After battling for life for 11-long days at a hospital in Mumbai, legendary satirist, illustrator, humourist and creator of the iconic “Common Man” cartoon RK laxman breathed his last on Monday. Not given to self-pity, he loved making cartoons at any time and would not hesitate to poke fun at himself when the time came. This quality came to light when he was admitted to Mumbai’s Breach Candy Hospital in September 2003 for a fortnight, after he suffered a paralytic stroke in his left leg and hand.
That he wanted to keep the satirist in him alive right from the first day bore from the fact that he began drawing the caricatures of doctors and nurses attending on him. Initially, he was testing if there was anything amiss with his right hand, but later on he got down to the business he knew best in right earnest. In one of the cartoons, laxman poked fun at himself, through his alter-ego the “common man” who has figured unfailingly in his cartoons over the years. It shows the common man lying on a hospital bed with a bewildered look on his face and messages like “Don’t worry, you will get well”, “Don’t worry, be happy”, “We pray for your speedy recovery” et all written all over the place. The renowned cartoonist even responded to an overwhelming “get-well soon’ messages from his countless friends and admirers.
Admitted to Poona Hospital a day before the start of the ten-day-long Ganpati festivities, he had celebrated the festival by drawing caricatures of Ganesha in different forms. Even after having been shifted to Breach Candy Hospital, he was trying to keep his right hand busy. His journalist-son Srinivas laxman recalled: “Whenever my father was in one of his moods, he would draw.”
His laconic sense of humour surfaced often in hospital. When a plump woman dietician visited him in his hospital room and gave him advice on the diet to follow, laxman told an aide sitting by his side with a straight face: “look at her, she is advising me on dieting”. Similarly, he was extremely conscious of his responsibility and work ethics, even when he was bedridden, a quality that came to the fore when he was admitted to Mumbai’s Breach Candy Hospital in 2010, when he suffered three mild strokes. Once he was out of the hospital, laxman was back at his desk, spending at least six to seven hours in a day drawing cartoons for The Times of India, with which he has been associated for the last 63 years.
After fighting for life in Pune’s Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital where he had been shifted to on January 18, 2015 after being admitted to Aundh’s Medipoint Hospital the previous day following multi-organ failure, laxman breathed his last on Monday evening. Best known for his creation the Common Man, for his daily cartoon strip, You Said It in The Times of India, which started in 1951, laxman was 93 and is survived by wife Kamala, journalist-son Srinivas laxman, daughter-in-law Usha and granddaughter Rimanika.
Born in Mysore on October 24, 1921, laxman was the son of a headmaster. He was the youngest of six sons; his elder brother was renowned novelist late RK Narayan. Given to poring through the illustrations in magazines such as The Strand Magazine, Punch, Bystander, Wide World and Tit-Bits even before he could read, laxman began to draw even before he went to school. Encouraged by his teachers, he began to think that he was an artist in the making. like in the case of late Bal Thackeray with whom he started his career as a cartoonist in the Free Press Journal, laxman was influenced by cartoons of the world-renowned British cartoonist, Sir David low.
As a schoolboy he was given to pranks, so much so that his elder brother RK Narayan used his antics as a subject for his stories like “Dodu the money maker” and “The Regal Cricket Club”. After high school, he sought admission to JJ College of Art, which ironically refused him admission saying he lacked “the kind of talent needed to qualify for enrolment in our institution.”
While doing his graduation from the University of Mysore, he began contributing cartoons to Swarajya and later to Blitz. laxman also began to try his hand at illustrations and drew them for RK Narayan’s stories in The Hindu. After landing in Mumbai, the first full-time cartoonist’s job that he took up was in The Free Press Journal. later, laxman joined The Times of India, where he became a household name in the country.
His pocket cartoon, ‘You Said It’, which appeared in The Times of India for nearly five decades was started in 1951 and connected well with the common man and highlighted his plight. The Common Man, started in 1951, represented the hopes, aspirations, troubles and perhaps even foibles of the average Indian. Clad in a dhoti and a jacket, the character ‘The Common Man’ had not missed anything.
laxman was the recipient of the Padma Vibhushan and the coveted Ramon Magsaysay Award. He was conferred honorary doctorate by the Government of Karnataka. His autobiography “The Tunnel of Time”, gave an insight into the mind of the man who has come to be admired as one of the best cartoonists of his time in not just India but also across the world. A chair was set up after his name at the Symbiosis International University in Pune last year.
Apart from creating a popular mascot for the Asian Paints group called Gattu in 1954, laxman also drew caricatures of his friends for private purposes. His cartoons have appeared in Hindi films such as Mr and Mrs ‘ 55 and a Tamil film Kamraj. His creations also include the sketches drawn for the television adaptation of “Malgudi Days” which was written by RK Narayan and directed by Shankar Nag.