CHENNAI: People in Chennai are modern, yet connected to their traditions. Biswajit Balasubramanian, cartoonist and owner of The Forum Art Gallery, Adyar, cements this statement with innumerable anecdotes which lie imprinted on a sheaf of pages on his office desk. “For example this,” he says and pulls out a sheet from a thick file. “It shows how parents go to airport loaded with big tiffin carriers and luggage to send off their child abroad for work or studies,” he says and pulls out another one which shows a Chennai guy attending an Italian Food Festival. “While the chef is making the pasta and tossing up a salad, this guy is offended that there is no curd rice. Chennaiites are like that. They want to attend all these high-five events, but won’t let go of what they are used to,” he says.
All characters displayed in the cartoons have been worked on to convey a quintessential look of a Chennai settler. “There is the typical pottu which the ladies wear. If you go out on the streets at 7 am, you will see everyone would have had their bath, applied powder and kumkum. I use all these attributes in most of my cartoons,” he says. Then there is the typical moustache and hair. “Especially when you see artistes during the music season in December. They all apply kumkum, wear many rings and pendants,” he says.
Biswajit has done a series of cartoons charting the evolution of music from the times when the Sankrit verses were chanted outside Mylapore temple to the modern day compositions of Illayaraja, A R Rahman and Anirudh. “I did this in collaboration with musician Anil Srinivasan. We combined music and cartoons. While he played the song of a particular artiste, a related cartoon was displayed in the background,” he says. In the programme, he included the craze for Kollywood songs, which was at peak during the times of T M Soundararajan. “Also those in the MGR and Sivaji Ganesan, and T K Bhagavathar’s period,” he says.
Chennai, for Biswajit, has always been a melting pot of ideas, since 2002 when he started cartooning professionally with Madras Musings. It has been 13 years since he was asked by chronicler Muthiah, editor of Madras Musings, to join the team. And till date, there hasn’t been a dearth of topics in the weekly tabloid.
The first cartoon he worked on was on the comeback of the Ambassador in 2001. “They were wanting to comeback into the market with Mark 3. My cartoon read, ‘We have just changed the Mark, but it offers the same comfort as the previous’,” he recounts. Later, he worked for national dailies, ran a column for a few, and also brought out a book in 2005 titled Chennai Latte-A Madras Brew, a collection of his works co-authored with Ranjitha Ashok.
There is no social issue which Biswajit has not touched upon, and he does it with a dash of humour. For example, the sketch of a resto bar which has a menu for water while wine is on the house — a satirical take on the prevailing water scarcity. Another, with the line ‘Garbage out Garbage Stay’, accompanied with an illustration of overflowing garbage on the pavement. Yet another one having a street side eatery and five-star restaurant on the same frame, showing the extreme dining standards in the city. Even the topic of NRIs is not exempted from his work. “I think the term ‘Non Resident American’ will be more apt in Chennai. The ones who go to the US, they consider it their home. They get brainwashed and start giving importance to July 4!” he says with a laugh.
Besides pertinent city problems, Biswajit translates current affairs into comical cartoons. Be it the crash of the Chennai Airport ceiling or the sweat-trickling match between Vishwanathan Anand and Carlsen in April this year, fury of auto drivers with the introduction of meter system, or the more recent Bill allowing dhoti as an attire inside private clubs — all those topics now remain immortalised in a bundle of sheets.
“I can say boldly that nobody in India would have done as many number of cartoons on social causes as I have done till date,” he says. The best 100 of his collection will be showcased at the gallery. While there are cartoonists who have been working in the same field, he says a majority of them are associated with a paper and indulge in political cartoons. Instead, his cartoons capture the everyday hassles — excessive honking on city roads, careless jumping across fences on Madhya Kailash, the long queue to meet the bride and groom during weddings, expectations of voters during elections and more.
Next, he is planning to come up with a book which would celebrate the Madras past. “Something that is a mix of history and the present. Though I have been here for years, I would still think where to go for a nice cup of coffee and dosa. I am not talking about the food chains that have come up now, but the ones that have been here for 40 years,” he says. “Even when it comes to heritage buildings and monuments here, unlike Western countries, one doesn’t find enough material about the structure. For example, at the Meenakshi Amman temple, there is no board saying that you need to stand in this position and look at the tower from here,” he says. “Cartoons will be a good medium to make people aware about the heritage, given the low attention span of people today,” he adds, thoughtfully.
Biswajit’s works will be exhibited at Forum Art Gallery form August 18 to September 20.