The murderous attack by the extremists on the offices of the French satirical Magazine Charlie Hebdo, which had featured a cartoon which purportedly hurt religious sensitivities, is only one of the increasing acts of violence targeting humour and satire.

Closer home, cartoonist Aseem Trivedi was jailed on sedition charges a few years back. Since then sedition has become all too common a charge to fling at political dissenters, as happened most recently with the JNU Student leader Kanhaiya Kumar. The more dire the danger, the more we need the protective shield of humour, like the cartoon which shows a condemned man facing a firing squad who turns down the offer of a last cigarette because smoking could be injurious to health.

The evolution of cartooning in India has been linked to stalwarts like Shankar and Laxman and Ranga too had been part of exposing the oddities of well-known people that evoked laughter all around for almost four decades. Cartooning is a form of caricaturing of his most obvious features making the figure frothy, frisky with a touch of humour.

The late Keshav Shankar Pillai, whose birth centenary was celebrated on July 31, was, perhaps, the first Indian cartoonist who began lampooning the rulers of British India during the independence movement. Later, he turned his prickly lance of humour to Indian leaders. The objective of his magazine-- “Shankar’s Weekly”— was to create mirth and merriment by taking potshots at one and all, particularly the political leaders of his time. He must have cartooned Jawaharlal Nehru more than 1,500 times. Like Shankar, Walt Disney too began his career as cartoonist and created the popular character “Mickey Mouse”. Ranga belonged to Shankar school of cartooning having begun his career with “Shankar’s Weekly” in 1960 when his first caricature appeared.

R K Laxman too became a legend in his life-time. He was quite popular for his 'The Common Man' character which portrayed the issues of a simple person through his comic strips. Most of his common man characters were published in the newspaper 'Times of India'. Apart from portraying the issues faced by a common man, he also did portrait sketching of famous celebrities. If you have read the 'The Malgudi Days' written by RK Narayanan, you would have seen the illustration created by RK Laxman on the cover page. Well as you would have guessed, RK Narayanan is the elder brother of RK Laxman. Laxman also spent most of his time sketching crows, which according to him is the most intelligent bird.

Laxman once said of his Common Man character that, “He’s been with me throughout my career. I did not find him. He found me… I would say he symbolizes the mute millions of India, or perhaps the whole world, a silent spectator of marching time.” Even though he is no more with us, he still lives through his cartoons.

Ranga , in fact, developed his own style which has come to be known as “ on the spot caricaturing”. With his black sketch pen and a pad, he would always be seen sitting in the front row of a press conference of visiting foreign dignitaries or Prime Ministers. The Press Conference over, his cartoon would be ready , and soon after the last question was put , he would be seen by the side of the dignitary—be it a President, Prime Minister, King or queen, a Sheikh or a dictator. He would get the sketch autographed and his treasure included autographed cartoons of Queen Elizabeth, Krushchev, Breznev, Z.A. Bhutto, Gen Zia-ul-Haz and Shah of Iran. It was Bhutto who flared up after seeing his caricature and virtually reprimanded Ranga; “I do not look like this….it is a bad cartoon”. Nevertheless, to Ranga’s delight, he put his signature on the cartoon.

Ranga had collection of maximum number of cartoons of the world leaders autographed. Very few have that concentration to catch the vital contour of a leader amidst jostling and pushing by VVIP’s security; the black cats and commandos.

Shah of Iran had very tight security whenever he visited India. Ranga once managed to breach the security and reached up to the Shah, who smiled and autographed his caricature. Someone from the Shah’s entourage followed Ranga, offered $100 for the sketch but Ranga steadfastly refused. He then raised the price to $200 but Ranga told him rather curtly “ I will not give you the original. If you like, I can give you as many zeroxed copy as you like. Please tell me room number of you hotel”. Ranga did deliver the photostat to the Iranian in his hotel room.

With the downing of shutters by “ Punch” and closing of “ Shankar’s Weekly” thirty five years back, the present day cartoonists believe that “cartooning is a dying institution” the world over. One may not agree with this pessimistic view because humour can never die. (IPA Service)