A huge loss of crop his family in Kuttanad suffered in the monsoon deluge that year was what brought young Toms to the nearest coastal town: Alappuzha. There, the affected farmers were being given compensation, and writer N V Chellapan Nair was the special officer on duty. But Nair had yet to arrive.
Toms noticed some people waiting under a tree. This included one of Tom’s former classmates, Eashwara Pillai. “He knew I had sent cartoons to newspapers and got rejected. Just to pull my leg, he asked me ‘What’s happened to all your drawings?’”
Tom replied that talent apart, one had to have godfathers in newspaper offices. “Only then can our creations appear in print. I’m just incapable of mollycoddling them.”
Standing under a nearby tree was a thin man holding an umbrella. “After a while, he came up to me and said, ‘I heard you abusing newspaper people. You write poetry?’”
“No, I do cartoons…very good ones,” said Toms. “But nobody gives me the chance.”
The man said, “I will give you an address and you can send the cartoons there.”
Then he took out a pen and wrote, ‘Varghese Kalathil, Editor, Malayala Manorama, Kottayam.’ At which, Toms said, “Who are you to tell me this?”
In a low voice, the man said, “You can call me Varghese Kalathil.” He was himself the editor of the Manorama Weekly, and had come to Alappuzha to collect an article from Chellapan Nair.
That was how Toms’ cartoon got into the weekly. Soon he was given a regular column. For the next 30 years he contributed to the Malayala Manorama weekly; in 1961, he had become a staffer. And his cartoons revolved around the antics of Boban and Molly.
The ten-year-old twins in the cartoon, in fact, lived near Tom’s house and would go through his garden because it was a shortcut. One day, he befriended them. Inside Tom’s room, they saw a lot of drawings lying around. The twins became regulars at his place, and one day Molly said, “Can you draw me?”
Tom told her to sit down, and did a sketch. “She liked it a lot… Later her classmates appreciated it too.”
This made Boban jealous. Now, he too asked Tom to do a drawing of his. “I did it,” Toms says. “Thereafter, instead of drawing animals, I started drawing the faces of these two and their little antics.”
This strip, ‘Bobanum Molliyum’, became immensely popular and captured the imagination of Malayalis everywhere. “Manorama made me what I am,” he says.
When he retired in 1987, Toms brought out a book on Boban and Molly. That too became very popular, but led to a court case with the Malayala Manorama about who owned the copyright. The case went all the way up to the Supreme Court, and Toms won. “Relations were strained for quite a while, but now I am on good terms with them,” he says. The veteran cartoonist then started Toms Publications which continues to bring out Bobanum Molliyum (circulation: 1.5 lakh), Unni Kuttan, Mandoos and Tom’s Chitra Katha.
Today, Toms doesn’t live in his native Kuttanad — Kerala’s ricebowl, but in a city not very far from it: Kottayam. Toms is still sprightly at 81; he still draws cartoons. “I get up at 3 o’clock and work for a few hours,” he says. The secret of his long career: “Hard work and passion for the job. I also do a lot of reading and travelling.”
C.J. Yesudasan
In his office at the Metro Vaartha newspaper in Kochi, C J Yesudasan, 71, looks relaxed. He is in his 55th year as one of Kerala’s best-known cartoonists.
Yesudasan started with the CPI’s newspaper, Janayugam. “I began a column with the character ‘Kittumman’, which became the first pocket cartoon in Malayalam.” But in 1963, he was to leave for Delhi and work in Shankar’s Weekly — a stint that altered his worldview and bettered his work.
“Shankar was a perfectionist,” he says. “All the features you drew had to be correct, else he would get angry.” This included the way a person stood, how the mundu was tied around the waist, the physical oddities, and the type of footwear worn.
Yesudasan gives the example of the late Tamil politician G K Moopanar. “He was a millionaire, but would only wear rubber slippers — because he suffered from an allergic reaction to leather. Shankar was insistent we should know all these details.”
In 1969, Yesudasan returned to Kerala because Janayugam wanted to start a magazine for children. Next he started a magazine called Asadhu, on the line of Shankar’s Weekly. This lasted for 12 years. Eventually he joined Malayala Manorama, and was its staff cartoonist for 23 years.
His political cartoons fetched him abusive mail and threats. Once when E K Nayanar was the chief minister, Yesudasan drew a cartoon where a worker sat in a police station, his legs up on the table, nonchalantly smoking a beedi. In front of him was an obedient-looking Nayanar, who was also the home minister, saluting him. This was during the general elections of 1987.
“On my way home in Ernakulam, there was a poll rally,” he says. “I could hear Nayanar attacking me. I hurried on home.”
After many years, he met Nayanar. “I told him about the speech, but he said he didn’t remember it. But he did remember the cartoon. He told me it was excellent.”
Yesudasan says that contrary to popular view, most leaders like to be featured in cartoons. Even today, Yesudasan says, he meets ministers who ask him why his cartoons don’t feature them.
Again, the secret of his creative process: “I don’t try too hard. I’ve learnt to be relaxed. And then, suddenly, the idea will come.”
— shevlins@gmail.com