Taught generations to laugh
NEW DELHI: When I got into cartooning, Sudhir Dar, for me, was the most good-looking cartoonist. Six cartoonists ruled those days: RK Laxman, Abu Abraham, Sudhir Dar, Rajinder Puri, OV Vi jay an and Mario Miranda. Among them, the most versatile was Dar. This is because Dar could do cartoons on family-related issues, daily life, politics and administration, and personalities — all in one shot.
Dar was suave, and had an impeccable grasp of English. It was a delicious feeling just to hear him talk. All these cartoonists had a guru for their styles. Laxman had David Alexander Cecil Low, Abu Abraham had James Thurber, and Dar (since he was a product of Mad Magazine) had Dave Berg — they had the same style of cartooning and focused on similar issues.
Miranda was the rich est of the lot, because he held exhibitions of his Goa sketches. After his retirement, Dar realised the importance of that kind of work, and started working with the United Nations on issues such as water management and women’s rights. He would bring out beautiful calendars. But Dar was not personally involved in any of them; he would commission famous international cartoonists.Those calendars were a big hit. He also did cartooning workshops.
Dar was never, ever the retired old man or the couch potato. He had no bad habits, and was a family man, which was not always easy because his 24x7 job meant there were always a lot of stress and strain; the burnout syndrome was high.
Many cartoonists also have big egos. But Dar fought this, and was an impeccable cartoonist and a good human being. He was courteous; he maintained his charm and the radiance on his face right till the end. He was a typical Lucknow public school product; a brown sahib. He never got into any controversy, and he never talked ill about anyone.
Dar loved food. So much so, that after his years at the Hindustan Times, the management at the The Times of India made him in-charge of the canteen menu committee. He was an ar dent collector of books, and he had six international networking agents. Whenever an agent thought about India, they would get in touch with two cartoonists: Laxman and Dar. Perhaps the only thing that I did not like about him was that he wore what I thought were badly stitched baggy pants!
I am grateful to Dar because of the opportunities he gave me: Once, the Indian Council for CulturalRelations( ICC R) decided to send five cartoonists with their works to different countries.
Senior cartoonists such as Laxman went to New York, Abu got Australia. I was the youngest, so I got Toronto. I had to display 50 cartoons. The team was decided by Dar himself. He was asked to do so by ICCR because he was honest and unbiased. That’s the level of respect he got from the ICCR bureaucracy, which rarely interacts with cartoonists. Before the trip, he brought out a book of all five cartoonists. We carried these books to the exhibition to display and distribute for free.
In Dar’s passing, cartooning has lost one of its torch-bearers.