When I began reading Chandamama, ‘ Śitilālaya’ was the serial that was being published. Serials like the story of twin children, Dhūmaketu (comet), Makara-devate (crocodile deity), Marāḻa-dvīpa (island of corals), Mūvaru Māntrikaru (three sorcerers), Rakkasakoḻḻa (valley of demons), Pātāḻadurga (nether-world fort) Kañcina Koṭe (bronze fort), and so on were famous. We can start with the beautiful collection of novels like Durgeś-nandinī and Navāb-nandinī in Bengali. There was no dearth of excellent serials that were beautiful and filled with imagination. In the Mahābhārata serial, what was particularly disappointing was how they sped up the segment from the Droṇaparva until the Śānti-Anuśāsanaparvas, which are elaborated a great deal in the original. The language of all these stories was earnest and simple their strength lay in their details and thoughts. There are several attractive stories on the oral history of pilgrimage centres. Stories chosen from the Vedic Saṃhitās, Brāhmaṇas, Āraṇyakas, and Upaniṣads are also a part of this publication. The main source of my initial knowledge of Purāṇas was Chandamama. Chandamama’s stories fall into diverse categories: Rāmāyaṇa, Mahābhārata, Bhāgavata, Devībhāgavata, Manvantara stories, legends of Gods-Sages-Kings, thousands of stories from the world of Purāṇas.
Once a grammarian had interpreted the meaning of ‘Chandamama’ as ‘ candasya māṃ lakṣmīṃ mātīti candamāmā’ – ‘that which can certify (or measure) the splendour of the moon.’ Let that be now we will proceed towards Chandamama’s world of stories. This publication, titled ‘Chandamama’ in the Sanskrit version was called ‘Ambulimama’ in Tamil and Sinhalese and ‘Chandoba’ in Marathi. It is seen that the same word is used in Kannada, Telugu, Hindi, and so on. It is well-known that the Moon is commonly called ‘Chanda’ and someone close is often called ‘Mama’ in Sanskrit. This attractive word, although appears to be in the language of children, is originally a Sanskrit word. For all children, the Moon is like their lovely maternal uncle. The name ‘Chandamama’ itself is so sweet.
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