rasipuram krishnaswami laxman
Gouri R.
RK Laxman passed away today.
A few months ago i found this wonderful piece on RK Laxman written by Gouri R on Arvind Gupta's website. It also includes an excerpt from a book by RK Laxman - but i don't know which one.
Thank you Arvind Gupta, thank you Gouri.
Because it is a download document, I am posting it on my blog.
‘All my life I have painted crows. Singly, in
pairs, threesomes, whole murders of them.’ He breaks off to chuckle. ‘Don’t
look so horrified. Murder is the collective noun for crows. Even as a child I
had been fascinated by them. They are smart, lively and have a ‘strong survival
instinct. The common crow is really an uncommon bird.’
The speaker is the uncommon creator of that
common man who represents the mute millions of this country—who else but
Rasipurarn Krishnaswami Laxman,
India’s most
celebrated cartoonist? Forty years of cartooning have dimmed neither Laxman s
brilliance nor the bafflement of his check-coated man who blinks at the
political scene from his front -page corner in The Times of India.
When I approached him for an interview, Laxman
refused point-blank to talk about his profession. ‘You will ask me what every
damn fool asks me—”How do you get your ideas everyday?’ ‘As though I could
explain. And if I did, as though you could understand!’
But he was willing to talk about his passion
for crows, with many digressions and sly digs at the sacred cows in the Indian
mind.
A year later I found myself in his office cabin
listening to descriptions of his childhood. Quick pencil sketches showed me
what he was talking about. His words had all the distinguishing features of a
Laxman cartoon—the fine eye for detail, the pungent wit, the puckish sparkle,
the sudden probe below the surface, and hearty guffaws at the absurdities of
life.
What is it that makes R.K. Laxman so special
among cartoonists?
Laxman s own answer would be, ‘My genius, what
else?’
‘A little humility is not a bad thing if you
are at the top,’ writes fellow cartoonist Sudhir Dar (The Illustrated Weekly
of India)
as he recounts this story of the cartoonist Ranan Lurie’s meeting with
Laxman. When the American asked him who the best Indian cartoonist was, Laxman
flashed back, ‘I am.’ ‘The second, third, fourth, fifth best man on the job?
Laxman continued to repeat ’I am’.
Colleagues list other faults—naiveté,
inaccurate caricature, old-fashioned style, lack of experimentation,
repetitiveness, verbosity. Even while admitting that he has no peer in pocket
cartoons, they call his political cartooning atrocious. No acid-throwing or
lava burst—Laxman is too cosy, pleasant, decent, gentle. ‘He doesn’t take the
debate forward,’ says O.V. Vijayan. ‘There is no political comment, only
political statement,’ says cartoonist Ravi Shankar. ‘He is not easily provoked.
And doesn’t want to provoke his readers either,’ comments Abu Abraham.
Laxman may riot impress an international,
particularly the Western, audience. ‘Why should he? He draws for us,’ says my
friend Keshav (a cartoonist for The. Hindu).’No other cartoonist has
understood the average Indian as Laxman has. This gives him a far wider reach
than his sophisticated colleagues. From garbage disposal to nuclear physics, he
can make you see every issue clearly and in a new light.’
We leaf through Laxman’s cartoon collections,
illustrations, even doodles. One of them shows a room in the Space Centre where
scientists are busy with the ‘Man on the Moon Project’. Pictures of a rocket
and a cratered moon loom over them. A long-coated scientist enters, points to
the common man standing at the doorway and says he has found the perfect space
traveller. The man from India
can survive without water, food, light, air, shelter’.
When we stop laughing Keshav asks me, ‘Can you
call this superficial? A Laxman cartoon has two characteristics. It is drama
frozen at a crucial moment with something before and something after it. He
puts us on the spot. We feel the whole ambience. The common man is helpless in
his country; he chokes with frustrations and fury. Laxman’s cartoons convert
this rage into humour.’
Laxman’s missilic rise began very early. While
still at the Maharaja’s College, Mysore,
studying politics, economics and philosophy, he began to illustrate his elder
brother R.K. Narayan’s stories in The Hindu. He drew political cartoons
for the local papers, and for the Swatantra, edited by doyen Khasa Subba
Rao. He held a summer job at the Gemini Studios, Madras.
After graduation Laxman went to Delhi to find a job as
cartoonist. The Hindustan Times told him he was too young, that he
should start with provincial papers. The Free Press Journal in Bombay had no such
qualms. Laxman found himself seated next to another cartoonist who was
furiously drawing a bird in a cage. His name was Bal Thackeray. (‘Is that an
Indian name?’ wondered Laxman who knew only of William Makepeace Thackeray.)
One day the
Journal proprietor banned him from making fun of communists. So the
twenty-three-year old Laxman left, caught a Victoria, and walked into The Times of
India office. From that day ‘I had a table and a room to myself which I
have used ever since.’ And used with a freedom unknown to any Indian journalist
for as long.
Laxman feels oppressed by having to turn out a
cartoon everyday. ‘Each morning I grumble, I plan to resign as I drag myself to
the office. By the time I come home I like my work.’
Laxman plays with every shade of humour—wit,
satire, irony, slapstick, buffoonery, tragicomedy. Such versatility dazzles as
does his unwearied discipline. Through the long, prolific years the man] from Mysore has never hit
anyone below the belt. And that makes him India’s most beloved cartoonist.
THROUGH A COLOURED GLASS
In our old house in Mysore, there was a window. It had a glass
pane divided into many parts. Each part had a different colour. One day, the
pane broke. Bits of coloured glass tinkled down.
I ran to pick up those pieces. I looked at
every colour, one after another. Suddenly, I happened to see through the glass.
And I saw a new world! It was strange... weird... frightening. Everybody and
everything looked blue. The blue gardener dug the blue earth. Nearby stood a
blue cow swishing its blue tail. Why, the sun had turned blue in the sickly
sky. Everything was spooky and still. I couldn’t bear it anymore.
Quickly, I raised the green glass piece. Thank
God, things became cheerful again. The same gardener was shovelling away with a
bucket by this side. The cow turned friendly.
But I had to try out the red piece. It struck
terror into my heart. The cow was ready to attack me, the dog bared its teeth,
the gardener was digging up a skeleton under the neem tree! Red clouds gathered
in a bloody sky. The world was a scene of war. Sweating and trembling, I
switched back to green. At once things calmed down. It was a cool, pleasant day
out in the garden at home where the breeze blew softly. Father and mother were
out. I was free to play the whole evening.
As I remember it, this was my first communication
with my surroundings. I loved looking through the broken glass pieces, feeling
different with each colour. Perhaps this was an early sign of my interest in
visual things—in drawing and painting that were to be my life.
If you ask, how did a three-year old boy get to
handle pieces of broken glass, the answer is: ours was a big family. I was the
youngest of five brothers and two sisters. My sisters were married; my brothers
went to school and college. Father was the headmaster of the local school.
Mother was busy somewhere deep inside the sprawling house. There was no one to
question me then {and no one dares to question me now!) My constant companions
were the old gardener and Rover, my dog. They didn’t mind what I did, so long
as I didn’t bother them.
What’s that? You want to know what the dog
^looked like? He had ears hanging down and tongue hanging out. Rover was a dull
and stupid Great/Dane. But we had good fun together.
The gardener was an old man. He had gnarled,
knotty hands, just like the roots of a tree. He looked rather like a tree
himself, tall and wooden. His skin was an even brown—it had no colour
variations at all. He was my friend. Oh what stories he would tell me! All
about his own brave deeds and strange experiences. One of them was about his
childhood. It was my favourite.
When the gardener was a little child he used to
go into the forest to cut wood. Once, as he trudged home with a bundle of
sticks on his head, the evening shadows lengthened. The night sounds of the
jungle began. They hurried his footsteps. As he passed by the river he saw a
banyan tree dropping its branches over the grey waters. What was that crouching
on the branch? Why, it was a white sheet. No...no, it was a ghost! His eyes
forgot to blink. The ghost jumped— jumped right into the river, and came up
noiselessly. It came dripping out into the river bank, a ghost no more! It had
taken the form of a human being. The gardener screamed and ran for his life. He
reached the village gasping for breath. He had himself become as white as that
ghost on the tree.
At this exciting moment my gardener friend
would stop clearing the ground, lean upon his rake and look this way and that
to make sure no one was within earshot. He would drop his voice to a hoarse
whisper. ‘Oh yes, little master, that river is still there, so is the banyan
tree. And so is the ghost, ready to jump into the water, change himself to a
man, and mislead travellers at night. Why? What do you mean why? The ghost
drinks human blood, that’s why!
With stories like these, are you surprised I
developed a terrible fear of the dark? I shivered when I saw twilight shadows.
Present-day psychologists would say that it is very wrong to frighten children.
But I disagree. I think it is a wonderful experience to be frightened out of
one’s wits. If you bring up a child without ghost stories, he will grow up to
be frightened of something else. I believe that horror is necessary for normal
growth.
Later, when I was twelve or so, I decided to
overcome these fears. Late at night, I used to go to the cremation ground near
our house, and watch the flames still leaping over the corpse. At last the
embers would glow red. It made a striking sight in the black silence.
The gardener’s other stories were equally
scary, even when they were about real creatures. Sitting on a stone or a patch
of grass, I would watch the gardener draw water from the big well, or hew the
logs for the brick stove in the backyard. This stove was used for boiling
cauldrons of water for the family to bathe in. Mysore mornings could be quite chilly. The
gardener would stop working, wipe the sweat from his face and say, ‘Once, when
I was doing just this, a slight rustle made me turn. And I saw a snake right
behind me. What do you think; it was a cobra, all of twenty feet long. Its hood
was up and swaying. Its tongue flashed in and out, ready to strike. I picked up
a stone from the ground and threw it. The snake made a swipe at me, but I sidestepped.
This time, I grabbed the stick I had left by the well, and hit it hard. I kept
hitting until it twisted itself into a knot and died on the spot.’
The creatures changed from story to story, but
the main action of hitting and killing remained the same. The victims were
always poisonous, dangerous or ferocious. The gardener was always strong, brave
and clever.
And looking at him, tall and brawny, brown
muscles rippling in the sun, I could believe every one of those stories. The
old gardener was a hero in my eyes.
And so I lazed in the garden, a huge one full
of trees, bushes and hiding places for a growing child, far from the sight (and
the calls) of grown-ups inside the house. I would watch the squirrels and
insects scurrying by, and birds of every description.
When did I start drawing? May be at the age of
three. I started on the wall, of course, like any normal child. Parents were
more tolerant in those days. No one stopped my scribbling on the wall. I drew
with bits of burnt wood that I got from the hot water stove in the backyard.
What did I draw? Oh, the usual things—trees, houses, the sun behind the hill...
I was not at all a good student in the
classroom. The one time I got a pat on the back from the teacher was for one of
my drawings. We were all asked to draw a leaf. Each child scratched his head
and wondered what a leaf looked like. One drew a banana leaf which became too
big for the slate. Another drew a speck that couldn’t be seen—a tamarind leaf!
Some just managed blobs. When the teacher came to me he asked, ‘Did you draw
this by yourself?’ I hesitated. Had I done wrong? Will my ear be twisted? My
cheek slapped? I nodded dumbly. And do you know, the teacher actually broke
into a smile! He said I had done a very good job. He saw great possibilities in
that leaf I drew so long ago on a hot afternoon, sitting in the dull classroom.
I had seen that leaf on the peepal tree which I passed each day on my way to
school.
Generally, people take everything for granted.
They hardly see anything around them. But I had a keen eye. I observed
everything and had a gift for recalling details. This is essential for every
cartoonist and illustrator.
As far back as I can remember, the crow
attracted me because it was so alive on the landscape. In our garden it stood
out black against the green trees, blue sky, red earth and the yellow compound
wall. Other birds are timid. They try to hide and camouflage themselves. But
the crow is very clever. It can look after itself very well.
At age three I began to sketch crows. I tried
to draw their antics. My mother saw this and encouraged me. She told me that
Lord Shanisvara used the crow for his mount. He was a very powerful god, she
added; ‘If you draw His crow, surely He will send you good luck.’
I have never grown out of this childhood
fascination for the crow. I have painted hundreds of crows, singly and in
groups, from near and far, and in many moods. Sometimes 1 put crows into my
cartoons. My crow paintings have gone to many countries—one of them hangs in
faraway Iceland
now!
There were many trees in our garden. Mango,
wood apple, margosa, drumstick... Every single tree spelt adventure. I would
scramble right to their tops and watch the world from the heights. How
different the same old places looked from the tree top! But climbing them was
not without its terrors. Imagine a small child suddenly coming upon a chameleon
on the branch, motionless and menacing! It is really a pre-historic animal, you
know. So are the lizards—onaan, as we call them— just a twitching tail
to show they are alive. When I think back, I realize that to a child, reality
seems much more fabulous than fantasy. From a ladybird to a mouse, anything
that moves can startle him.
Our garage was a jungle of junk, cobwebs and
scorpions which were big or very small, but all quite deadly. Scorpion hunting
was a favourite sport for us children. We would move an old tin or kick the
rubble. Sure enough, a scorpion would scuttle out. We would beat it to pulp
with a stick or stone. My brothers had another pastime. They would catch
grasshoppers. The idea was to train them to do tricks, and amaze the world with
a grasshopper circus of their own. But the creatures died after a day in their
cardboard boxes, though the boxes were lined with grass and filled with tasty titbits
from our kitchen.
Perhaps you think we had cruel games. But all
children are like that. You see them killing butterflies, throwing stones at
dogs, teasing kittens. Only when we grow older do we learn to be kind and
realize that selfishness is bad. But even then not all of us learn these
things. Otherwise why would there be fights and wars?
But let me get back to the garden again. It was
a never-ending source of stories that I made up for myself. For example, have
you ever watched an ant hill? Seen the ants going about busily? There are
usually two orderly files—one going out, the other coming in. My elder brother, the one just before me, was
very inventive. He used to tell me that these ants lived in an enormous
township inside the hill. This town had broad streets and big houses, post
offices and police stations, playgrounds and movie theatres. Why, the ants even
had their own cinema posters. He never tired of spinning fantastic stories
about the secret life of the ants!
My two sisters were married and gone. They only
came on occasional visits. My brothers lived with us, three of them, almost
grown up. But they could all be counted upon to make my life interesting. What
a fine time we had together! When the rain clouds loomed in the sky, all of us
would run out and watch the way they made shapes and spread themselves into a
dark blanket above. My brothers let me join their games sometimes—from cricket
to kite-flying. All of them read aloud to me from English books and explained
the difficult parts.
Father used to get many magazines for his
school. They arrived in big bundles every week, from Madras, London
and New York—Harpers,
Boys Own Paper, Punch, Atlantic, American
Mercury, The Merry Magazine, The Times Literary Supplement... brothers read
the before they were taken away from our house.
The Strand Magazine published Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle’s stories about the famous detective Sherlock Holmes. I remember
sitting on my brother’s lap as he read those stories out to the three younger
ones, translating them for me into Tamil. Mother had gone to the Ladies’ Club,
leaving us in his charge. This must have been the safest way of keeping us
under his watchful eye!
My mother was a remarkable woman. Her’s was a
hectic life. We had a retinue of servants, including a cook, but she had her
hands full managing the household. She did some cooking at times. It was of the
experimental kind. She would bake shortcakes and butter biscuits for us. Once
she followed a magazine recipe and made toothpowder! At another time she made a
new kind of fuel for the boiler, a copper vessel with a water heating system
attached to it. Come summer and she would start rolling out papads at
home—flat round pieces like chapattis which were dried on the terrace.
We children would hop around and try to help her. She never said it was a
bother but let us do what we liked.
Mother had several hobbies. One of them was to
buy litho prints of gods and human beings. She would dress them up with bits of
cloth, mirrors, beads and sequins. How hideous they looked! But in those days
they were in fashion. One of her pictures was called ‘Vanity’. It had a woman
decked out in gold-lace saree and gaudy jewellery.
Mother was good at both tennis and badminton.
She also played golf. She was the unbeaten local chess champion. She played a
good game of bridge as well. At home we loved it when she joined us for carrom
or card games. She brought so much life and laughter with her.
I was very proud of my mother. Whatever I know
I learnt from her. What a voracious reader she was! She had never stepped into
school or college, but there was nothing she did not know about Sanskrit and
Tamil literature. She kept up with English writing through translations. We
boys would read to her and tell her everything we found in books and magazines.
How many myths and legends she knew! I must say
that the best versions of the Ramayana and Mahabharata I know are from her
story-telling.
At night she would come up to lie down on her
bed upstairs. Then all of us would gather around her. We would chat, crack
jokes, tell stories, tell her about our friends, ask for advice... Just
thinking about those times makes me happy. How lucky we were to have such a
wonderful mother!
Father....There is just one word to describe
him— ‘formidable’. Are you frightened by that word? Well, it means just that—
‘frightening’. As a school teacher and headmaster he was very stern about
discipline. I was rather scared of him. But as you know, you need not hate the
person you dread. Just look at him, isn’t he like a marble statue with his beak
of a nose and a bald head like Julius Caeser? Can any child get close to
someone like that?
This is what my elder brother and novelist R.K.
Narayan wrote about father in his autobiography, My Days: ‘He has the
personality of a commander-in-chief rather than a headmaster,’ people used to
remark, a stentorian voice, a sharp nose and a lion-like posture—a man who
didn’t fuss about children openly, and never sat around and chatted with the
members of the family as was the habit of others. He moved in fixed orbits at
home. He had a well worn route from his room to the dining or bath room, set
hours during which he could be seen at different points, and if one kept out of
his way, as I thought then, one was safe for the rest of the day.
He left for school on a bicycle, impeccably
dressed in tweed suit and tie, crowned with snow-white turban, at about 9.30
every morning, and he returned home at nine at night, having spent his time at
the officers’ club on the way, playing tennis and meeting his friends, who were
mostly local government officials. At night a servant would go out with a
lantern in order to light my father’s path back home, and to carry his tennis
racquet, leaving him to walk back swinging his cane, to keep off growling
street dogs all along the path, which lay sunk in the dust. I must admit I did
not know my brother
Narayan was a writer until I saw that he had
won a prize from The Merry Magazine for a short story.
This was called ‘Dodu, the Moneymaker’. It was
about a little boy struggling to find money for his urgent needs—like
groundnuts and candy! I was very excited because this sounded suspiciously like
me. Moreover, the hero of the story had my name! After that I watched Narayan’s
activities with respect. He would pound away upon a huge Underwood typewriter.
Perhaps all that banging was for his first novel Swami and Friends, a
story about boys growing up in a small town called Malgudi. All Narayan’s
stories were to be set in this non-existent town. But little did I think then
that I would get to know Malgudi as well as Narayan himself. Because later, I
was to illustrate my brother’s stories. At that time Narayan was also writing
articles for a newspaper in Madras.
1 had a cycle. My brother used to pay me a commission to pedal furiously to the
post office and mail his copy on time.
I was about nine or ten when I decided to be an
artist. I would cycle for ten miles around our home to find interesting
landscapes to paint. Mysore
was a good place for this—full of trees, streams, hills and old ruins. I also
learnt a lot by looking at illustrations in foreign magazines. The cartoons
were a special attraction. I began to draw cartoons and found the local papers
willing to publish them! The people I chose to poke fun at were international
names—Churchill, Hitler, Mussolini, Nehru and Gandhi! I must have done well
because I was asked to draw posters too, for the defence programme and for
adult education. I earned my pocket money and never had to trouble my parents
for it. ‘Dodu’ had found the way!
When Narayan’s stories began to get published
in The Hindu, Madras,
he asked me to illustrate them. I knew exactly what he wanted, and whom he had
in mind for his characters. Didn’t we belong to the same place? Hadn’t I spent
hours in every spot around us, including the busy market square? Hadn’t I
sketched all those real people he wrote about? Look at this old vegetable
seller. She refuses to bring her price down despite the customer’s determined
haggling.
As I drew hundreds of pictures I picked up the
techniques quite naturally. Trial and error taught me to use brush and paint
and ink. Others besides Narayan began to ask me to illustrate their stories for
them.
When I grew up and became a full-time
cartoonist, I had little time to paint or to illustrate stories. But I did draw
Thama the baby elephant, little bird Gumchikki who was his best friend, and
other woodland creatures. My wife Kamala wrote stories about their adventures
in the jungle.
But back in boyhood I found that Narayan could
be quite a grim elder brother. He thought it was his duty to make me a better
child, teach me good manners and proper behaviour. He would order me to stop
biting my nails—or else...! But since he chewed his nails as he said it, the
words had little effect. He would scold me for using my shirt front to wipe my
hands and face. ‘How many times should I tell you that there are towels for
just this purpose?’ He would forbid me to climb trees or ride the cycle
crossbar at breakneck speed. Tell me, can any boy obey such rules?
The worst was when he banned the use of our
garden for playing cricket. As the captain of The Rough and Tough and Jolly
Cricket Team, I lugged my bats and stumps and led my team mates in a
frustrating search for a games field. But though Narayan did not relent, he
wrote about my misery in a story called ‘The Regal Cricket Club’. My brother
did not think it was strange that he should sympathize so heartily with me in
his writing, but not in life!
I must tell you something about Mysore where I grew up. Before
India
got her independence from the British, Mysore
was a princely state. It had a Maharaja ruling over it. He thought that he was
a god and his state was the whole world. Most of his subjects thought the
same—especially when he put on splendid shows for the people in his royal
court, and outdoors during festivals.
The Dussehra festival in Mysore was justly famous. A long and fabulous
procession would march past the open-mouthed crowds. There were show horses,
trained by Europeans, which danced along daintily to Western tunes. Jewels
gleamed on their sleek white bodies. Under petromax lights they looked like
fairy creatures. There were richly decorated camels in that procession, looking
disdainful about everything! And of course the most splendid sight that we
waited for—the elephants! How gorgeous they looked—covered as they were with
gold and velvet!
From the palace the Maharaja would go to the
Banni Mandap. Banni was a tree he worshipped with ancient rites. The crowds
packing the streets would shout ‘Victory to the Emperor! Maharaja ki Jai! The king was dressed
in a long coat of gold brocade on which huge emeralds sparkled between
diamonds. A jaunty feather rose from his turban. It was fastened with a brooch
of rubies.
But wb hove
got to keep it here, sir, till the capitol is paid. This was pledged as
security?
The Maharaja did look majestic as he swayed
along on the silk-lined howda on top of the biggest elephant in the
procession. Behind him came the royal family, suitably mounted according to
rank. There were guests and British visitors. They were seated on chairs
arranged on enormous chariots, each as big as a room. These open chariots were
drawn by elephants. Then came the Mysore Lancers, rigid and upright on their
horses, holding their lances at an angle. Each regiment had its own colours—
blue and white, red and blue or green and red. The palace band provided rousing
music as an accompaniment to this fantastic spectacle.
I was taken to the court a few times. The
Maharaja was a lover of classical music and famous musicians would sing for
him. But the way in which these musicians came and went seemed quite funny to
me. They were brought to the ground floor in the palace, made to sit on a
platform with their instruments. (Everyone had to wear a turban; it was a mark
of respect to the king!) When the Maharaja came to court and sat down on his
throne, the platform would rise up like a lift through a shaft, to his floor,
and reach his presence. The concert would begin and go on for about an hour.
When the Maharaja signalled the end, the stage would start moving, back to the
ground floor again, with all the musicians still seated on it. As soon as the
stage began to descend, the musicians would launch themselves hurriedly into
the Mangalam—a song which is always sung at the end of a Carnatic music
concert. Halfway through, the sounds seemed to come up from a deep well!
But I must say that Mysore had a very elegant way of life. We
dressed well, we were expected to be well-mannered. We used to laugh at our Madras cousins who went
about without shirts, wearing just a dhoti round their waist.
I cannot end without telling you about my
school. I began to attend classes when I was five years old. 1 hated school. A
normal feeling. Tell me, which child likes to go to school? I felt wretched in
the classroom. I am convinced that school-learning is unnatural and bad for
human beings.
In school we sat on the floor and chorused our
lessons. The teachers were terrible. They would write something on the board,
ask us to take it down and go out to gossip or to smoke beedis. I was
very naughty. I got punished and thrashed quite often. But it did not stop me
from mischief.
My family insisted that I should attend school,
but did not scold me when I failed exams. I barely managed to pass each year.
It was the same story when I joined college. I scraped through my BA
examinations. What a relief it was to know that I need never go into a
classroom again!
After this I tried getting a job as a
cartoonist in New Delhi.
But The Hindustan Times told me I was too young to be a newspaper
cartoonist. I was more successful in Bombay.
I got work in The Blitz and the Free Press Journal. Besides
cartoons I did comic strips telling the stories of Tantri the Magician and
other ‘heroes’. Very soon I made a name for myself and joined a big English
newspaper, The Times of India.
For forty-seven years I have been drawing cartoons for its front page. A
stamp was brought out to celebrate the 150th year of this newspaper, and the
picture on it was one of my cartoons.
Yes, I have worked very hard and long. But I
have not forgotten that you can see the world through pieces of coloured glass.
Nor have I lost my love for those noisy black birds which are always around us,
managing to survive. I continue to paint crows with as much enjoyment as I did
on those long ago days of carefree childhood, when each day was exciting and
every hour brought adventure.
