"No but you write about all those things. roads, cables and fire brigade bambas. Why didn't you write about him? He's a great man."... it was then that I decided to poke fun...'But is he a patriot? .."yes"...He was not at the border with a gun so that we could sleep peacefully. And you know there's no other kind"..that got his goat. My friend with whom I was having this conversation is one of those people who post pictures of military martyrs, personnel, ex-forces politicos of a certain hue and then give them lakhs of 'salute'. This net widens occasionally and only slightly to include other people, but mostly no other living members except of some dubious freedom fighter, a nameless anonymous do gooder, and except APJA Kalam and Ratan Tata (who is on course to be our future President). Sometimes he will rediscover 'LB shastri' with such arrogance as if he is the onlly one who remembers him. Of course no 'liberals' or 'socialists'. Seculars? Hahahaha. Sometimes I feel sorry for him, sometimes I envy his simple outlook. Other times I pity his programming.
So here he was asking me if I hadn't grown up with RK Laxman's cartoons.
And if so why hadn't I also written an obit-like piece on my wall. He of course had in his self righteous, pompous way with all the attendant sirs and salutes. I told him I didn't feel like it. Which is something he didn't understand. He had on previous occasions said in passing that he didnt care much for what I wrote. So I was piqued by his asking why no obit?.. Oh he had liked that review of PK where i'd panned it. But I guess his reasons were different.
So here goes. Much delayed and much affronted.
----------line drawn here-----
Death has a cleansing quality. Sanitising. It precludes the chance that the deceased can do any damage beyond previous work. Laxman while ill and paralysed could have uttered something while alive that the likes of this fellow would have disliked. And this fellow's type takes offence easily. Even easier is for him to ban things. The last I heard he had banned brinjal in his house. Not forbiddden, banned. Ban is a favourite word. But dead all Laxman has left is a legacy. Praising him will accrue to the praiser Laxman's belief of free speech. Simple. It will hue others preception of the praisers personality with Laxman's wit. And darken the shadoows of doubt that exist on the praisers motivation.
I remember waking up to Laxman. In a no morning tv India his You Said It was the one bright spot in a kids morning. You Said It was often the most entertaining satirical thing that Times of India carried. All other times it was carrying the candle for the establishment and the Indian express was carrying the torch to burn that candle down. But we never read the Express.
On Sundays the treat was in the form off a much bigger cartoon! Subconsciously his targets became my targets and they kept moving. In one while Indira Gandhi was trying to cope with a problem child, in yet another she was the problem. His cartoons drew circles around both government and opposition, the majority and the minority communalists, the bureaucrats and the mob. The Indians and the foreigners (yes there was a time when we had a foreign policy and we did not call it a strategy)
His work introduced me to the tenets of democracy and free speech. Criticism was fearless and elegant. And it didnt differentiate.
But today, I suspect those virtues would be seen as meddlesome. Despite the advances in media, we have made even more advances in bigotry, parochialism, trivialism, and all other isms. Acolytes of dummy leaders would have banned him and burnt his house down.
What I now like about him was how he went about his work. Letting it speak. Not presuming for a moment how his work impacted others. Appreciate it more when i see a television anchor, the flaring nostril of self righteousness and keeper of national know how without reservation announces that 'Twitter meets Arnob!'. Its as if the mountain came.
Laxman's felicity did not stop at exaggerating the features of the leaders. Morarji's ears, Indira's nose, Rajiv's expression which we have now learnt is Rahul's trademark. Kapils buck teeth, Amitabh's lugubrious-ness all were driven home without a doubt. He excelled with Malgudi days too. Asian paints mascot Gattu was his creation. I for one would have liked him to do a comic strip. Like Spiderman. But that was not to be. Like many things in life. Mine and his.
I have been suitably impressed by his obsession with crows to in my way adopt it. Those incredibly urban squabblly squatters. Sometimes it is a taxing tribute.
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