Writing stories and creating multiple characters for years was a superhuman feat: Upal Sengupta

In 1995-96, I was working with a company that asked us to do an animation on

Bantul The Great

for

Doordarshan

. We needed

Narayan Debnath

's permission. So once we were done with the animation, he came to watch it. That was when I first met him. On that day, we had an elaborate discussion on how the voice texture should be for

Bantul

after he gave us the permission. Should it be baritone? Or lighter than that. I remember, it was decided to get a softer voice for Bantul with the logic that despite his superhuman strength, there has always been a tinge of innocence that makes the character complete. Through a softer voice, his innocence was retained.

Narayan Debnath is one of the very few cartoonists in the world who created stories, sketched, coloured and completed multiple series with multiple characters over such a long period of time. I don’t know many cartoonists of this calibre. I think it was a superhuman achievement for him. Later on, I met him twice during meetings of

Cartoon Dol

– a group of like-minded cartoonists. He will always remain a superstar for me.