Column | Window Seat

Window Seat | Mrinal Chatterjee | 1.12.19

Biography as part of Literature

Recently I participated in Bagdevi literature festival in Bhubaneswar and deliberated on biography as part of literature. Biography, as all of us know, is a story of a person's life written by another person. The subject of the biography is the person whose story is being told and the biographer is the person writing the story. A biography is written in third-person point of view and usually has a more objective and accurate portrayal of the subject than, say, autobiography, which is story of a person written by himself or herself.

Biography is often regarded as kind of scientific document of historical or ethnographic type. However, Biography is a literary genre that provides a life story of a subject, highlighting different aspects of his of her life.

Biographies are often non-fictional, but many biographers also use novel -like format, because a story line would be more entertaining with the inclusion of strong exposition, rising conflict, and then climax. Like literature Biography attempts to tell a story - that is entertaining and inspiring. Inspirational life stories could motivate and put confidence into the readers. Biographies can also document epochal moments of history.

Though biography has several connect-points with literature, they differ in certain ways. Whereas fiction may take liberty with facts, biography cannot. If it takes liberty with facts, then it ceases to be a biography. Biography is essentially the story of a human being who is living or once lived. It is thus closer to history, which should not fictionalize. It may tell the story of a community, a nation at a certain time frame- through the story of a person- but the story has to be based on verifiable facts. Therefore a biographer has to be a historian plus litterateur.

Like in journalism, in a biography facts are sacrosanct. However, when a person tells the story of another person then it essentially becomes a story as seen and narrated by the biographer. It may not be the real truth. It may be truth as perceived by the biographer. Its ok to dramatise some incidents of life to make it more interesting for the readers? It is a null question in case of a fiction. But for a biography it becomes a very important question. Therefore, success of a biography will depend on two factors, besides the quality of the writing. A. how truthfully the person is narrated. B. How accurately it also portrays the time to which the person belongs to.  The biographer needs to do the micro-macro balancing.

As biography chronicles the life and times of a person- it is increasingly been used for explorations in areas including literature studies, sociology, economics and politics.  A book titled The Biographical Turn, edited by Hans Renders, Binne de Haan, Jonne Harmsma, (Routledge, 2016) showcases the latest research through which the field of biography is being explored.

Sudhir Dar: Master of Humour

WHEN Indian political cartoonists are discussed, Sudhir Dar's name usually figures in the list of the first half-dozen. But Dar was never by inclination a political cartoonist.  “Dar's forte”, wrote Rajinder Puri, himself an acclaimed cartoonist, “was humour. Pure humour of the zany kind. His drawing style suited that genre.” For over forty years Sudhir Dar`s pen and brush has captured the different moods and faces of India with an unerring eye for detail, and a delightfully irreverent sense of humour.

With his demise on 26 November 2019, India lost the last of the cartoonists of Golden era of Indian cartooning, which included RK Laxman, O. V. Vijayan, Abu Abraham and Rajinder Puri.

Sudhir Dar (born 1934) hailed from a Kashmiri family. He was born in Allahabad. He earned a masters degree in geography from the University of Allahabad.

Dar started his career with All India Radio, working as an announcer. A sketch he drew of the News Editor of The Statesman during a radio talk led to an offer to work at the paper. Thus in 1960 with no formal training, Dar started a 7-year stint with The Statesman, under editor Evan Charlton, doing a wordless front-page pocket cartoon titled Out of My Mind. The Statesman period shaped young Dar’s destiny. This was what he told about his stint in The Statesman in an interview: “I was working in All-India Radio in the late fifties as an announcer, when I met the News Editor of The Statesman who had come for a talk. During the talk, I drew a portrait sketch of him. He looked at it and said, "Why, you have made me look almost handsome". He asked me if I did cartoons and I said I did. He then asked me for examples of my work. I went to The Statesman's office a couple of weeks later with five cartoons and he told me, "Why don't you leave them behind and we'll have a look at them." The next morning I opened the paper and I saw all five of my cartoons in Page 3 of The Statesman. I was thrilled to bits. I proceeded to work in The Statesman from 1961 to 1967 and created a wordless cartoon series called "Out Of My Mind" which appeared every morning. It was a bit of a challenge because my Editor told me, "Anyone can be funny with words. The true test of a cartoonist is to be funny without words". My Editor also believed that I was modeling my characters on him as he had a rather long nose and my characters had very long noses. He had challenged me to create a wordless series saying that he would hire me if I created a wordless cartoon every day. Incidentally, "Out Of My Mind" ran for seven years!”

In 1967, Dar left The Statesman to join the Hindustan Times, to get into political cartooning. His stint in Hindustan Times continued for 22 years. He drew pocket cartoons and about 3 political cartoons a week.  Dar's This is It, a pocket cartoon appeared regularly on the front page. This was a period when a group of very talented cartoonists were working in different mainstream newspapers: This included besides Dar, Mario Miranda in The Economic Times, Abu Abraham in The Indian Express, R K Laxman in The Times of India, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray in Marathi weekly Marmik, Vikas Sabnis in MiD-Day and several others.

According to Maurice Horn in The World Encyclopedia of Cartoons, Dar's time at the Hindustan Times was marked by acts of resistance against attempts to curtail his freedom, till he resigned in anger in 1989.

After Hindustan Times, he moved to The Independent in Bombay (now Mumbai) where he worked for a couple of years and then joined The Pioneer in Delhi. He was with the Pioneer from 1991 to 1998, until Vinod Mehta, the editor left. Then he joined the Delhi Times. But “that wasn't really my cup of tea and it catered to a much younger audience. So, after a year, I called it a day. I had made up my mind that I would hang up my drafts after forty years.”

Since leaving the Delhi Times, he worked as an illustrator on assignments for the World Bank, Microsoft and various government departments.

Sudhir Dar is among the most published cartoonists of India. Besides a horde of publications in India, his cartoons have also appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post and Saturday Review, as well as Mad magazine, which billed him as a 'Tasty Indian Nut'.

Sudhir Dar was very clear about the role of a cartoonist. In an interview with Vineet Gill he said: A cartoonist must have a certain license. A license to bite, and sometimes, you need to bite hard. He should have a sense of what I call naive idealism. He wants to highlight the follies and foibles of human beings, he wants to have a dig at life, and he should be able to do this openly. But he should have his own lakshman rekha, his own limits. Some cartoonists hit below the belt. They should do that once in a while - but you mustn't ever be malicious. Once malice appears in your work, you cease to be a humorist.

Cartoon: K.K.Rath

Tailpiece 1: Onion and Maharashtra Politics

Maharashtra grows most of the onion that India consumes. The rate of the onion has been increasing for quite some time quite like the tension that has been mounting on the question as to who would form the government there. There has been high drama full of turns and twists, more complex than even Balaji teleserials.

Is there any connection between the rising price of onion and the Maharashtra imbroglio?

Tailpiece 2: Paradox

If the woman is always right, and a man is always wrong, then, if a man tells a woman that she's right.

Is the man right or wrong?

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The author, a journalist turned media academician lives in Central Odisha town of Dhenkanal. An anthology of his weekly column Window Seat, published in 2019 will be published as a book. 

Should you want a copy with introductory discounted price, write to him at: mrinalchatterjee@ymail.com