Connecting with ‘Common Man’s creator

R K Laxman

’s birth centenary

Sometimes I wonder if R K Laxman, the iconic cartoonist, was living in Chandigarh, what themes would he pick up for his legendary ‘Common Man’ cartoons? Would he have lampooned our netas promising the magical ‘Metro’ for decades to solve city’s traffic woes, without anything moving by an inch on the ground. Or would he have depicted the petrified

common man

, valiantly shooing away a pack of street dogs, attacking him on his morning walk, with his ubiquitous umbrella? Or would it be city mayor offering free boat rides to all motorists stranded on Madhya Marg during the torrential monsoon? Surely, there would be no dearth of inspirations for him to have mined from the ‘City Beautiful’.

Interestingly, both the city’s iconic architect-planner,

Le Corbusier

, and R K Laxman, had a great fascination for sketching crows! In fact, Corbusier (original name Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris) took on moniker from the common bird, meaning ‘crow-like’. Laxman too had a deep fascination for the lowly, common bird not envied for beauty – and sketched many of them seen perched on his window sill every day.

Laxman’s symbol, the Common Man – just like the fictional town of Malgudi of his equally, legendary elder brother R K Narayan—is everywhere yet ‘no where’ in real life, both epitomising universal, human condition and situations, with strokes of genius.

My first brush with the iconic brothers was decades ago, when our otherwise rather stern father, would be chuckling with delight to himself, reading Narayan’s novels serialised in a popular magazine then, with telling illustrations by Laxman.

Later growing up as an ardent admirer of the duo— I would never miss starting my day without savouring Laxman’s pocket cartoon in The Times of India, ‘You said it’ depicting a “man in black checked coat, whose bald head boasts only a wisp of white hair. He has a permanent look of bewilderment on his face. He is ubiquitous.”

Whether it was a new book by Narayan, with Laxman providing authentic visual imagery to Malgudi and its depiction as the quintessential South Indian small town or his caricatures of Indian politicians and the silently suffering jantaa they said it all. But ‘stinging without wounding’ or drawing bad blood ever.

In 1998, Laxman turned writerly and penned his autobiography Through the Tunnel of Time’. Curious, that how a self-taught, formally untrained artist like him could become the master of pen and brush stroke, I read it in one greedy gulp. Moved by his amazing resolve to become a cartoonist, notwithstanding all obstacles — I wrote him a ‘fan-mail’ complimenting him on book. I soon got a very fond reply thanking me for my appreciation, enclosed with one of his recent cartoons duly autographed for me. I now had with me a letter with his hallmark signatures — the famous scrawny long flourish, adorning his cartoons everyday –as a prized possession!

In 2001 when R K Narayan was awarded the Padma Vibushan, I published a spoof in the form of an open letter from the residents of his fictional town Malgudi, beseeching him to be the chief guest at the town hall function to honour him, imitating his style of narration and his Malgudi characters.

One evening when I returned from work, our semi-literate cook in his usual laconic manner mentioned that there had been a phone call from one ‘Laaks..man Sahib’ from Bombay for me. It was a quizzical, as he could not recall the name accurately, but had noted down a phone number to call him back.

The next day I eagerly dialled the number with bated breath. Finally, a gruff ‘Yes’ was heard, and I rattled off my well-rehearsed lines, only to be responded only with great warmth, mentioning that he had liked my Middle piece on Narayan in the TOI very much, and had got my address especially from the Delhi office to convey his compliments. In fact, he had also sent a copy of the article to Narayan in Chennai too, obtained his autograph and sent it to me.

As I poured out my gushing admiration for his work, he patiently kept chatting with me for nearly half an hour and even invited me to visit him in Mumbai/Pune where he now lived.

The creator of the 'Common Man' may have left the front pages of the newspaper-- I suspect up there in his heavenly abode, he is bringing about a chuckle to the gods and goddesses with his gentle, irreverent spoofs.