Laxman’s tongue-in-cheek humor was a stroke of genius, says HDFC's Parekh

He was the torch that lit the dark corners of everything in society and upturned all that lay hidden. RK Laxman, known for his subtle wit and putting a smile on the face of thousands of readers daily, stirred the men from the world of business by putting across what was wrong with the system and as some said, also ensured that the system was diligent. All this with humour as his touchstone. Dr Raghuram Rajan, Governor, Reserve Bank of India, in an email interaction with Firstpost, said Laxman pinned down the bane of the common man–inflation. He said that the famed cartoonist understood the hopes and aspirations of the common man, as well as his daily travails. “One recurring theme in his work was the curse of inflation which did so much damage to every household.”  Rajan is credited with containing the ills of high inflation that has been hurting the common man. The RBI governor was confident that his ‘predecessors paid close attention to Laxman’s cartoons over the years, for they so vividly captured public sentiment.’ Pointing out the quintessence of Laxman’s genius, Dr Rajan hailed him as an ‘insightful and irreverent giant’. Timeless quality [caption id=“attachment_2066177” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] The cartoonist’s brand of humour was unique. PTI[/caption] Laxman’s work has an ageless, timeless quality and some of them are relevant to today’s times. Deepak Parekh, Chairman, HDFC Ltd–India’s oldest mortgage lender, talking to Firstpost from Delhi said, “I remember one where there is a board put up saying `Do not spit here’ referring to a wall and a guy spitting on the steps where a Common Man is standing,” laughing as he recounted it. Another one that Parekh recalled was of a chart showing price rise with an arrow shooting above the 3rd floor of a building with the Common Man on the ground floor craning his neck to watch it. “R K Laxman was the epitome of truth and empathy to the Common Man. His tongue-in-cheek humor was a stroke of genius,” Parekh said, adding that Laxman will be remembered for poking fun evocatively at politicians, sportsmen and film stars in the country. The recurrent word one hears about Laxman from industrialists is of his ear being close to the ground to capture what the Common Man felt and experienced.  Venugopal Dhoot, chairman of the Rs 19,000 crore Videocon Industries said that his words could not do justice to the `great talent and the kind of fun Laxman brought about through his cartoons of the Common Man.” The greatness of Laxman, Dhoot said, was that he conveyed Everyman’s feelings and thoughts – all this, without uttering a single word. His cartoons will remain in `our memory forever’,  he said. Dhoot found it difficult to pick out his favourite cartoon. “There are a few that I have cherished,” he said. He talked of one where a minister or a babu is seen holding up a graph that shows more people having moved above the poverty line. The minister is seen showing this to a man sitting on the pavement in rags and asking him: Are You Happy? Another cartoon that Dhoot shared referred to the intense security that passengers are subjected to at airports in India. Laxman’s cartoon shows a passenger entering the airport in his undergarments while his clothes are piled up high on the luggage trolley. To the surprised look of a fellow passenger at his attire, the man says, “I prefer to dress up after security check.” Caricature of politicians Laxman is reported to have once remarked that politicians were bad for the country but good for his profession. Some of his caricatures of politicians were memorable. Harsh Goenka, Chairman of the Rs 18,000 crore RPG Enterprises,  listed his favourite. “There are a number of favourites but if I had to pick one, it would probably be the one where he depicts political leader Bal Thackeray as a tiger smoking a pipe.” Goenka said that though the art of cartooning ‘is about expression, wit and contemporary society’, it is also a visual medium and many times, the copy becomes a greater indicator of a cartoon’s success than its visual execution. “This cartoon is thus a favourite because it utilizes visual language so well, without literally saying a word. At the same time, the message is not lost. In fact, it comes through clearer than words could have. We’ve truly lost a giant of our times,” Goenka said. The cartoon of Laxman stood out not only for the image of the Common Man but also for the caption that appeared with it. “That is the punch line to the cartoon that said it all,” reminisced Dilip Piramal, Chairman of the Rs 1,000 crore VIP Industries. “There is a hilarious one etched in my memory—of a young politician newly inducted into the government looking up at a photograph of Mahatma Gandhi on the wall with a puzzled expression. The caption said, “This is Mahatma Gandhi, sir.” Laxman had a connect with the ordinary man and that was his genius, Piramal said, adding that his observation was unparalleled. Laxman’s cartoons cut across generations. Ms Naina Lal Kidwai, Chairman, HSBC India and Director, HSBC Asia Pacific, was introduced to the cartoonist by her father, when still in school. “My memories of Laxman go back to the time when the Times of India would reach our door and my father would dive for the paper to see the cartoon. He would then put the paper under our noses so that we children too looked at it. Laxman had an amazing ability to cut through the moment,” she said. Kidwai recalled her favourite Laxman cartoon—“It is a village scene with a woman holding a water pot on her head and there are people from the village standing around. It shows a politician telling the village folks: As promised, they will give you free supply of power. But we will cut it every hour for an hour as we are terribly short of power….!” Expressing the loss at the `inevitable humour’ of Laxman, Kidwai said that she would miss these moments from the newspaper now. The famed cartoonist had done some commercial assignments for banks, too. State Bank of India’s chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya says RK Laxman, who enthralled readers of the Times of India for more than 50 years with his daily dose of  insightful comments on the trials and tribulations of  the ‘common man’ through its front page caricatures had a very close association with SBI. “Laxman had designed a calendar for SBI. A coffee table book of his selective works sponsored by SBI still receives encomiums from all the readers, who chance upon a copy,” Bhattacharya revealed. Laxman’s works will continue to ensure the much-required sanity in situations that are at times incomprehensible and at most others, excruciating for.. who else, but the Common Man.