People all over the country have paid their homage to our late CM
J. Jayalalithaa in various ways. Pradeep Jacob, an animator by profession, however, has sought an innovative idea to do the same. Pradeep finds Jayalalithaa not just an inspiration for the political leaders — but feels she also finds a place in the hearts of children, who have no idea about the political scenario. This gave him the idea of getting them more acquainted with her life story and thus decided to design a comic book on her!
Pradeep has already worked on several comics for kids and adolescents. His contribution to highlight the cultural heritage of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, earned him laurels in India as well as in the USA among the NRI community. With a perspective of aiding the kids who are not tech-savvy, and gain knowledge about great leaders, Pradeep began designing comics on them.
Two panel strips from Pradeep Jacob’s comic book (above and below) depicting the journey of J. Jayalalithaa.
The life history of Telangana’s first CM, K Chandrashekhar Rao, the first to come in this row, was launched in February this year. “After the first comic, the thought of J. Jayalalithaa struck me. She was a great lady and has been an inspiration to all, and so, I wanted to present her story to the kids in a creative way. I started work on it from September this year,” says Pradeep.
The comic carries beautiful picturisations of Amma, along with captions and speech bubbles, portraying her journey from childhood to becoming the CM of Tamil Nadu for the first time. Web designing techniques have been utilised to design and illustrate the incidents attractively.
Briefing on the comic, Pradeep says, “It carries childhood incidents, schooling, her life when she was got into movies, how her mentor MG Ramachandran assisted her and finally, how she became the CM after overcoming obstacles. Her later life and death is not depicted as she is still alive in the hearts of thousands of people who love and adore her.”
The target audience being children, the various political facets to Amma’s career have been dealt with in a subtle manner. The animator initially dreamt of presenting the first copy of the book to Jayalalithaa herself when he conceptualised the comic, but sadly, it could not come true. “I prayed that she should see the book and that I could bring a smile on her face. This would have been my biggest achievement. But, my prayers turned futile,” mourns Pradeep.
The book shall be released in a month’s time by Jayalalithaa’s close aides and will be disturbed across TN — a Tamil version will also be made available. Considering the sensitivity of the subject, the controversial elements remain untouched though.
When asked about his plans for the future, Pradeep elaborates, “I am planning to bring out a similar book on the life history of NT Rama Rao. I’m also looking forward to bring in more content, to get such relevant information across to kids.”
