The Bile Also Laughs

Vijayan’s minimalist, graphic style marked an abrupt shift (not evolution) of Indian cartooning from the classical British narrative style practised by masters like Shankar, Kutty, and later, Laxman. Vijayan might not have had wide readership (or ‘laughtership’) like Laxman or Abu. But his limited, committed, Left-looking, if not Left-leaning, readers were special. They were never underestimated. They could disagree. Vijayan was not giving them a humorous, visual representation of the news they already knew. He was discussing with them what they might have already suspected.

While his older contemporaries in the then young republic were patronisingly critical of the goings-on in the fledgling democracy, Vijayan took on the dark underside of the Establishment with the vehemence of an affected party—the underdog. This empathy with the victim made Vijayan doubly defiant. This reflected in his drawings as well. He reduced his caricatures to geometrical graphic figures, something like today’s computer graphics, with a rough black patch for a background, often made with a coarse piece of khadi cloth! The local Soviet, Maoist acolytes, the imperial US, the failed Nehruvian economists (Vijayan went beyond the usual price rise, inflation, higher taxes suspects)—all were victims of this piece of rag. Then came the Emergency when even gag was gagged. A frustrated Vijayan stopped newspegged political cartoons and turned to allusive cartoon strips that went beyond the news and the censor. The collapse of the Soviet Union robbed him of his prime antagonist and he quit cartooning.

As cartoonist Unny puts it: "Vijayan’s style was overtaken by the computer and his grand themes by time: but there is something in Vijayan that cannot be appropriated. The lethal blend of language and ridicule." A Malabari cloudburst charged by potent satire.

Tragic Idiom showcases the finest of this most discussed and criticised political cartoonist. A difficult task for a compiler, for Vijayan never stayed long enough in any publication (Shankar’s Weekly, Patriot, Far Eastern Economic Review, The Hindu, The Statesman, Mathrubhoomi, Kalakaumudi, Newstime, Economic and Political Weekly) nor did he keep the originals or copies with him. A short commentary along with each cartoon would have made the collection more enjoyable (or should we say ‘meditatable’?) to the young reader.