RK LAXMAN AND MANY OTHER GREAT INDIAN CARTOONISTS
RK Laxman, the Times of India Cartoonist awarded Padma Vibhushan today. RKL came in a wheel chair, as he is incapacitated on his left due to paralysis. Due to this reason, the recent cartoons by RKL are a little bit shaky and unclear. May God help him regain his strength!.
I like RKL simply because of his straight forwardness. His common man is a typical example of Indian mediocrity and his Kondai-ed, frugal, pragmatic Wife with a Sappathi Kattai, is another example of Woman's Power in India.
I made a reference to RKL at my site www.saivaneri.org as YOU SAID IT for my people says pages. Yes, many times we feel that we have actually talked or thought what RKL depicted in his YOU SAID IT rectangle at the left side of Times of India.
Being a Deep South Indian [ha ha], I never touched Times till I reached Bombay in 1989 for my Polytechnic Annual Leave at my Aunt's home at Mulund (East). Even now, I feel a distinct liking to the Mumbai Times than any other edition. It is the original Mumbai-te paper. No other editions equal its reach and touch of the metro. Previously I came to know of RKL in the Malgudi Days Soap that came in Door Dharshan National Channel and his Malgudi Days Story in our text books.
TOI is full of RK Laxman's praise. Many pages dedicated to his persona; including 28 March 2005 cover page. Good, a cartoonist of his stature should be awarded, and much talked about, but I feel many of his fellow colleagues are left out, without even a small gesture of praise.
I personally feel that the cartoons of
- Ajit Ninan [once upon a time in India Today, now he also paints for TOI especially Business pages],
- Unni [Indian Express],
- Madhan [Ananda Vikatan],
- Ravishankar [again India Today]
- Surendiran [The Hindu second fiddle cartoonist]
and so many others are not even acknowledged by the media, or their Stories talked about.
Mario Miranda, another Padma Shree, is a cartoonist of international fame from Goa, is all but forgotten now. His drawings Life Insurance Corporation of India, for the columns of Kushwant Singh as a Sardarji sitting inside a Bulb with Whisky Bottle and a Woman, and many other BIG INDIAN FULLSCAPE cartoons make one laugh, LOL [sms, chat lingo]!. He is a born laugh maker!.
Ajit Ninan's hand is as good as RK Laxman's. His wit, political mockery is as subtle and clear; sometimes I felt why nobody eulogized him. He is good at mocking the Business tycoons, especially. He has acute business sense.
Unni is a political satirist, who perfectly suits the negative ALL IS BAD attitude of the Indian Express [they call it "Tell it as it is" –but I feel too much truth is never helpful to anyone, it damages the goodness in one's part, if any.] So due to the negative attitude of the Express, today people switched loyalties, now they read the MOST LIED – LAID BACK paper the TOI.
Corruption and many other maladies of India will take time to change. Projecting it as the only image of India will never do good to people or will never change India in minutes. If it did, Indian Express must have reduced corruption tremendously in India. Now people are braver to do corruption, because all people know DIG's, IG's. MLA's, MP's and many Bureaucrats and Officials go to Jail, so it has become a normal affair, something expected out them normally.
The Hindu, a staid and stale paper from Chennai, never gave much importance to caricaturing. All they managed is a poor Kesav – who is incorrigible in his ideas, line drawing and theme. I think they keep him on the payrolls because he is a Brahmin. That's all, no more qualification is required. Many times I liked to scream at his cartoons. God save him from the dust bins of history! Surendra, a newly budding cartoonist in the same Hindu is doing a good job. He has beautiful imagination. I hope one day he will better his rivals.
The Hindustan Times has Sudhir Tailang. But he has to improve a lot, I feel.
Now you ask anybody, any learned, news paper reader in India, they will all recognize or sympathize with RK Laxman. But you ask about Ninan or Unni – nobody knows.
Most of the readers never read the fine print, or never read between the lines, that's one thing.
The other thing is in India we take one person and idealising him too much, that all other equal mortals are never noticed.
Same is the case in cricket. While everybody knows, praises Tendulkar, many forget the fact that Dravid is equal and some times better than Tendulkar.
Anyhow, at least in the forthcoming years one should hope to see Unni or Ninan or Madhan getting the same tribute as RKL
While closing this article I remind all my readers about Keshav Shankar Pillai, popularly known as SHANKAR, India's most celebrated cartoonist before and after India's independence.
Shankar was the recipient of several awards—Padma Shri (1956); Padma Bhushan (1966); Padma Vibhushan (1976); the Order of Smile (1977), an honour from a committee of Polish children; the Hamilton branch of the United Nations Association in Canada conferred on him a citation and a pin for his dedicated service to the children of the world; in (1979), the Hungarian Institute of Cultural Relations awarded him a Commemorative Medal in appreciation of his activities and contribution to children (1980); Order de Saint Fortunat from the Federal Republic of Germany in recognition of his dedication to children's cause; a gold medal from the Government of Czechoslovakia for the promotion of Indo-Czech friendship; conferred with the D. Litt (honoris causa) by the University of Delhi.
Read more about Shankar [may God Bless His Soul!] http://www.childrensbooktrust.
the above article (C) Pasupathi K Pillai
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