Amar Chitra Katha, which retold traditional Indian folk tales, mythological stories, and biographies of historical characters; and Tinkle, a children's anthology.

The idea behind starting a comic book series devoted to Indian culture and history came to Pai from a quiz contest aired on Doordarshan in February 1967, in which participants could easily answer questions pertaining to Greek mythology, but were unable to reply to the question "In the Ramayana, who was Rama's mother?

"[4][5][6] He left his job at The Times of India the very same year and started Amar Chitra Katha, a comic-book series which retold traditional Indian folk tales, Hindu mythology and biographies of historical persons, with the help of late G. L. Mirchandani of India Book House, when most other publishers from Allied Publishers to Jaico had rejected the concept.

The series went on to become a publishing milestone for the Indian comic book scene, selling over 86 million copies of about 440 titles.

In 1989, again through this syndicate, Pai launched Chimpu Comics, which included his own works like Ramu and Shamu, Kapish, Little Raji and Fact Fantasy.

Pai remained managing director of Rang Rekha Features until 2000, when he sold it to a Hyderabad-based animation studio named Color Chips.

Pai has written and produced two video films, Ekam Sat (the Vedic Concept of God) and The Secret of Success, in both English and Hindi.