Window Seat| Mrinal
Chatterjee | 18.10.2020
R.K.Laxman at 100
On
24 October in 1921 a baby was born in Mysore- who would create the most popular
cartoon character in India- ‘the common man’The baby, Rasipuram Krishnaswamy
Iyer (R.K.) Laxman who was born on 24 October in 1921 in Mysore is one of the
greatest cartoonists that India has produced. He is often called ‘Shakespeare
of Indian cartoons’. He is best known for his creation, ‘the common man’, a
slightly bald moustached man in mid-fifties with a bulbous nose wearing a
checked coat and dhoti- who never uttered a word throughout his life span of
over 50 years. His daily cartoon titled ‘You Said It’, appeared in The Times of
India from 1951 and continued for over five decades. It enjoyed a cult status.
Laxman
was the youngest of six sons. His father was a headmaster. Laxman was
interested in drawing and illustration from childhood. As he 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'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.
After
high school, Laxman applied to the J. J. School of Art, Bombay. He was refused
admission as the dean of the school felt his drawings lacked, "the kind of
talent to qualify for enrolment in our institution as a student". Laxman
graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Mysore.
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.
His
first full-time job was as a political cartoonist for the The Free Press Journal in Mumbai. Laxman later joined The Times of India, beginning a career that
has spanned for over fifty years.
In his long and illustrious career, Laxman has played with every
shade of humour -- wit, satire, irony, slapstick, buffoonery, tragicomedy, but
has never stooped to invective. And that makes him India's most beloved
cartoonist.
He has been conferred the Padma Bhusan and the Padma
Vibhusan, the second highest civilian award in India.
Fishing Cat becomes the
Ambassador of Chilika lake
The largest brackish
water lagoon in Asia and India’s oldest Ramsar Site, Chilika, located in Odisha
has an ambassador now– Fishing Cat. For the uninitiated, it is the only wild
cat species in India that is a wetland specialist – the Fishing Cat. The
globally endangered felid was found to be present all around Chilika. However, the
marshlands fringing its north and north-eastern sections was where most
evidence of its occurrence was found according to a recently concluded study
conducted by the Fishing Cat Project (TFCP) and the Indian wing of Fishing Cat
Conservation Alliance (FCCA), in collaboration with the Chilika Development
Authority (CDA). This exercise was a part of the monitoring of the health and
well-being of the Ramsar site.
The future plans of
this collaborative venture between CDA and TFCP includes regularizing protocols
to estimate Fishing Cat populations in Chilika and to create a Fishing Cat
conservation network by involving local stakeholders, college students,
researchers, non-government and government organisations
Fishing Cat is a
Schedule-I species and deserves conservation measures of the highest accord in
India like the Tiger and Elephant. Unfortunately, marshland and mangrove
ecosystems, which are Fishing Cat habitat are in decline.
Chilika has one of the
country’s largest extensive marsh-ecosystem spanning around 100 sq km.
Welcoming CDA’s proposition, Tiasa Adhya, co-founder of The Fishing Cat Project
says “Projecting Fishing Cat as the face of marshlands will raise the profile
of Fishing Cat and marshland ecosystems globally and nationally which are
otherwise neglected ecosystems. Locally, it will nurture their value among
multiple stakeholders in Chilika.”
These marshes receive
the maximum freshwater flow from the tributaries of Mahanadi and seasonal
rivulets. Analysis of long-term data collected by Chilika Development Authority
(CDA) shows that this area also has high fish abundance. This is significant
given that fish is the lifeline of Chilika sustaining 2 lakh fishermen families
and globally threatened piscivorous mammals like Fishing Cat, Smooth-coated Otter
and Eurasian Otter.
The Naked Truth
This is a story about the Truth and
the Lie.
The Truth and the Lie meet one day.
The Lie says to the Truth: "It's a marvellous day today"! The Truth
looks up to the skies and sighs, for the day was really beautiful. They spend a
lot of time together, ultimately arriving beside a well.
The Lie tells the Truth: "The
water is very nice, let's take a bath together!" The Truth, once again
suspicious, tests the water and discovers that it indeed is very nice. They
undress and start bathing.
Suddenly, the Lie comes out of the
water, puts on the clothes of the Truth and runs away. The furious Truth comes
out of the well and runs everywhere to find the Lie and to get her clothes
back.
The World, seeing the Truth naked,
turns its gaze away, with contempt and rage. The poor Truth returns to the well
and disappears forever, hiding therein, in shame.
Since then, the Lie travels around
the world, dressed as the Truth, satisfying the needs of society, because the
World, in any case, harbours no wish at all to meet the naked Truth.
A Pessimist’s view
Nadal
was French open champion in 2005.
Since
then, most of us got married, had kids, struggled in our respective careers,
managed to get a decent earning, gained weight, greyed hair...
This is 2020 and Nadal is still the French open champion.
Some people never
progress in this life!
(Courtesy: Social Media)
***
The author, a
journalist turned media academician lives in Dhenkanal. He has co-edited a book
titled Mahatma Gandhi: Journalist and Editor with Snehasis Sur, which was
published in 2018. Its Odia version is being published shortly.
mrinalchatterjeeiimc@gmail.com
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