Art of cartooning will never die out

Sudhir Tailang, well-known cartoonist, talks about his career spanning over 25 yrs

Devanshi Joshi. Vadodara/DNA

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Not everyone can become a cartoonist. Only those who have a blend of creativity, a personal opinion of the world and can present this vision with humor can succeed. One need the combined skills of humor, drawing, journalistic sense and craziness to become a cartoonist,” said prominent caricaturist Sudhir Tailang who was in Vadodara on Saturday. He will be launching a book of his more than 150 cartoons next month.Tailang has been a cartoonist for more than 25 years and has drawn more than 15,000 cartoons during this span. He first made a mark with his daily Here and Now pocket cartoons in the Hindustan Times in the 1980s. Drawing his first cartoon at the age of 10, he began his career with the Illustrated Weekly of India and now draws a daily caricature for the edit page of the Asian Age - under the Here and Now label.According to Tailang, “Cartoons will always get exclusive space in a newspaper. Proof of this can be found in the fact that almost every leading and even middle-level newspaper carries at least a pocket cartoon on its front page every day. India, USA, France and UK are the countries where political cartoons have their own charm but now, the importance of political cartoons in the newspaper is decreasing due to more emphasis on cinema and other masala news.”“Earlier I used to find Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi a difficult faces to make cartoon but now I feel it easy as I started observing them closely,” said Tailang.Like every cartoonist, Tailang has his share of favorite politicians and in his case, it is former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao. “Raos entire personality was made to order for a cartoonist. His nostrils and pout gave him an edge over his counterparts. I think he was invented for cartoonists,” Tailang contended.Despite the lack of youngsters in the profession, Tailang was confident that the art of cartooning would never die out. “Students rarely take up cartooning as a career option because they dont know how to become a cartoonist. There are no professional institutes available which can nurture this talent,” he said.