They say laughter is the best medicine and a dose of that is just what the ailing Chief Minister got when Bruce Petty, one of Australia’s best-known cartoonists and political satirists, stopped by at Cliff House on Monday.
The room, where Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has been confined to on doctors’ orders insisting that he rest, rang out with laughter at Petty’s comments as he attempted to draw a caricature of the Chief Minister.
“This is a very difficult caricature,” said Petty, as he made deft strokes with his black marker. About ten minutes later, he held up the drawing, one of the smiling Chief Minister seated in a single-seater plane, ‘KERALA’ written prominently on its side.
“I don’t know where it’s going though,” said the 83-year-old as he handed over the picture to the Chief Minister’s son, Chandy Oommen.
‘’Stunned’’ was the answer Petty gave when the Chief Minister asked him how he found Kerala.
“Too many people, too many problems,” said Petty, who is here as a guest of the Centre for Comic Arts and has been conducting cartoon demonstrations in the city during his visit, which will last three more days.
He also presented the Chief Minister with a signed copy of his book ‘Petty’s Parallel Worlds’, a collection of his editorial cartoons from 1959 onwards and other street sketches he did while on assignment around the world.