Rajani Thindiath, The editor of Tinkle decodes Buchki and the Booligans, and today’s readers
Buchki different from other Bengali characters in Tinkle
Some time ago there were Bengali characters called Palak Ghosh and (the very popular) Butterfingers aka Amar Sen. But these characters were not consciously Bengali or did not have a specific city or region that they belonged to, they only happened to have a name which was Bengali. But Buchki is rooted in a particular region (the crossroads of Bengal-Jharkhand-Odisha). This child (Buchki) is very cute, chubby, adorable and relatable. With specs, pigtails, big eyes.
Eastward ho!
Introducing Buchki as a Bengali is definitely a way to fortify Tinkle’s presence in the east and reach out to our fans in the region. For us, over the last 37 years, the eastern region has been very, very important. A lot of our mails come from there.
Taking people around the country
We have been exploring certain regions for a couple of years. Like we based Mapui Kawlim, known popularly as WingStar, in a (fictional) place called Aizwa, Mizoram, which is obviously a play on Aizawl. That’s mainly so that readers get used to these regions and consider them as ‘normal’ and not ‘different’ or ‘exotic’ as compared with other places (in India). And these days we have somebody called Wai Knot from Bangalore. So Buchki was our attempt at the same thing. So that children from those regions and even other places relate to these characters.
Suppose I base a story in Hyderabad. So I see the Charminar. And then we will have a reader writing to say that, ‘Oh I saw the Charminar, I know it’s in Hyderabad’. So that connect immediately happens. Secondly, someone sitting in Ludhiana gets to know other places. So Tinkle is taking people around the country in a way.
The Buchki fans
Kids have loved the stories, Buchki, the ghosts, and even Meyn Dadu. And these are ghosts that they have never come across — a ghost who traps souls in tender coconuts, another who entangles victims in her long hair in waterbodies, etc. We are trying to open up different ideas of monsters and ghosts to kids.
The comic
Buchki and the Booligans from the comic horror genre.
The setting
Buchki, a Bengali girl, and her brother Cyrus visit their grandparents in Boodanga, at the crossroads of Bengal, Jharkhand and Odisha, as their parents are working in Japan.
The characters
Buchki: An eight-year-old who can see ghosts but is equally afraid of them. The ghosts are from myths and legends and they love scaring her. Thank god Buchki has her brother Cyrus, Dadu and Didu to help her against these hooligans of Boodanga, or Booligans.
Meyn Dadu: The spirit of Buchki’s great-great-grandfather likes to be called ‘Main’ or ‘Meyn’, short for Soumeyn. He’s prim, proper and will help Buchki for Kaala Jamuns, his favourite.
Cyrus: A bookworm, an encyclopaedia if you will, Buchki’s brother cares little about the world but helps his sis with info about ghosts from his books.
Didu: Buchki’s Didu is super-sweet unless you happen to rile her up.
The Booligans: A Nishi here, who calls victims by their real names and traps them in tender coconuts, and a Sheekal there, a water sprite who entangles victims in her long hair in waterbodies.
Folktales go mainstream
Today’s kids are very exposed to folklore from around the world, specially those that include horror elements. They know about werewolves, Dracula and all that. But this (Booligans) is something they have not explored. So we are dipping into folklore to introduce them. The first few stories that we started off with are all based on Bengal folklore. We are mainly going to explore the east side and then spread out. Ghosts can travel and you never know when a north Indian or a south Indian ghost comes knocking on your door.
Our country is rich with folktales and if you especially want to know about horror, there is no better place than India. Most kids reading in English don’t know about these tales. Those reading in regional languages would know. So this comic is an attempt to bridge that gap.
Boo...
We get a lot of mails from kids and we were consistently told, ‘We want horror in Tinkle, we want horror in Tinkle!’ I was still not comfortable introducing plain and serious horror. It inspires fear and Tinkle has always been a fun space. So we decided to compromise and have a comic horror series. Our main aim was that we would have horror, but we would not leave a child scared. Even Billy Jones from Dental Diaries is a vampire, but he’s a vampire who doesn’t have fangs. So he’s actually cowardly. After that kids were like… ‘We want more horror’. So we thought if we go into horror, we might as well go into folktales.
And Buchki happened.... So far there have been three Buchki stories published and one is being published in May. (Buchki and the Booligans began in November 2016.)
T(w)inkling with the times
When I took over as the editor five years ago, my task was to give Tinkle a fresh look in terms of today’s generation. So the ethos remains the same — learning meets fun. But we needed to connect with the readers of today who are used to tablets, phones. So our art and the characters also changed. Horror was not there, so we brought in that with Dental Diaries and now with Buchki. They wanted superheroes. So we brought in SuperWeirdos along with the character Aisha, and also WingStar. Also, earlier we used to do ‘morals of the story’. Now kids will laugh if we include them. You can’t preach to today’s kids. The idea is to respect and recognise this and create content for kids who are so aware.
Digitally, we have a subscription app, a Tinkle online. We have plans to take Tinkle on other platforms too. Sometime back, we had a Virat Kohli comic and we will soon have a filmmaker comic too. We keep introducing these new concepts that kids write to us about. We have a Suppandi & Friends channel on YouTube that does really well. Then we have merchandise — Suppandi and (Shikari) Shambu bobbleheads.
