R. K. Laxman

Rasipuram Krishnaswami Laxman (24 October 1921 – 26 January 2015) was an Indian cartoonist, illustrator, and humorist. 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.

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. 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 His father was a headmaster and Laxman was the youngest of eight children: six sons and two daughters. His elder brother was novelist R.K. Narayan. Laxman was known as "Pied Piper of Delhi".

An ill-mannered student in school, he was often punished by his teachers for misbehaving. In his words, “I felt wretched in the classroom. I am convinced that school-learning is unnatural and bad for human beings.” His academic performance was poor, and it was in this time that his inclination to art blossomed.

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. Soon, at three years old, he was drawing on his own, on the floors, walls and doors of his house and doodling caricatures 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. Laxman notes in his autobiography, The Tunnel of Time:

At age nine, Laxman decided to be an artist. He would cycle around Mysore and observe the nature around him while looking for something to paint. Eventually, he found and studied illustrations in foreign magazines, and was influenced by other artists like Sir David Low (whose signature he misread as “cow” for a long time), a British cartoonist who appeared now and then in The Hindu. 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 at 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. 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.

Career

Beginning

alt=R. K. Laxman with the Common Man|thumb|R. K. Laxman with his creation, [[The Common Man]]

R.K Laxman's earliest work was for newspapers 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 magazine. 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. His "Common Man" character, featured in his pocket cartoons, is portrayed as a witness to the making of democracy. 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)."

Other creations

Laxman also created a popular mascot for the Asian Paints Ltd group called "Gattu" in 1954. He also wrote a few novels, the first one of which was titled The Hotel Riviera. 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.

In September 2003, Laxman suffered a stroke that left him paralysed on his left side. He recovered from it partially. 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.

Death

thumb|A tribute to the late R. K. Laxman by cartoonist [[Shekhar Gurera]]

thumb|R. K. Laxman receives the Padma Vibhushan award from the President Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam in New Delhi on March 28, 2005

Laxman died in Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital in Pune on India's Republic Day in 2015 at the age of 93. He was hospitalised three days earlier for a urinary tract infection and chest problems that ultimately led to multiple organ failure. He had reportedly suffered multiple strokes since 2010. A cartoon that Laxman had made following the successful landing of Mangalyaan on Mars was posted by the Indian Space Research Organisation on its Facebook and Twitter pages on 27 January. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announced that Laxman would be accorded a state funeral and a memorial would be built in his honour. Laxman's body was kept at the Symbiosis Institute's Pune premises near the "Common Man" statue and his body was cremated at the Vaikunth crematorium.

Literary style

According to Sushmita Chatterjee, author and professor of Gender Studies at Colorado State, R.K. Laxman’s cartoons provide a sharp satirical lens on Indian democracy, capturing its shortcomings, its strengths, and its contradictions. Unlike the high-energy, exaggerated contortions found in Western political cartoons, his caricatures are not chaotic distortions but rather calculated refinements, where every detail– whether in the weary slouch of a bureaucrat or the self-satisfied smirk of a politician– serves an expressive function. Laxman exposes the gap between political promises and reality while still employing humor to highlight institutional flaws and possibilities, never trivializing them.

The cartoons also have a performative dimension, wherein the audience can see democracy’s shortcomings unfold in real time rather than inciting a call for action. To some, this approach to cartoons is ineffective; for instance, Ravi Shankar, also a cartoonist, asserted “There is no political comment, only political statement”. Laxman himself has addressed this inefficacy in his work: <blockquote>I have been working away at these cartoons for over a quarter of a century now, and I do not think that I can show a single instance of changing the mind of a politician from taking a mad course.... If I had lashed at granite with a feather with the single-minded zeal as I have bestowed on my work, by now I would, perhaps, have been able to show some faint feather marks on the rock ... but not a trace of a dent have my cartoons caused in any sphere of human activity, whether social, economic or political.

- R. K. Laxman

Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts – 1984
Karnataka Rajyotsava Award – Government of Karnataka – 1983
Lifetime Achievement Award for Journalism – CNN IBN TV18 – 29 January 2008
Pune Pandit Award (Scholar of Pune Award) by the Art & Music Foundation for excellence in 'Creative Communication' – 2012

There is a chair named after R. K. Laxman at Symbiosis International University.

Exhibitions by IIC

Exhibitions of Laxman's cartoons organised by Indian Institute of Cartoonists at Indian Cartoon Gallery.

{| class="wikitable sortable"

! Date !! Exhibition !! Inaugurated by

| 6th Feb 2009 || R. K. Laxman || Jayaramaraje Urs

| 8th Feb 2012 || R. K. Laxman's Unpublished Doodles || M N Venkatachaliah, Girish Karnad

| 17th Aug 2013 || Famous Fifteen || Tadao Kagaya (Japanese Cartoonist)

| 21st Oct 2013 || Best of Laxman || ...

| 27th Oct 2014 || Faces : Laxman's Caricatures || ...

| 23rd Jan.2016 || START-UP R. K. Laxman from Koravanji || Usha Srinivas Laxman, M.Shivakumar, Beluru Ramamurthy

| 15th Oct 2016 || Unpublished R.K.Laxman || ...

| 14th Oct 2020 || hadhi Exhibition on his 100th Birth Anniversary || ...

Controversies

Many of Laxman’s political cartoons excluded The Common Man, focusing on national and international issues. During the 1975-77 Emergency, Indira Gandhi’s government suppressed opposition, suspended civil rights, and censored criticism, including some of Laxman’s cartoons, as he frequently targeted her policies in the 1970s.

A cartoon by R.K. Laxman on the 1965 anti-Hindi agitation in Tamil Nadu, published in an NCERT textbook, sparked protests. Leaders like Jayalalithaa and Karunanidhi demanded its removal, calling it misleading and offensive to Dravidian leaders. Critics argued cartoons distort history and urged using photographs instead for accuracy.

Everytime political crises or divisive discourse arise in India, Laxman’s cartoons are brought back into circulation. For instance, many of Laxman’s cartoons were shared during the 2020-21 Farmers’ Protests in India. Another, during the 2024 Kolkata rape and murder case, Laxman’s cartoon was shared by politician Sukhendu Sekhar Roy in regards to the public outcry and discourse, which sparked more controversy.

Legacy

thumb|Statue of [[The Common Man at the entrance of R. K. Laxman Museum]]

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.

Popular culture

Actor Asif Ali Beg portrayed R.K.Laxman in Scam 1992, a Sony LIV's original web series based on 1992 Indian stock market scam of Harshad Mehta, where he was shown to be interacting with journalist Sucheta Dalal while working for the Times of India, Mumbai.
On 24 October 2015, Google featured Laxman on a Google Doodle to honour him on the occasion of his 94th birthday.

Bibliography

His autobiography Lakshmanrekha is published in Marathi.
The Reel World [cartoons] published by Marwah Studio.
Unny, E.P. (2022). RK Laxman: Back with a Punch. Niyogi Books. ISBN 978-93-91125-27-1.

(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.).