The Common Man's Uncommon Creator
Courtesy of this entire page development - iWrite
The morning dawned with the newspapers carrying an article about the Common Man and his Uncommon Creator, Rasipuram Krishnaswamy Iyer Laxman, better known as R K Laxman. Our beloved cartoonist turned 90 yesterday.
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| R K Laxman |
Creativity and R K Laxman have been inseparable for more than half a century. Laxman was inspired by the illustrations in the magazines such as Strand Magazine, Punch, Bystander, Wide World and Tit-Bits even before he could ever read them, after which he admits he drew on floors, walls, doors and caricatures of his teachers at school as well. It was only when one of his teachers appreciated his effort that he realised he could be an artist in the making.
R K Laxman has been a trend setter of cartooning in India. Even today when any of us think of cartooning, I bet it's Laxman who jumps into the mind voice ahead of all others. The Common Man by R K Laxman can be called his brain child. Laxman changed the way people looked at news. When hundreds of columnists sat all through the night to write and vent their political notions, Laxman attracted millions of readers and fans by using a space less than a usual visiting card. His way of portraying the Common Man as the voice of a billion others was lauded and is still being appreciated. Laxman's cartoon space in The Times of India, "You Said It" was started in 1951 and there has been no looking back. It can be rightly called the Voice of India, wherein the Common Man utters what a billion refrain.
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| The Common Man with R K Laxman |
The creation of the Common Man was a daunting task says Laxman. "A Punjabi is different from a south Indian. A Bengali is different from a Bihari. The only common feature among different "common men" in India was their muteness despite being in the majority", says Laxman. The Common Man we see in his cartoons today was born after a long process of elimination of many other characters he caricatured. Laxman states, "The indestructibility of the Common Man is in itself a great Indian value."
The Common Man featured in a commemorative stamp issued by India Post in 1988 as Times of India turned 150. A 10 ft high bronze statue of The Common Man has been erected at the Symbiosis Institute, Pune. The Common Man was the mascot for Air Deccan.
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| Gattu, the mascot of Asian paints |
Apart from his political reflections he was the illustrator for his brother R K Narayan's works of which the Malgudi stories are worth mentioning and reading as well. Laxman also created the mascot for Asian Paints called Gattu.
A major stroke in June last year has made it impossible for Laxman to verbally communicate. His wife Kamala Laxman, talking to the media yesterday (24.10.2011) said “Every day, I make him sketch something as daily practice, and he is improving a lot." His inimitable cartoons are immensely missed by millions of dedicated readers. "During Anna Hazare's fast and his stand-off with the government, we got hundreds of calls from people," says Mrs Laxman. "All of them had one thing to say: 'How we wish you were still cartooning!' "
A few of his witty thought provoking cartoons :
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| "You're making a mistake. he is not the one involved in the sugar scam. He is involved in the bank scam." |
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| This was when the Government restricted the newspapers from publishing defamatory articles and news about the Govt. |
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| "This is our man! He can survive without water, food, light, air, shelter..." A comical take on the plight of the people below the poverty line. |
