Treasure Box of my Early Years
This week, rummaging through a blog of Chennai based Journalist opened a small treasure box of my childhood that nourished my early days of intellectual growing. My parents didn’t let me posses this treasure box lest it would take me away from the drudgery of insipid academic books. But they had no objection of my spending all the time through this treasure box during my vacation days at my cousin’s place in Mughbhat -Thakurdwar; a Marathi quarter in the downtown of Mumbai. The treasure box was ‘Chandoba’ – popularly known all over India as ‘Chandamama’. A flimsy 40 odd page A5 size magazine bound together with two or three stapled pins would transport me to the world of fantasy, fiction, imagination filled with awe, curiosity, interest and entertainment. The style and narration of various stories were neatly segregated and structured in different sizes with abundant illustration in orange, blue colours. Combination of stories with backdrop of folk-fairly tales, mythological and histor...