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RASIPURAM KRISHNASWAMI LAXMAN Gouri R. ‘All my life I have painted crows. Singly, in pairs, threesomes, whole murders of them.’ He breaks off to chuckle. ‘Don’t look so horrified. Murder is the collective noun for crows. Even as a child I had been fascinated by them. They are smart, lively and have a ‘strong survival instinct. The common crow is really an uncommon bird.’ The speaker is the uncommon creator of that common man who represents the mute millions of this country—who else but Rasipurarn Krishnaswami Laxman, India’s most celebrated cartoonist? Forty years of cartooning have dimmed neither Laxman s brilliance nor the bafflement of his check-coated man who blinks at the political scene from his front -page corner in The Times of India. When I approached him for an interview, Laxman refused point-blank to talk about his profession. ‘You will ask me what every damn fool asks me—”How do you get your ideas everyday?’ ‘As though I could explain. And if I did, as though you could understand!’ But he was willing to talk about his passion for crows, with many digressions and sly digs at the sacred cows in the Indian mind. A year later I found myself in his office cabin listening to descriptions of his childhood. Quick pencil sketches showed me what he was talking about. His words had all the distinguishing features of a Laxman cartoon—the fine eye for detail, the pungent wit, the puckish sparkle, the sudden probe below the surface, and hearty guffaws at the absurdities of life. What is it that makes R.K. Laxman so special among cartoonists? Laxman s own answer would be, ‘My genius, what else?’ ‘A little humility is not a bad thing if you are at the top,’ writes fellow cartoonist Sudhir Dar (The Illustrated Weekly of India) as he recounts this story of the cartoonist Ranan Lurie’s meeting with Laxman. When the American asked him who the best Indian cartoonist was, Laxman flashed back, ‘I am.’ ‘The second, third, fourth, fifth best man on the job? Laxman continued to repeat ’I am’. Colleagues list other faults—naiveté, inaccurate caricature, old-fashioned style, lack of experimentation, repetitiveness, verbosity. Even while admitting that he has no peer in pocket cartoons, they call his political cartooning atrocious. No acid-throwing or lava burst—Laxman is too cosy, pleasant, decent, gentle. ‘He doesn’t take the debate forward,’ says O.V. Vijayan. ‘There is no political comment, only political statement,’ says cartoonist Ravi Shankar. ‘He is not easily provoked. And doesn’t want to provoke his readers either,’ comments Abu Abraham. Laxman may riot impress an international, particularly the Western, audience. ‘Why should he? He draws for us,’ says my friend Keshav (a cartoonist for The. Hindu).’No other cartoonist has understood the average Indian as Laxman has. This gives him a far wider reach than his sophisticated colleagues. From garbage disposal to nuclear physics, he can make you see every issue clearly and in a new light.’ We leaf through Laxman’s cartoon collections, illustrations, even doodles. One of them shows a room in the Space Centre where scientists are busy with the ‘Man on the Moon Project’. Pictures of a rocket and a cratered moon loom over them. A long-coated scientist enters, points to the common man standing at the doorway and says he has found the perfect space traveller. The man from India can survive without water, food, light, air, shelter’. When we stop laughing Keshav asks me, ‘Can you call this superficial? A Laxman cartoon has two characteristics. It is drama frozen at a crucial moment with something before and something after it. He puts us on the spot. We feel the whole ambience. The common man is helpless in his country; he chokes with frustrations and fury. Laxman’s cartoons convert this rage into humour.’ Laxman’s missilic rise began very early. While still at the Maharaja’s College, Mysore, studying poli