Namaskar Dear Readers,

You have in your hand a fascinating story of a young boy Ajay Singh Bisht born in the hinterlands of
Uttarakhand and then rising to become the chief minister of the most populous state of India by his sheer
grit, determination and hard work.

I am narrating this story through the motivational anecdotes, I heard and documented during my conversations
with various individuals who were a part of Yogi Adityanath’s growing up years. They were, his father late
Anand Singh Bisht, his mother Savitri Devi, his friends from the Panchur village, classmates and teachers from
his colleges in Kotdwar and Rishikesh and through various fellow saints and leaders who crossed paths with
him. I want to thank all of them who enabled me to bring the life-story of Yogi Adityanath to all of you.

I specially want to thank the young artist Nitesh Kushwaha who brought Yogi Adityanath’s life journey through
his fascinating artwork. I would also like to thank the talented designer Pallavi Saxena and the college-going
artist Akash Jaiswal who pitched in with their inputs for this mammoth task. Anand Upadhyay and Amrendra
Singh, who helped us to create the online puzzle bank for the children, accessed through QR code on the cover
page. I also want to thank the team of Hindi USA, Udupi Harisharan, Dr Laxman Prajapat and Madhu Reddy, who
have supported this project during its journey.

Each page of this graphic novel went through a detailed literary and artistic journey. First I storyboarded
all the pages based on my primary research. Along with the dialogues, I suggested the possible layout. From
there the artists took on. First the artist did the rough thumbnailing for estimation of the page layout, then
did the meticulous pencil art work – the most important part of the journey, then inked it, did panelling,
added dialogues and then the colours. Detailed review and feedback loops were run through for each panel, each
page and every dialogue between the team members.

So here you have in your hand – ‘Ajay to Yogi Adityanath’

Shantanu Gupta