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India’s best known and most revered political cartoonist, Rasipuram Krishnaswamy Laxman (b. 1924), better known by his alter ego — the silent ‘common man,’ who has been appearing daily in The Times of India for over 50 years, will be all of 85 years on October 24 and the book under review is an appropriate tribute to this extraordinary and very ‘uncommon man.’
Compiled by Dharmendra Bhandari, a family friend of long standing, the book traces the evolution of R.K. Laxman — brother of the celebrated author of Malgudi fame, R.K. Narayan, in a brief introduction of 16 pages. The rest of this sumptuous book is a veritable visual extravaganza of Laxman’s nimble quill and the incisive imagery that he so deftly created, and still creates, on a daily basis. An illustrious son of Mysore, the young Laxman fits the description of being a born artist and, as he recalls in his autobiography, “I do not remember wanting to do anything else [in life] except draw. I do not remember a day when I have not sketched, whether it was time to prepare for examinations or lying in bed recovering from a bout of fever.”
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