Chandamama
| Categories | Children's magazine |
|---|---|
| Frequency | Monthly |
| Year founded | 1947 |
| Final issue | 2013 |
| Company | Geodesic Information Systems Limited |
| Country | India |
| Language | Telugu, Sanskrit, Assamese, Hindi, Oriya (as 'Janhamaamu'), English, Kannada, Marathi, (as 'Chandoba'), Bengali and Tamil |
Chandamama was a classic Indian monthly magazine for children, famous for its illustrations. It also published long-running mythological/magical stories that ran for years. Originally, "Chandamama" was started in Telugu by B.Nagi Reddy and Chakrapani, noted Telugu Film Producer's. It was edited by Kodavatiganti Kutumba Rao, a very close friend of Chakrapani and a literary colossus in Telugu Literature, who edited it for 28 years, till his death in August 1980.
In 2007, Chandamama was bought by Geodesic, a Mumbai-based software services provider company. They planned to take the then 60 year old magazine into the digital era. However the magazine is currently defunct as Geodesic itself was found defaulting on outstanding loans and was ordered to be wound up by the Mumbai High Court.
As of July 2016, the current status of the magazine is unknown - as the parent company Geodesic is under the liquidation process and the Chandamama brand and IP is expected to be sold off in due course. The official website of the magazine was allowed to expire and drop by the magazine owners and the current website is not associated with the Chandamama magazine.
The main features of Indian Mythology was completely written by Kutumbarao, who also developed the magazine by encouraging young writers in Telugu and adapted them to suit the Telugu written style that he made so popular in Andhra and the Telugu speaking people for decades. Some of the stories and the folklore features were written by Dasari Subrahmanyam, who made serials like Patala Durgam, etc., also very popular.
It was revamped in November 2008 and had gone contemporary in terms of language, presentation, artwork, and content. While it continued to carry old favourites like Vikram-Betal and mythological tales, there were several new additions including contemporary stories, adventure serials, sports, technology, news pages, etc. Considering the new trends in children's literature and the emerging importance given to academic study and analysis of the same, Chandamama had striven to keep its editorial policies in line with the times. As the oldest brand in the field, Chandamama had taken up the responsibility of delivering entertaining, sensitive, and educational literature for its young readers.
Chandamama was published in 13 languages (including English), and had a readership of about 200,000.
The magazine started the unique trend of telling a story, almost always bound by a common thread of moral values, with a grandparents' style of storytelling in the most flexible third-person narrative mode, on print.
The stories published have been drawn from numerous historical and modern texts in India, as well as from other countries. Mythology, epics, fables, parables and even useful hearsay were spun suitably to feed the impressionable minds so that they seek the right direction in life, even while entertaining them thoroughly.
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Wikipedia