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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RCB beat MI by 18 runs after batters fire
Mumbai (PTI): Royal Challengers Bengaluru skipper Rajat Patidar, Phil Salt and Virat Kohli blasted half-centuries as the defending champions beat Mumbai Indians by 18 runs in an Indian Premier League match here on Sunday.
Salt (78 off 36 balls) and Kohli (50 off 38 balls) stitched together a 120-run stand for the opening wicket before Patidar scored a rapid 53 off just 20 balls as RCB posted 240 for 4.
In response, Mumbai Indians were restricted to 222 for 5, with RCB spinner Suyash Sharma (2/47) putting the skids on the home side with a double strike in the eighth over, from which they could not recover.
Sherfane Rutherford top-scored for MI with an unbeaten 71 off 31 balls.
While opener Rohit Sharma appeared to be struggling with a hamstring issue and had to retire hurt on 19, his partner Ryan Rickelton made 37, while Suryakumar Yadav (33) and Hardik Pandya (40) were the other contributors for MI.
Brief scores:
Royal Challengers Bengaluru 240 for 4 in 20 overs (Phil Salt 78, Virat Kohli 50, Rajat Patidar 53, Tim David 35 not out).
Mumbai Indians: 222 for 5 in 20 overs (Sherfane Rutherford 71 not out, Ryan Rickelton 37, Hardik Pandya 40; Suyash Sharma 2/47).
