Vintage Ranga -- the sketching, spontaneous and slapdash; the ideas, uncomplicated.
This is to explain to the uninitiated how much more there is to a Ranga-autographed caricature than the mere sketch. His collection is mind-boggling. From Khruschev to Castro to Thatcher to Clinton, he targeted them all. If he has not already made it to the Guinness Book, one day he surely will.
Now Ranga has come out with a new book of cartoons. 77 Steps is a birthday tribute to Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee who recently celebrated his 77th birthday. The book contains 77 cartoons to symbolise each year. From anyone else, the enterprise might have seemed sycophantic. But Ranga knows the PM too well to resort to flattery. For him familiarity has bred contentment. The book is an affectionate tribute. L.K. Advani has written the book’s foreword that describes Ranga as a friend of 40 years. He himself figures in some cartoons of this collection. The references to both Vajpayee and Advani sometimes are far from flattering.
The cartoons are vintage Ranga. The sketching is spontaneous and slapdash, the ideas are uncomplicated. His sketches are impressionistic. Ranga has the ability to reduce figures into simple shapes. That earned him the unique honour of getting one of his drawings of Mahatma Gandhi used as a postage stamp.
The book is a glossy production on thick art paper and has excellent printing. It is a coffee-table book that would provide a pleasant distraction to those awaiting their turn with the dentist, the hairdresser or the travel agent.