This man made us laugh for nearly seventy years! Today, he’s made us cry!
We looked for his daily cartoons before the headlines, before the sports page and before the comic strips.
Growing up, his cartoons were water cooler conversation in offices, colleges and even schools. He made sure that the common man had at least the last laugh, if not a full stomach or a warm bed.
Further, he inspired me to chronicle my teen angst as cartoons, with my dad as the main character. I once showed these to my father and he was not amused. They were too close to be funny. I never lost my interest in cartooning however, and I became art editor of my college magazine with cartoon illustrations to my credit. I still cartoon for private pleasure.
Two nights ago, this magnificent little ‘common man’, our very own RK Laxman, went on his final journey to the land of eternal cartoons.
He was 93 and ailing. He’s left us his bagful of cartoons, a sharp sense of the ridiculous and a keen ability to cut through the pompous bullshit that is dished out in the name of patriotism, progress and popular demand.
There is a universality to his wit and a timelessness, too. Look at the cartoons today and while the faces may have changed, the issues haven’t and the problems, sadly, are still the same.
Even Laxman’s 1958 cartoon about the Delhi Municipal elections has a current ring to it.
Rajiv Gandhi and his ‘feathers in the cap’ cartoon can just as easily be any leader today!
Indira Gandhi’s ‘clean sweep’ cartoon can apply to Modi or even Kejriwal. Probably, especially to the latter, given his election symbol of a ‘Jhadoo’!
Not surprisingly, he loved crows.
“My work gives me great joy and hope. And I do my crows, I read books, creative work.”
RK Laxman in an interview to IBN Live
His cutting visual commentary on Indian politics ran undisturbed for more than 60 years, from 1947, when he joined the Times of India till 2010 when finally ill health forced him to stop cartooning for a daily newspaper. (Before that he was with Free Press Journal in Mumbai.) He continued drawing however.
Laughter was his weapon, his song and his lament.
He used it as a master musician uses his finely tuned instrument to stir listeners’ hearts. Swift, bold strokes etched the latest caper of politicians and bureaucrats, laid bare for the public to see and take note of. He gave us some measure of power over the buffoons we had elected and who now risen, acted against our best interests. Definitely, the most unkindest cut of all. But the laughter he gave us cut down our leaders to size and brought them down, their foibles exposed and their commonness revealed.
We can’t forget you, Laxman.
“As long we laugh, this nation will have a tear in its eye for you, the greatest of our modern jesters.”
To borrow and adapt from a great poet’s armoury (and to use it completely out of context): “So long as men can breathe and eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee.”
Caw, caw to you, dear friend.
