1 Minute at Kuttanad

All these grown up years, I had a desire to see 'Kuttanad', the paddy cellar of Kerala. Yesterday, I realised it when Kerala Cartoon Academy in association with Heartlight Association arranged a boat yatra from Kumarakom to Kuttanad, Master cartoonist, Tom's birth place. I have to state that the backwaters, Karimeen on the boat were normal fare and poor inducements. But the emasculated, muscular, slender upper-bodied countrymen (I rarely saw a woman outside!) and school boys were great sights. A turn around at the boating and those non-smiling lovable creatures...

KL Mohana Varma, Novelist was caught soon after his unsuccessful try
to reach Tom's ancestral home , which was just '1 km near' to the local rafter
but turned out to be minimum 30 minutes brisk walk by the side
of endless flooded single crop paddy fields ...

The first flourish to demarcate Cartoonist (Kerala Kaumudi)
TK Sujith's top of the head had ended in fiasco and I knew that
this tough-bodied, music-minded chap is going to look much
more hyper-calorific. Immediately,
I wanted to do a standby but my friend swore on this...

Rakesh Ansera, the reticent school-drawing master and
an Alleppeyite himself had stark features so much
so that even a half perfectly done eyes would clinch him on paper.
One of the newest members of the Kerala Cartoon Academy.

The 4' 6" Devadatta, the Reiki specialist cum hair stylist
was the female prototype of Rakesh Ansera...

The Yesudas-lookalike must have worked out the gym
for years in the past. The baritone voice competed with his ebony
structure. The Commander of the cruise !

Shaji Malayalappuzha always refused to trim his nom de plume
to just the first part. The same spirit must be working in him
to lead strong anti-hooch crusades in his hometown, Pathanamthitta.

The Camera man was cool game though not perfectly
pleased with the dental reworkings..

One of the camera quartet, this young man's caricature
made me somehow bolder for the moment..

This was the first done of the Camera 4. The young man
looked happy with the 50 second work...

The Amul baby of the Camera quartet had no challenging features,
fortunately. The forenoon session had ended. All these four
were done as appetisers just before indulging in 'Karimeen'...

This young man wanted to be drawn again on thick paper
I chose for the function. Youngsters, all of them brazenly
mentioned facebook - only one stuck to Orkut - while introducing
their desire. Months later, all would swear by Google Plus.

This Plus 2 boy turned out to be the real god send for me. He was watching his friends bathe by the side of the water-ghat with his scooty on stand nearby. Then, This not at all tellworthy speed caricature worked. Soon, this samaritan would accompany me on the pillion right through a maze of muddy country walkways bordered by endless shrubs to Cartoonist Tom's ancestral home 2 km away and back to the starting point, 1 hour later. A real god send this man !

Before starting the bike for the way back, I had to fleece
these two young boys with 30 second works. No complaints... Poor boys !

Now, i feel really sad that I lost the mail ID of the scooter boy.
I had promised to send him... these... Costly miss !


TOMS HOME - a male bastion !

.... , worker & companion to Shri Peter, Cartoonist and elder brother of TOMS

......... , younger brother of Toms, is a vegetarian, tongue-tied,
non-smoking, teetotaller, barefooted, white-wearing simple man.
Looked like Jiddu Krishnamoorthy. The commanding,
power-packed long calls of his eldest brother, he heard
and obliged like a house cat without pedigree. But, the
elder brothers had great care for him, it seemed.

........ , Peter 's man-friday. What a bundle of features this face is, I wondered...

.... introduced himself as neighbour , working class and occasional drinker

Peter, 90 , cartoonist Peter Thoms of the 40's and 50's. Elder brother of Toms, 84.
The style was curiously KS Pillai's, Sankar's. The ancestral home was supported by paper cuttings pasted over paper cuttings, most of them bearing colour pictures. Would look like a nursery school taken over by the Archaeology Dept. Amidst the mayhem,
yellowing cut-outs of his illustrious cartoons of his times.

At this age, he showed flares of gritty mind to speak with sound sense.
Toms and Peter, both are made of steely resolve. And ....
was happy to be subdued in all aspects of living. But, his face
exuded more love & care. He appeared more equanimous
with all living things around him.


For the umpteenth time, Toms sir obliged without a murmer to my request for a 'pose' :). In the 80's, he was the great Master to the now-middleaged me and KCA Chairman, Presannan, to scores like us. There was no radio, TV to subvert our target. No cyber nothing to perhaps spoil us beyond repair. Just practice at home and the silent euphoria over the occasional sights of our cartoons inside the improbable pages of dangling weeklies in pan shops. There, this man and stalwarts like AS, Yesudasan, Sukumar, Somanathan and PV Krishnan entered the occasional cartoon camps, some with noise and some without, but all left lasting marks of desire to excel in all of us. Time chose some to flaunt as banners, didn't others. But, when after 28 years this man strides into our gatherings that sometimes smelled old spirit, we feel .... very happy, as if arrived together. Do not know why.