R. K. Laxman: the Common Man and a cartoon for every morning

A boy who drew on everything

Rasipuram Krishnaswamy Iyer Laxman was born in Mysore in 1921. Most sources give his birthday as 24 October; at least one gives 15 August. His father was a school headmaster, and Laxman was the youngest of six sons. One of his elder brothers was R. K. Narayan, who became one of India's best-known writers in English.

According to AFP, he began sketching when he was only five. Indian Link writes that he drew on any surface he could find, from books and tables to floors and walls. Even before he could read, he was absorbed in the illustrations of British magazines such as Punch and The Strand, and he was also influenced by the cartoons of the British cartoonist David Low that appeared in The Hindu.

His father suffered a stroke and died about a year later. His elder brothers took on the running of the house, and Laxman carried on with school.

Rejected, but still drawing

After school he applied to the J. J. School of Art in Bombay, hoping to study drawing and painting. He was turned down. Instead he studied at Maharaja College in Mysore and took a B.A. from the University of Mysore.

He did not stop drawing while he studied. He sent freelance work to publications such as Swarajya, drew political cartoons for local papers and for Swatantra, contributed to the Kannada humour magazine Koravanji, and illustrated his brother Narayan's stories in The Hindu.

The Common Man, every day

His first full-time job was as a political cartoonist at The Free Press Journal in Bombay. Then he moved to The Times of India, and in 1951 he began the daily cartoon series You Said It. Its central figure was the Common Man: balding, moustached, in a checked coat, a silent observer of events. AFP reported that Laxman said the character stood for all Indians.

Laxman's cartoons appeared on the front page for about five decades. Indian Link repeats a story, told in the media, that when he once retired, readers wrote and called the newspaper until his cartoon came back. In 1954 he also created Gattu, a mascot for Asian Paints, and he drew the sketches for the television version of his brother's Malgudi Days. He also wrote a few novels, and his cartoons appeared in the Hindi film Mr. & Mrs. 55.

Over the years he drew almost every major public figure. Indian Link recalls how each leader became a few signature lines in his hands, such as a bald head for one prime minister and a long pointed nose for another. A selection of his political cartoons from the Nehru to the Rajiv Gandhi years was published as The Eloquent Brush.

His work was collected in many volumes, and he received the Padma Bhushan and, in 2005, the Padma Vibhushan. In 2001 a bronze statue of the Common Man, about eight feet tall, was unveiled in Pune.

A stroke in September 2003 left him partly paralysed, and in time he stopped drawing. R. K. Laxman died in Pune on 26 January 2015.

The skills and habits that made the difference

The first was quantity. A daily cartoon means a new idea and a finished drawing every single day. Laxman kept up that pace for decades, and his pocket cartoons filled volume after volume.

The second was observation. Indian Link describes his knack for picking out one or two features of a face, such as a bald head, a pointed nose or a grin, that made a person instantly recognisable. That comes from looking closely at people, again and again.

The third was learning from other artists. Before he could read he was studying the drawings in magazines, and he was influenced by the work of David Low. When the art school said no, he kept drawing anyway.