HUBBALLI: You may find humour, social message and critical view in a cartoon, but some lottery buffs are following cartoonists for lucky numbers. According to their belief, several online lottery numbers are hidden in the cartoons that are published in news dailies and websites everyday.
Many prominent cartoonists from Karnataka are being pestered by lottery buffs, who demand cartoonists to reveal the numbers that they use in the cartoon. Lottery buffs reveal that for many decades the cartoons and humour columns are followed to trace the lucky number. There may be no connection of cartoonists with lottery agencies, but the lottery buffs believe that the cartoons have hidden numbers that almost match the results of the lotteries.
For instance, people who play ‘satta matka’ bet on a single number that will be released on daily or weekly basis. Getting the right number can fetch more money and hence, the lottery buffs try to find hidden numbers in cartoons and its captions.
Senior cartoonists say during 1980s, people used to find lottery numbers in a humour column named ‘Moddu Mani’, which used to be published in a Kannada daily. Those days the newspaper used to reach by afternoon. But still people would wait to find the lucky numbers in the cartoon.
This has even baffled the modern day cartoonists who are now wondering what may have promoted them to search for lottery numbers in a cartoon. Dinesh Kukkujadka, noted cartoonist from a Kannada daily, recalls that a lottery buff came to till his house from a far off place just to ask help in lucky numbers.