Book of the week: Buddha by Osamu Tezuka
Buddha is an eight volume long English graphic novel. It is sold in a 12 volumes set in Japanese language. Buddha by Tezuka is read by more than twenty million people around the globe in various languages. Young and old read graphic novels worldwide more and more these days. This style of writing a novel is also called manga by Japanese. Manga, though developed in 19th century, became increasingly popular in 90s.
Graphic novels are different from comics. One can say graphic novels are novels presented in the style of comics. Here, Buddha is a full-length novel in a comic style, but it is called graphic novel. It is also called as Japanese manga. Some graphic novels are drawn in colour, but manga is done in black and white. Eight volumes of Buddha runs to around 3200 pages in black and white. So Buddha falls in the genre of both graphic novel and manga. Buddha is not exclusively either for the children or the elderly. It touches everybody’s heart.
The first volume ‘Kapilavastu’, starts with a chapter brahmin. It says “At the foot of the great Himalayas, the roof of the world whence the Indus River originates, there lived a people known as the aryans some 3500 years ago.” This volume also speaks of Buddha’s birth and the prophecy of Master Asita about the greatness of that little kid when grows up. One by one each volume takes the reader through the Buddha as if they are deep in a dream until one reaches the eighth one, where he walks away from this world. Some exceptional drawings of Osamu Tezuka speaks volumes than his writings.
Osamu (1928 - 1989) is known as the father, and at times god father, of Japanese manga. By training he was physician, but he quit the practicing medicine and turned to manga. He popularised this style of graphic novels all over the world. Some people call him Walt Disney of Japan. One of the most popular creation is Astroboy. He admits and says there is nothing wrong in adopting concepts from different cultures. Receptive culture develops faster, he adds. He has written 700 manga titles and a whopping 150000 pages.
This graphic novel is beautiful both in content and production. The whole set is designed by one of the best book designer of the world, Chip Kidd. Anybody sees this set in a case would struggle not to buy it. Once you have it on your home library you would read it over and again, because it is a visual treat. Harpercollins published this work of Osamu Tezuka. It costs around INR 4000.
Auswaf Ahsan
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TMC leader killed in Bengal's Birbhum
Kolkata (PTI): A local Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader was murdered by unidentified assailants in West Bengal's Birbhum district, police said on Saturday.
Rajbehari Sardar (65), TMC's booth chief in Patisara gram panchayat, was stabbed and severely beaten up by around five-six people at a function in Nanoor area around 10 pm on Friday, a police officer said.
Sardar was taken to Mangalkot Hospital in neighbouring Purba Bardhaman district where he was declared dead by doctors, he said.
The deceased's son alleged that Sardar was killed by members of a rival faction of the party.
The local TMC leadership said Sardar was a committed party worker and was popular in the area, but claimed that there was no report of the involvement of anyone from the party in the murder.
"We demand a thorough and prompt investigation into the incident," a local TMC leader said.
