Rasipuram Krishnaswami Laxman[1] (24 October 1921 – 26 January 2015) was an Indian cartoonist, illustrator, and humorist.[2] He was best known for his creation The Common Man and for his daily cartoon strip, You Said It in The Times of India, which started in 1951.[3]
R. K. Laxman started his career as a part-time cartoonist, working mostly for local newspapers and magazines. While as a college student, he illustrated his older brother R. K. Narayan's stories in The Hindu.[4] His first full-time job was as a political cartoonist for The Free Press Journal in Mumbai. Later, he joined The Times of India, and became famous for The Common Man character, which turned out to be the turning point in Laxman's life.
Birth and childhood
R. K. Laxman was born in Mysore in 1921 in a Tamil[citation needed] Hindu family.[5][6] His father was a headmaster and Laxman was the youngest of eight children: six sons and two daughters.[7][8] His elder brother was novelist R.K. Narayan. Laxman was known as "Pied Piper of Delhi".[9]
Laxman was fascinated by the illustrations in magazines such as The Strand, Punch, Bystander, Wide World and Tit-Bits, before he had even begun to read.[10] Soon he was drawing on his own, on the floors, walls and doors of his house and doodlingcaricatures of his teachers at school; praised by a teacher for his drawing of a peepal leaf, he began to think of himself as an artist in the making.[11] Another early influence on Laxman was the work of the British cartoonist, Sir David Low (whose signature he misread as "cow" for a long time) that appeared now and then in The Hindu.[12] Laxman notes in his autobiography, The Tunnel of Time:
I drew objects that caught my eye outside the window of my room – the dry twigs, leaves and lizard-like creatures crawling about, the servant chopping firewood and, of course, and number of crows in various postures on the rooftops of the buildings opposite
Laxman was the captain of his local "Rough and Tough and Jolly" cricket team and his antics inspired the stories "Dodu the Money Maker" and "The Regal Cricket Club" written by his brother, Narayan.[14] Laxman's idyllic childhood was shaken for a while when his father suffered a paralytic stroke and died around a year later, but the elders at home bore most of the increased responsibility, while Laxman continued with his schooling.[15]
After high school Maharaja's Govt. High School, Mysore, Laxman applied to the Sir J.J. Institute of Applied Art hoping to concentrate on his lifelong interests of drawing and painting, but the dean of the school wrote to him that his drawings lacked "the kind of talent to qualify for enrolment in our institution as a student", and refused admission.[16] He finally graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Mysore. In the meantime he continued his freelance artistic activities and contributed cartoons to Swarajya and an animated film based on the mythological character Narada.[17]
R.K Laxman's earliest work was for newspapers Rohan and magazines including Swarajya and Blitz. While still at the Maharaja College of Mysore, he began to illustrate his elder brother R. K. Narayan's stories in The Hindu, and he drew political cartoons for the local newspapers and for the Swatantra. Laxman also drew cartoons for the Kannada humour magazine, Koravanji which was founded in 1942 by M. Shivaram who had a clinic in the Majestic area of Bangalore. He started this monthly magazine, dedicating it to humorous and satirical articles and cartoons. Shivaram himself was an eminent humourist in Kannada. He encouraged Laxman.
Laxman held a summer job at the Gemini Studios, Madras. His first full-time job was as a political cartoonist for The Free Press Journal in Mumbai, where Bal Thackeray was his cartoonist colleague. In 1951, Laxman joined The Times of India, Mumbai, beginning a career that spanned over fifty years.[18] His "Common Man" character, featured in his pocket cartoons, is portrayed as a witness to the making of democracy.[19] Anthropologist Ritu G. Khanduri notes, "R. K. Laxman structures his cartoon-news through a plot about corruption and a set of characters. This news is visualized and circulates through the recurring figures of the mantri (minister), the Common Man and the trope of modernity symbolized by the airplane (2012: 304)."[20]
Laxman was first married to Kumari Kamala, a Bharatanatyam dancer and film actress who began her film career as a child actress named "Baby Kamala" and graduated into adult roles under the name "Kumari Kamala" ("Miss Kamala"). They had no children and after their divorce in 1960 Laxman married his niece whose first name was again Kamala. She was the author and children's book writer- Kamala Laxman.[25] In a cartoon series named "The star I never met" in film magazine Filmfare he painted a cartoon of Kamala Laxman, with the title "The star I only met!" The couple's son Srinivas Laxman is a Mumbai-based freelance space journalist who has contributed regularly to The Times of India.[26][27]
In September 2003, Laxman suffered a stroke that left him paralysed on his left side. He recovered from it partially.[citation needed] On the evening of 20 June 2010, Laxman was admitted to Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai after being transported by an air ambulance from Pune.[28]
Death
A tribute to the late R. K. Laxman by cartoonist Shekhar GureraR. K. Laxman receives the Padma Vibhushan award from the President Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam in New Delhi on March 28, 2005
R K Laxman Museum:R. K. Laxman Museum in Pune houses over 35000 illustrations of R. K. Laxman. The exhibits have been displayed in several galleries. An entire gallery is dedicated to the life of Laxman. It houses rare photos of his childhood and also displays photos of his elder brother the famous novelist R. K. Narayan. The museum also has a light and sound show.[39]
(He also wrote a book named Banker Margiah in Kannada to create awareness about Banking, about how to open a bank account by a common man. Later a movie was reseased. Which was awarded National Award as well.).
Multimedia
India Through The Eyes of R. K. Laxman – Then To Now (CD-ROM).[43]
^Ranga Rao (1 January 2006). R.K. Narayan. Sahitya Akademi. p. 11. ISBN978-81-260-1971-7. Retrieved 11 March 2012. Pg. 11 in the source says that Laxman & his brother Narayan were Tamil Iyer Brahmins.
