What can be a child’s best friend other than toys?? Obviously it should be either comic books or cartoons. Personally, whenever I think of comics, undoubdtedly Tinkle is the one that comes to my mind. I used to read it quite on a frequent basis from a very young age. This has been around for the past roughly 3 decades and has been a great hit among young children.It allows children to sned their stories or ideas to the editors so that it could be published in their copies. Very often in every tinkle issue you would find a story or idea or though sent by a child from across the country or abroad.Tinkle is sold in several Indian languages published by the India Book House. Anant Pai(also known as Uncle Pai) was the founding editor of the magazine. He also launched the popular Amar Chitra Katha series. The first issue of this magazine was printed in 1980 and till date, more than 700 issues have been printed so far. It is beleived that readers often send more than 200 letters with stories & other articles to be considered for printing every month.Tinkle has been an integral part of growing up for kids throughout India. Apart from stories and jokes, it also includes contests such as It happened to me, Say it yourself, Tinkle times, Tinkle picture quiz, Tinkle Fun times.It also comes up witjh Tinkle Digest which is a much larger version of the monthly Tinkle copy.
Other than the different stories, jokes, contests appearing in every monthly issue, there are certain characters that appear in stand-alone fashion. They include Tantri the Mantri, Shikari Shambu, Suppandi tales, Anu Club, Kalia the Crow, Ramu & Shamu, Anwar, Naseeruddin Hodja tales and few more. Each of these stories are about certain characters in different situations and circumstances. For eg - Suppandi tales is all about a foolish servant named Suppandi who gets thrown out of his master’s house every time only due to his foolishness and silly antics.Every issue of Tinkle shows Suppandi in a new master’s house repeating the same foolishness as he always does everywhere else.Nevertheless, Suppandi tales is one of the most wittiest kind of humor a person can read.
Similarly, Tantri the Mantri is about a silly minister named Tantri who is drop dead jealous about his king Hooja and wants Hooja either dead or thrown out of his throne.Tantri often makes plans to implement his ideas but ends up indirectly saving king Hooja everytime his plan fails.This makes Tantri the most trusted minister of king Hooja.
On the whole, Tinkle can be considered as a mini Encyclopedia in itself. I have been a regular subscriber of Tinkle until a few years ago, but greatly miss this magazine today. Tinkle is a definite recommendation from me to all book lovers.