Memories of Cartoon Strips
As a regular reader of the
Times of India I miss the daily dose You Said It by R.K Laxma . A political cartoon series which ran for
decades sending out a small but very apt message delivered through the striking
Common Man . A bespectackled figured in a checquered coat and a dhoti with an
Umbrella for company going about town mutely observing the world throwing up a
satirical statement each day.Through his creation of the 'Common Man', Laxman
commented on chaotic day-to-day instances from the lives of thousands of
Indians. An ardent believer of 'My sketch pen is not a sword, it's my friend',
gave the entire nation a silent spectator with an uncanny perception and
sarcasm to explain the Indian politics through the eyes of a common man.
Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Laxman or
simply R.K.Laxman was an Indian cartoonist, illustrator, and humorist. He was
best known for his creation The Common Man and for his daily
cartoon strip, "You Said It" in The Times of India,
which started in 1951.
Laxman started his career as a part-time
cartoonist, working mostly for local newspapers and magazines. While as a
college student, he illustrated his older brother R. K. Narayan's stories
in The Hindu. His first full-time job was as a political
cartoonist for The Free Press Journal in Mumbai. Later, he
joined The Times of India, and became famous for The Common
Man character.
R. K. Laxman was born in Mysore in 1921
in an Iyer family. His father was a headmaster and Laxman was the youngest
of eight children: namely, six sons and two daughters. His elder brother
is novelist R. K. Narayan. Laxman was known as "Pied Piper of
Delhi"
Laxman was engrossed by
the illustrations in magazines ,the Strand, Punch, Bystander, Wide World and Tit-Bits,
before he had even begun to read. Soon he was drawing on his own, on the
floors, walls and doors of his house and doodling caricatures of
his teachers at school; praised by a teacher for his drawing of
a peepal leaf, he began to think of himself as an artist in the
making. After high school, Laxman applied to the J. J. School of
Art, Bombay hoping to concentrate on his lifelong interests of
drawing and painting, but the dean of the school wrote to him that his drawings
lacked "the kind of talent to qualify for enrolment in our institution as
a student", and refused admission. He finally graduated with a Bachelor of
Arts from the University of Mysore.
Laxman's earliest work was for newspapers Rohan and
magazines including Swarajya and Blitz. While
still at the Maharaja College of Mysore, he began to illustrate his elder
brother R. K. Narayan's stories in The Hindu, and he
drew political cartoons for the local newspapers and for the Swatantra.
In 1951, Laxman joined The Times of India, Mumbai, beginning a
career that spanned over fifty years.His "Common Man" character,
featured in his pocket cartoons, is portrayed as a witness to the making of
democracy. R. K. Laxman structured his cartoon-news through a plot about
corruption and a set of characters. This news is visualized and circulated
through the recurring figures of the mantri (minister), the Common Man and the
trope of modernity symbolized by the airplane.
Some of his cartoons are relevant even after 25
years of their orginal publication. Like for example the cartoon doing the
rounds in the wake of PNB Bank scam depicting a Bank Robber asking the Bank
Manager for handing over all the money in the bank and the Manager telling the
Robber “ We have a Loan Scheme I assure you it
is equally god . Why don’t you try that instead ?
Another
one from the legendary cartoonist will make you ponder if he knew about
the present state of banks back in 70s and 80s. A Cartoon depicting the security guard of the bank telling the Common Man
– “ No , not a holiday , It’s a full working day , Some are in Police custody ,
some are under suspension and some …..”
Or the one that could have predicted Padmavat’s
future .. A Cartoon showing a Censor board member coming out of the preview
screening and telling the Producer –director of the film “ Excellent full of
social values , progressive ideas, fine acting . But you must get OK from Shiv
Sena and BJP for public screening.
Or one that summed up the Finacial jugglery the
Finance Minister makes every year during the Budget season . Laxman's cartoon is uncannily
relevant, when inflation has affected the Common Man the most.
And the most caustic but truly
relevant about his views on Demonitization when it was carried out by then
Prime Minister Morarji Desai in 1978 It is valid even today. How much
more of the tiger is now in the cage?
Every
morning, for over five decades, his fans like waited for the 'Common Man', who,
with his signature checked jacket, dhoti, Gandhi-glasses and twin tufts of
gravity-defying hair, watched life and politics in India.A really thought
provoking, inspiring and a genius cartoonist.
Another Cartoonist I truly
adore is Mario Miranda. Born in Goa , Mario,
as he was popularly known, spent his
youth shuttling between Mumbai and Goa. He worked as a cartoonist in newspapers
like the now-defunct Current and later with the Illustrated Weekly of India
magazine, besides Midday and later, Economic Times. The Afternoon Dispatch and
Courier produced some of his best work on the city. That period also saw Mario
create the endearing characters of his cartoons - the secretary Miss Fonseca,
the minister Bundaldass, and Bollywood star Rajani Nimbupani. Miranda's cartoons grace the walls of one
of South Mumbai's most famous hotspots, Cafe Mondegar, in Colaba. Mario
Miranda's caricatures are also seen in the municipal market
of Panjim, Goa.
Mumbai, seen through Mario Miranda's eyes, is at one level
cosmopolitan, symbolising the good things in life, and at another level, a
nightmare with its acute space crunch and sundry other civic woes. At
the height of his creativity and popularity in the 1970s and 80s, Mario's work was ubiquitous - appearing
in textbooks, calendars, murals and magazines.In 2005, Mr da Cunha began to
work on a book on the artist, and tracked down some 13,000 drawings - just 30%
of his plrlific work- from myriad sources, including Mario's friends, personal
collections, publications, and the Mumbai murals that had survived.Though the
artists' community did not consider Mario to be one of them, it did not affect
his creative urges, which found expressions in colour, pen-and-ink and charcoal.His
range of styles, and command over different mediums, made him a bit of an
enigma. Ironically, it was the cartoonist/illustrator's tag that stuck,
limiting people's appreciation to 'just a few laffs'. Mario consciously avoided political
cartooning, but his role as a social cartoonist is unmistakable
With pen & ink that were at his command to churn out lines that
every nib would be jealous of, he brushed aside the old school of cartooning
using the brush, and set a new norm to use the nib pen and to master it for
this branch of art. Mario created characters that gave his daily audience their
quota of a smile without malice. His trips around the globe produced subtle
close observations of the local musings – a fitting example of how far can one
stretch the parameters of this branch of neglected art. The Art of Cartooning..
A hats off to these two cartoonists for bringing a smile to the lips of
the common man , make him forget the grim and dull life brining a little
sunshine at the strat of the day , every day for years together….A big salute
to RK Laxman and Mario Miranda.
