Alexyz
doesn’t have a dull moment in his life
as he finds humour in every situation and captures the same in his
beautifully illustrated cartoons. For example, a simple everyday
incident of buying fish and doing a double-take on hearing the price
is candidly captured in his new book, ‘O To Be In Goa… Today’,
which highlights different issues that Goans face.
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Published
by Broadway Publishing House, the book includes nearly 200 cartoons
on chapters like tourism, environment, mining, politics and
wildlife. “The cartoons are mostly from my two years of work for a
Goan daily which were topical so that the readers could relate to
them; they revolved around Goa. I believe that cartoons are a
documentary or a visual history. It’s easy to gauge the situation
years ago by just looking at a cartoon of that time. I look at my
cartoons as works of art and I choose my colours very carefully.
Earlier, it was just two colours with a reddish brown colour and the
white background, but for this book, we’ve made use of vibrant
colours,” says Alexyz about his first coloured book.
The
book features the works of nearly three years, bringing back
memories of the affairs at that point in time. “History keeps
repeating itself and so there are the same themes but with different
and new perspectives. It is the same tourism, corruption and drug
problems that are affecting Goa but the government will give new
direction to it,” explains Alexyz, who dedicated ‘O To Be In
Goa… Today’ to his dear friends, ‘Mario de Miranda, Emiliano
Da Cruz and Joel D’Souza’.
Before
entering into the world of cartoons, Alexyz was an athlete and
played football. “I injured my knee while playing football and I
had to be carried off the field. I started cartooning and my first
book was ‘Sportoons’, which was India’s first book of sport
toons. The book,which was released in 1982, was published by India
Book House and was sold for just Rs 7.50. ‘Howzzat! – Century of
Cricket Cartoons ’ was my second book of cartoons in 1987 and the
first on cricket cartoons in India,” Alexyz recollects.
It
is very difficult for a cartoonist to claim a piece on the daily
newspaper and Alexyz was a daily cartoonist for newspapers in Mumbai
such as The Indian Express, Mid-Day, Free Press Journal, Sunday
Observers and Readers Digest, besides Goan dailies. “There are
many cartoonists in Goa but there is hardly any space which can be
daily devoted to a cartoon. Space on a newspaper is important and
the cartoon should not be blocked with advertisements. I used to
draw sports cartoons in Mumbai and a comic strip for Sportsweek, a
weekly magazine,” says Alexyz.
His
next project will be inspired by the famous Goan coconut tree. “I
am keen on doing something with cartoons on the coconut tree. I have
a lot of cartoons that I have drawn over the years and want to
compile them together,” he reveals.
