Ajit Ninan: Master of the chuckle
With outstanding imagery and caricature, Ninan was in a league of his own. He leaves behind an enduring legacy
Ajit Ninan came as whiff of fresh air, after the dark days of the Emergency in the 1970s when the pocket cartoon was banned by zealots and the daily dose of humour offered by the legendary cartoonists was blanked out of our national dailies. Sadly, on September 9, he passed away in Mysuru, at 69, following a heart attack.
An extraordinary master of the line, he did not bank on words at all to illustrate, which as his distinguished contemporary E.P. Unny says “showed the pious and pompous as eminently laughable” and “the closest dose of irreverence that then came periodically (post-Emergency) was thanks to Ajit Ninan in India Today”. In this, Ajit stood apart from the most celebrated cartoonists. He cultivated a temperament to perceive the amusing side of men and matters and transform that appreciation into a telling and incisive illustration. And he did this swiftly with a gentle jab.
At an editorial meeting of the India Today magazine, when colleagues debated the pros and cons of a feature on the introduction of the computerised ticketing and reservation system by the Indian Railways in Delhi in 1986, he pitched in with the people’s perspective. “Bunty and Pinky can book their tickets quicker on a train to Chennai faster from any station while Ganapathy Subramanian and his wife may lose out as the booking clerk wrestles feeding their names into the computer at the ticketing counter at the R.K. Puram booking facility though he may be at the window ahead of them,” observed Ajit and the edit meeting broke into laughter.
Beyond dedicated drawing, it was his keen observation and sense of the ridiculous that fired his imagination. The editorial team had its ‘Ajit moment’ when for an India Today magazine anniversary issue, he decided to portray the team at a meeting instead of his look at the political landscape titled CentreStage. As India Today Group Editor-in-Chief Aroon Purie once wrote about his enviable ability: “Ideas come to him easily as does laughter. His strength remains the pure entertainment in his lines, his ability to simplify complex issues in a single image and the clarity of his final compositions.”
Focusing on illustrations, from his early days at the Target magazine for children, Ajit honed his skills to bring life and drama into his creative output. This is how he steered clear of the combative and confrontationist approach. Understated and gentle humour was his forte. He blurred the distinction between cartoons and comics to offer unalloyed joy and laugh. It remained so even as he transitioned through technology to use computer graphics from the age of line drawing.
Drawn to cartooning while he was still in college in Chennai, he began his career in advertising (cartoon campaigns) before joining India Today in 1980. Ajit then moved on to short stints at The Indian Express and Outlook magazine and finally The Times of India. Detective Moochwala, and is dog Pooch were among his most iconic creations. While those fictional characters were for children, he caricatured grim political personalities for grown-ups in the same spirit and style. “Leaders make for great cartoons. I don’t know what that says about the country, but it makes my job much easier and lots of fun,” said Ajit about his challenge at work.
Perhaps none has contributed as significantly as Ajit did to both children and adults alike. “I feel that through Ninan’s images we can somewhat reclaim our immediate past, which would be of great significance to historians, youth and people who are looking for a still place in this constantly moving world,” says Sarnath Banerjee, author of numerous comic books. Ajit empathised to portray human foibles and conditions also in his work.
The creative output of earlier cartoon legends, R.K. Laxman and Mario Miranda, continue to come alive long after their time. Laxman’s ardent man on the street approach, with a stinger backing his visuals, remains relevant in many contexts even today. As for Miranda, he evolved as a brand. While travelling in Goa, memorabilia can be bought with the Miranda stamp besides copies of his illustrations. Ajit’s legacy is an enduring one. His family (Elizabeth and their daughters Samyuktha and Aparajitha) and perhaps his alma mater, the Hyderabad Public School, have to find ways on how to take it forward.