Artist with a mission: Naba Pratim Das to bring revolution in the field of Assamese comics

A s an artist who is keen to make his mark in the world of children’s literature, Naba Pratim Das has been silently engaged in bringing about a revolution in the field of Assamese comics.

Born and based in Guwahati, Das has been relentlessly working in this field and has brought out a fairly large number of comics in a highly attractive form by compiling and editing many folk stories of our state and country. Some of his works also include folk tales from foreign countries in the Assamese language. Das says he has done this to encourage reading habits among the children, many of whom are nowadays either glued to their TV sets or addicted to mobile games, and in order to make the publications more attractive, he has decorated them with illustrations on every page.

His noble initiative has been well supported by publishers like Banalata, who have so far published a good number of his comics, including Burhi Aair Xadhu by the legendary Lakshminath Bezbaruah, Sadagar aru Moina Sorai, Behela Bajowa Lorajon, Murkhar Rajya, Lobhar Parinam, Chatur Chor, Kripanar Bhoj, and Bhag Batowara.

As a kid who ‘hated’ reading books unless they contained illustrations, Das was very fond of comics and he always loved drawing illustrations since childhood. Apart from his collections of folk stories, Das also created two characters on his own - Tikhar and Bakhar. They are two adolescent boys who are very naughty but also very intelligent and they never hesitate to take the lead in eradicating ignorance and superstition from the society. The first comic containing the stories of Tikhar-Bakhar has since been published with the name Fusu Babar Rahashya.

Naba Pratim Das completed his schooling from Cotton Collegiate HS School and on graduating from Pragjyotish College, he joined the Government College of Art and Craft for a course of Bachelor of Fine Arts with major in Sculpture.

He started his career as an illustrator in an Assamese magazine named Hiya in 1996. Thereafter, he worked in several other magazines like Pokhila, Sisingfak, Akanir Agradoot and Rahashya, to name a few. In 2003, he joined as a layout artist-cum-cartoonist in an Assamese daily, Natun Dainik. A few years later, he joined a comic magazine named Rongmon. He had also worked in another Assamese daily Amar Asom as a cartoonist. He also wrote over a hundred scripts for many television serials, and in 2014 he started the children’s magazine Kankan. It was a very popular comic series which received wide appreciation till its publication came to a halt in 2020 due to the Covid pandemic.

Das was the recipient of the first “Kiran Tamuly Children’s Literary Award, 2022" in the Artists’ category in December last year for his illustrations in the literary works for children.

Today, Das is also involved with a North America based Non Resident Indian NGO called OAKOKHO (www.oakokho.com) which was started in 2013 by a few Assamese folks with the objective of teaching Assamese language and culture to the young children of Assamese diaspora across North America. So far, he has written nearly 50 books in the digital platform, with all the illustrations done by him. The subjects for these books are chosen with the aim to help the children to learn the Assamese language and cover a wide range from house, weather, house construction, etc., to various essential daily items such as books, paper, tea, salt, fire, electricity, wheel, etc. Six of such books have also been published by Reads Factory, a Guwahati-based publisher.

Das has done many portraits, paintings and sculptures for various collectors and has exhibited his works in various group exhibitions in places like Mumbai, Dubai, Nepal and Bhutan, besides his home town, Guwahati. He is also associated with environment-related works and has done illustrations for many such journals.

While he has been mostly doing illustrations for children’s books and comics and also for various projects and journals over the years, Das wants to devote more time in painting and sculpture in near future. One only wishes he can fulfill all his dreams and produce many masterpieces in his chosen field.

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