Did ‘something’ – in Indian newspaper readers – die along with the creator of the common man, the eminent cartoonist RK Laxman? Something certainly dimmed within me who has read and laughed out loud (lol) every morning the pocket cartoon since my college days in Sophia College, Mumbai. Laxman’s ubiquitous mute ‘common man’ was born in 1951, but I encountered him at the end of the 60s and since then no day was complete without lapping up the humourous and incisive Laxms\an! Even in the college canteen and corridors the common query among students was “Hey, what did Laxman say today?” Examinations too would not diminish our eagerness for Laxman’s daily dig at the establishment and its machinations.
My siblings and I had bulky scarp-books filled with cut-outs of Laxman’s pocket toons and you can well imagine the scramble there was for the day’s ‘You said it’. The one who laid her/his hands first on the newspaper would get the toon while mum and dad watched aghast as their progeny manhandled the paper! However, I must admit, we developed the habit of rising early because of Laxman’s pocket toons. The three of us still rise early but for other reasons now – like our live-wire grandchildren, medication, meditation or simply bird-watching.
What made ‘You said it’ so popular? Late Laxman was both a fantastic artist and also a magician of the English language – precise, subtle and witty. He never hit below the belt and kept his finger on the pulse of the common man. His political caricatures were excellent but I loved most the common man’s wife’s exasperated expression at the daily upheavals of life. If the common man represented every man’s travails, then his wife represented every wife’s and mother’s constant battle with children’s countless worries from health to education, husband’s shrinking salary as the price graph threatened to hit the roof! In short, her expressions and body language was priceless. Thank you Laxman Sir for highlighting the common man’s daily travails of existence so vividly and waking the conscience of the establishment with your mighty pen.
It’s so poignant that India’s best loved cartoonist quietly bid adieu on Republic Day; a day that represents freedom to all Indians – freedom from fear, subjugation and to develop and progress without discrimination. Freedom to express thought, word, opinion and deed which Laxman did except temporarily during the Emergency. The well known political cartoonist, Sudhir Dar is of the opinion that the era of ‘free and frank’ cartooning has come to end as is evident by the recent widespread intolerance to individual expression. Cartoonists avow that in today’s time the pen has been ‘stifled’ and cartoonists look over their shoulders to see if Big Brother is watching. The notorious Charlie Habdo attack has shaken satirists and cartoonists the world over. But that’s a topic for another day. In the meantime, aficionados of RK Laxman wish him adieu and will miss him for a long time to come.
