How this popular Indian comic book is rebuilding after a warehouse fire

Ever since the massive fire at Amar Chitra Katharsquos Bhiwandi warehouse on October 1 2025 destroyed the publishing housersquos massive stock and archive the team has been in rebuild mode Reena Puri executive editor Amar Chitra Katha and Gayathri Chandrasekaran editorinchief Tinkle reveal how they regrouped and stayed positive throughout this challenging phaseExcerpts from the interviewCould you dial back to when you and the team heard the newsReena Puri RP It was a big shock Since most of the Amar Chitra Katha ACK team works from different cities we felt helpless as we awaited updates from our colleagues in Mumbai It was a huge setback for the company For me it was deja vu We had experienced a similar fire in 1994 at our office in Eruchshaw Building on DN Road Fort Our research library of 3000 books was burnt along with all our comics and six months of Tinkle scripts and artworks which we always prepared and stored It makes me wonder why do fires mostly occur at nightGayathri Chandrasekaran GC We were in shock The Mumbai team rushed to the site We did our best to douse it ensure everyonersquos safety and salvage what we could After the initial blow we immediately moved into crisis mode Our first steps were assessing the stock loss and activating a business continuity plan for retail quick commerce ecommerce and D2C so readers and partners faced minimal disruptionAn ACK colourist works on a comic about Chhatrapati Shivaji MaharajWhat longterm practices have you adopted since thenGC Wersquove moved to a 3PL thirdparty logistics multiwarehouse model strengthened fire safety protocols segregated highvalue stock and shifted to digitalfirst inventory planningWersquove also accelerated cloudbased backups and archival systems to avoid singlepoint failuresSupport would have poured in from all quartersRP I got numerous phone calls from former team members for over a month They all wanted to know if we were okay I would tell them that we were fine and would recover just as we did after the Eruchshaw site fire Accidents can happen what matters is how we move forward and continue with our work Our readers have been extremely supportive Wersquove tried to reassure everyone that despite feeling the pinch for a few months hard work can overcome every challengeGC The response was incredibly emotional Readers parents teachers and former team members immediately reached out to check on us and offer assistance Many extended help with sourcing or restoring older materials Their warmth kept the team going Most of our retail partners and distributors stood firmly by us extending their support by clearing outstanding dues They also facilitated the return of stocks enabling us to participate in key events such as Comic Cons and book fairs We are equally grateful to our printing partners who responded promptly and helped us accelerate the printing of our titles ensuring timely availabilityReena Puri and Gayathri ChandrasekaranAnd how did the team react to itRP They railed around each other at the site as the fire raged on for three days Everyone realised that itrsquos the time to get together for a huddle all of us put in efforts to win the situationGC Teams across cities came together instantly mdash from rerouting orders to salvaging what they could It didnrsquot matter which department or role everyone stepped up We worked hard to restart our warehousing and sales operationsGoing ahead what measures have been adopted that can also be followed by other publishersGC A complete digital archive of all comics and art multiregion cloud backups and secure firesafe storage for original art Nothing should ever be at risk again Physical archives are precious but vulnerable mdash preserving them must be treated as a core responsibility not a side task Digitise everything and build redundancyRP Digitise and save Original art should be kept in a safe1967Year in which Anant Pai below established Amar Chitra KathalsquoAppeal to fans to helprsquoThe warehouse has been our one place where we have the latest titles meant for dispatch and where we had stocked years of physical copies which included old and rare issues There were also our carefully preserved positives of artworks that dated back to the 1980s and 90s For me this has been a huge loss since itrsquos a treasure that we can never recover The first time we experienced a fire in 1994 at our office on DN Road our fans had sent us extra copies from their collections We scanned them and digitised our booksOnce again I appeal to our readers and fans to do the same Though most of our content is digitised we still have missing issues of Tinkle and ACK You can reach out to us through our social media handles to help usThis fire caused a hitch in our inventory but we were strongly supported by our management Despite the monetary losses we saw wisdom in not lamenting We had to bounce back to printing as we had orders to fulfil events and book fairs to attend This was possible only because of the efforts of our production team who put in nights at the press to recover our stocks for deliveries Our retail and online partners patiently waited for their orders to be fulfilledA brand like Amar Chitra Katha is immortal We will emerge from this crisis more powerful like the phoenixmdash Savio Mascarenhas group art director ACK Pvt LtdlsquoThis is our cultural heritagersquoWhen ACK was launched in the 1960s India was in the midst of rapid social change Urbanisation was accelerating multigenerational and joint families were giving way to nuclear households and the informal grandparentled tradition of storytelling was disappearing ACK stepped seamlessly into that cultural vacuum It became a surrogate storyteller transmitting epics legends historical narratives and moral frameworks accurately to children who no longer heard these stories at bedtime Its archive preserves the continuity between oral tradition and modern print culture across generational readers Itrsquos kept Indiarsquos civilisational stories alive familiar and accessibleThe artistic historical and archival value of these original artworks would have appreciated over time In that sense a genuine cultural treasure has been lost Going forward heritage publishers must treat original art with the same seriousness as manuscripts or rare books with decentralised fire and termiteproof physical storage good conservation practices and custodianship to ensure such losses arenrsquot repeatedmdash Dev Nadkarni former associate editor ACK