Just Walking Around

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.