From the India Today archives (2015) | Ajit Ninan and the art of silent political humour
The legendary former INDIA TODAY cartoonist who died on September 8 had, in this write-up, shared how his brief was to make readers fall in love with the magazine
Cartoonist Ajit Ninan
New Delhi,UPDATED: Sep 10, 2023 17:22 IST
(NOTE: This article was published in the INDIA TODAY edition dated December 21, 2015)
In 1979, I joined Target, a children’s magazine owned by the India Today Group, and was asked to come up with a mascot that would strike a chord with its young readers. Detective Moochwala, a bumbling detective, inspired by the Pink Panther series, was my take on the Indian detective. Bald, chubby and moustached (a walrus one taken from David Low’s famous Colonel Blimp) and equipped with high technology. My detective had a cellphone even before Aroon Purie had one!
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My work at Target was noticed by Aroon Purie, a great lover of children’s books himself, and I was asked to join as a staff cartoonist for INDIA TODAY. The political scenario was entertaining at the time but it was also challenging for a cartoonist. Janata Party was leading the coalition, with Morarji Desai in power. I found myself taking on the exhaustive task of drawing the entire coalition in my cartoons. Aroon Purie too loved the omnibus concept, the typical Mario Miranda-style cartoons where every white space was utilised. He demanded details in the work, like the paisa vasool Punjabi he is!
The regional editions of INDIA TODAY would also carry my cartoons. Since English puns wouldn’t work in these, my brief was to create silent, entertaining illustrations. Trouble came knocking twice during my time with the magazine. I drew Rajiv Gandhi as the Pope surrounded by black sheep and one white sheep, V.P. Singh, jumping over a fence. Instead of the cross Rajiv had Congress’s hand on the uniform. This obviously did not go down well with certain religious associations. The second time, I converted the map of India into Lord Ganesha’s head, with west and east as the ears, and the south extended to look like the trunk. The head was put on top of a fat body to symbolise the proverbial white elephant or the corruption in the public sector. Instead of a rat, I showed a politician bending down in worship to the elephant. No less than seven Ganesha associations wrote to the magazine, furious with my depiction of the god.
A fond memory I carry of the INDIA TODAY office is the time when the team was named after characters from the Asterix series. Aroon Purie was called Vitalstatistix, being the business and editorial head of the group. T.N. Ninan was called Dosa Mix for obvious reasons. Prabhu Chawla was Politix and Raghu Rai, being the tech-rich photographer, was Fully Automatix. I, of course, was Comix.
Editors like Suman Dubey, Inderjit Badhwar, Prabhu Chawla and T.N. Ninan were extremely visually minded. It was perhaps because Aroon Purie encouraged his editors to be reader-conscious. The idea was to make every reader fall in love at first sight when they saw the magazine. Which they did.
