RK Laxman: The old man of Bori Bunder

“So far as I am concerned, I am not at all aware that there indeed exists a serious side as well to my cartoons drawn in an inspired mood of mischievous abandon.” - RK Laxman

For those of us born in the '70s with impressionable years in the following decade, there’s one thing that the India of our times never missed or complained about - lack of humour. We grew up in a generous country, where it was permissible to laugh, to make fun and the powers that be had better things to do than getting hurt.

It was the golden age of political cartooning. With Shankar there were Abu Abraham, Rajinder Puri, OV Vijayan, Ranga, EP Unny, Sudhir Dar along with Sudhir Tailang, Keshav, Ravi Shankar, Ajit Ninan and many more. But the man whole stole the show with his lines and his humour, drawing away at the corner of Bori Bunder was the superstar RK Laxman. Irrespective of whether you read his paper or not, if you missed his humour or his Common Man - you knew your growing up was incomplete.

It was 1986, when I won an inter-school cartoon competition. Young Sudhir Tailang, the judge, old Shankar, the chief guest and in prize were two slim volumes of You Said It by RK Laxman. Published by IBH, priced at eight rupees each, the 100 pagers have been on my table ever since. The bus journey back home must have been the most inspiring ever that made me commit to the drawing board everyday in my growing up years.

The simplest of humour, effortless command of the lines, the little details revealed the God who lived in Bombay. This followed by his profile published in the Illustrated Weekly, a full page picture of the man reading The Times of India with his feet up on the table. The superstar looked straight into my eyes revealing the man, the legend and his myth – the Common Man.

Much as it’s a minor myth that his Common Man never uttered a word. By and large he didn’t, the observant oldie who happened to be there mostly by accident, he was Laxman’s eyes and ears. But there are cartoon’s where he did open his mouth. Rarely, but did. And even when he didn’t, he sent out the strongest signals. In the mid '70s, at the peak of Emergency with censorship all around, Laxman too wasn’t spared. Many of his cartoons were withheld and the Common Man said a million words in one image. He was buried under a newspaper with headlines like "Fine, Great, Plenty, Very Happy, Very Rosy". Laxman never shied from hitting where it hurt but he did it with style. His lines were effortless making his draughtsmanship absolutely enviable, that looked so easy to draw but never was. His humour, too, could never be slotted like a Bambaiyya, Southern, Cow belt or even small town. It was a pan-Indian struggle, succinctly put in black-and-white like his lines. An irreverent humour that worked across classes and party lines. In the good old days of journalism, when the cartoon was a part of the front and the edit page, the man used his Common Man judiciously between the two column editorial cartoon and the single column pocket on the side, stating that the Common Man or citizenship was much a part of real politik or governance with a capital C and a capital M, unlike what our leaders would like us to believe.

Yet, he did not have much expectations of any dawn his work would bring. He knew at best it could invoke a chuckle, a laugh. In his simplicity was his genius. In a foreword to one of the volumes on my desk, Laxman put it well, “I have been working away at these cartoons for more than a quarter of a century now and I do not think I can show a single instance of changing the mind of a politician from taking a mad course. My cartoons have not tamed the wild young man on the campus, nor softened the fire-eating trade union leader. Above all, my efforts have not so far converted any minister to the humble ways of an honest, simple servant of the people… You might think mine is a frustrating business. Certainly not. Luckily, my purpose in drawing these cartoons happens to be quite different and less ambitious.” This published in 1974, still relevant, still true.

With the passing away of Laxman, much to the popular idiom, I do not think the Common Man is dead. In the age of the viral, just can’t be. In these times when the political cartoon is the first victim of someone’s sentiment hurt, it is much the Common Man who posts, forwards, debates and keeps the cartoon alive. In many ways Laxman started this trend by giving Common Man a voice, that too on the front page. The cartoon disappeared from the front page a while back and somewhere the genius had predicted this death of the political cartoon. “The affairs of the world are in the hands of grim men (or women) and one should presume they have no time for cartoons and their subtle messages. Running a state, or a nation or the world, however badly is a serious job and these people know what is good for them and therefore what is good for you too, without the good offices of the cartoonist.

"If that is all there is to it, then why all these cartoons? Well, someone has to mind the are of laughter in our lives and laughter is our birthright which nobody would dare to take away from us (I think)!”

RIP RK Laxman for provoking, inspiring and speaking for us.