The voluptuous fecundity of Mario Miranda, bristling with overcrowded trains, eateries, wedding pandals and street corners, featuring the flotsam and jetsam of familiar characters like the buxom Miss Nimbu Pani and Miss Fonseca and the odd, sly, street stray, each an essential part of the jigsaw that made up the throbbing city, especially its Southern -most tip; Laxman’s browbeaten but stoic Common Man, (perhaps Mumbai’s original man from Matunga?), his ubiquitous dhoti and checked coat a paean to the underdog, a silent often bemused witness to the antics of the high and mighty and the march of history; Bal Thackeray’s rapier- like political stridency, capturing the Marathi Manoos and his world view from his vantage Shivaji Park- perch in David Low -inspired masterly penmanship; the cerebral simplicity of Vasant Sarvate’s strokes, echoing those of his mentor Saul Steinberg, but with a distinct east -Vile Parle flavour, owing to the canon of intellectual brilliance of the likes of PL Deshpande and Vijay Tendulkar whose books he regularly illustrated; erstwhile Mumbaiker Paul Fernandes’ warm hearted nostalgia- laced water colours of SoBo standards such as Irani restaurants, art cafes, markets and city landmarks which never fail to bring a smile of recognition…
Could there be a city in India that has been more richly recorded in vivid brush strokes, painstakingly -detailed chiaroscuro, or fantastical ink line exaggerations other than Mumbai through the eyes of its cartoonists?
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Mumbai’s tryst with cartoons is undeniable. Right from the time when Laxman and Mario‘s twin genius emanating from the city’s preeminent media house seized the public imagination and Thackeray’s dictats presented in the form of his drawings in Marmik could bring the city to a standstill and his nephew and MNS leader Raj Thackeray carried on the tradition, there was no doubt that Mumbai enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with the art of cartooning.
“Laxman, Bal Thackeray, Mario, and others nurtured cartooning so well that it became a part of Mumbai’s culture. In addition, being the commercial capital and home of the entertainment industry of the country, the city provided patrons of the art form in good numbers.” Says Manjul, currently one of the country’s foremost cartoonists, when I ask him about the unique bond that the city has with cartoons. His colleague, the equally celebrated Satish Acharya concurs “Of course cartoonists like Laxman, Mario and Balasaheb have inspired generations of cartoonists.” He says, “But also, Mumbai being the mecca of media and advertising offered lots of options and opportunities to artists who were passionate about cartooning.”
“Cartoonists do better in cities for sure. The multitude of stimulating situations that a city brings forth are the real fodder for a cartoonist.“ says DR Hemant Morparia, who refers to his artistic pursuit as ‘ his mistress’ and to radiology -his day job – as his ‘wife’.
All three in this Holy Trinity agree that the city has played a seminal role in their evolution.“
“In my case, I could think about taking up cartooning as a profession in the late ‘90s just because of Mumbai, which gave me the right to dream,” says Acharya, who spent 17 years in Mumbai before relocating.“ I’m a Mumbaiker for life,” he adds.
“I just love the city. Its cosmopolitan nature has improved my understanding of life,” says Manjul, who came here from Delhi for a stint with a local daily and has never looked back.
“I suppose I am a Mumbai cartoonist in the best sense of that word. That is catholic in spirit, broad-minded, diverse in taste, accepting and cosmopolitan in view…” says Morparia.
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So, what is it about Mumbai that lends itself so richly to the cartoon? Could it be the wealth of its paradoxes, the extent of its absurdities, the haphazard richness of its everyday quirks and characteristics that have given rise to such a bountiful aggregate of interpretations by such an abundance of talent? Would a cartoonist have to travel far to be inspired in a city that seems to lend itself so richly to satire, parody, caricature, and humour? From its packed to the gills populace to its abundance of diverse communities to its cornucopia of quirky characters, its widening inequities, ceaseless social carousel and careening politics, it affords those with a penchant for the art of lampooning an embarrassment of riches.
But, given the omnipresence and scope of IT, it no longer requires residency according to both Acharya and Manjul. “Today, the physical boundaries don’t matter. You get the same news in real-time in Mumbai as well as in my present location Kundapura, a small town in coastal Karnataka.“ says Acharya. “Now one can see, read and connect with anybody anywhere. Also, cartooning is all about imagination. One need not go into space to draw about astronauts.“ says Manjul.
Which perhaps could be another way of saying you can take the cartoonist out of Mumbai -but you can’t take Mumbai out of the cartoonist…
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But, as much as the city burgeons and blooms expands and evolves, are cartoons themselves becoming an endangered species? “Cartoons these days that have the most visibility and audience are those that are mostly one -sided,” says Morparia “ A sign surely of the polarisation of the public at large.”
Clyde Crasto, NCP spokesperson who is continuing in the tradition begun by the Thackerays of the politician as cartoonist, says a few years ago he began to feel that there was a lot of bitterness in politics and perhaps his cartoons would reduce the bitterness. Recently, the politico was delighted to be invited back to the same classroom at St Xavier’s College where he’d once sat as a student, to present a class on cartooning. “Being a spokesperson of a political party combining these two aspects of my life became easy for me,” he says.
Manjul, known for his outspokenness and fearlessness bemoans the current lack of subtlety and nuance in the public discourse, but avers that it is a natural consequence of the changing times. “How many in the new generation are familiar with works of great literature?,” he asks. Last year, he saw one of his long-running contractual engagements with a media group abruptly terminated after he received a notice from Twitter stating that Indian authorities had instructed it to take action against his page. Acharya whose cartoon on the Charlie Hebdo Massacre was lauded internationally as one of the most outstanding indictments of the tragedy, has also had his run in with editorial censorship.
The experience of these draughts men is a portent of the polarised, hyper-intolerant times we live in. Gone are the days when a Miss Nimbu Pani or the Common Man’s good-humoured antics could bring a smile to one’s lips.
Perhaps the humour and tolerance have leached out of our lives as it has of the city itself.
“Cartoons today, like the rest of us, are more angry than funny, “ says Morparia.
Acharya’s reply to how he spent World Cartoon Day, which fell on 5 May is representative of this trend “It was just another day,” he says. “Spent drawing cartoons, responding to the queries of cartoon enthusiasts – and dealing with trolls…”