The Cartoonist Laughs Last
Manjul has found that beauty is really not skin-deep
“Why have you drawn me with grey hair? You have more grey hair on your head than I,” croaked my 55-year-old colleague who hardly had any hair left on his head.
This reaction was enough to curl my hair. The old man was our editor and could sack anyone who he felt was trying to give him a bad hair day.
Two years have passed since I first entered DNA. Apart from my pun and ink, I was also armed with my hirer’s words.
They said they were keen to revive the art of cartooning and promised me that I’d be free to draw anything. Soon I realised that similar promises were made to the editors and they were also free to drop anything.
So when I started to illustrate this column, containing my co-workers’ personal accounts, with caricatures of them, I had no inkling about the frowning faces I was going to encounter.
While the writers were unhappy about the way they were drawn, their colleagues admired my drawing skills until it was their turn to write.
Authors of the fairer sex were too dignified to give me a lowering look. After their pieces were published, they simply came to me and enquired which art college I had been to.
Some of them approached me with their photographs. These were either shot by some famous fashion photographer or belonged to a time period when they had modelled for some beauty cream.
All girls wanted to be sketched like Venus. I personally had no problem with that. But then suddenly some of my male associates started supporting their demands. Not only did they want me to caricature them beautifully but they also suggested I save my energies while drawing their clothes.
Roly-polies demanded that I slenderise them. Shrubs as well as bonsais desired to be converted into trees. Editors believed they could get rid of their paunches without doing any exercise just by threatening me.
Peers expected me to be an ace plastic surgeon rather than a cartoonist. Everybody had a firm opinion about their characteristics which no mirror in the world could dare to change.
In this hostile atmosphere when I drew a charming lady with a not-so-charming face and she didn’t say a word, I was surprised. I asked her the reason. She said, “Who cares for what you draw? Cartooning is a dead art.”
(Published in DNA, Mumbai, July 29, 2007)
