ambulimama’ in Tamil and Sinhalese and ‘Chandoba’ in Marathi. It is seen that the same word is used in Kannada, Telugu, Hindi, and so on. It is well-known that the Moon is commonly called ‘Chanda’ and someone close is often called ‘Mama’ in Sanskrit. This attractive word, although appears to be in the language of children, is originally a Sanskrit word. For all children, the Moon is like their lovely maternal uncle. The name ‘Chandamama’ itself is so sweet.