TRAGIC IDIOM by OV Vijayan
1 | 2
We all live by simplistic image representations of events, it seems to me. Cartoon type representation of events are probably what we file away in the receptors of our brains. For all the elegant verbal analysis, the massive precise information that is available, a series of shorthand images may well be what we make decisions on.
I think Vijayan, as a great master of words, felt this and so his venture into the cartoon world.
At any given moment nearly 300 of our nuclear scientists are junketing abroad. It is to this diners' club that our unborn generations are entrusted. Perhaps they might never need that care, the end coming sooner. And when it does, we can always go with the satisfaction that not all of it was imported, that we too had our little bombs, the underdog's densepack.
The cartoon is, ideally, word and picture, with words chosen with poetic exactness. Even when the cartoon is a mere visual, deep down within it there is the experience of the word, and it is this experience that it ultimately communicates. The Indian psyche, despite the malnourishment of the Indian body, even despite low literacy, is refined. The Indian experience is so compelling that it precludes trivialization. And we have an inheritance which could embody a new imagery, and make the Indian cartoon a thing of great serenity.
We whip up, or try to, a synthetic chauvinism by means of external adventure. We marched into Kashmir, on the strength of that state's provisional accession, to repel raiders and stayed put. We marched into East Pakistan on the strength of a legal figment, in defence of the East Bengalee's right to self-determination and abandoned the new state to intrigue and militarism. We marched into Sri Lanka on the strength of no figment whatsoever to put down the very same urge for self-determination, and are yet to experience the long-term backlash. These are fatal aids to our crumbling core of nationhood, and can do no better than provide hallucinatory comfort. For, behind this front of heroism and self righteousness our internal tragedy grows and acquires chronicity.
EMS was letting himself down into the porous earth, becoming one with his little brethren who crawled over the slime. Call it what you will, it is hard to dissociate the Acharya from the intellectual aristocracy that is inherent in the destiny of civilizations. Instead of tinkering with inconsequential issues which his comrades drove him to, he should have celebrated his profound knowledge and wisdom, and he should have stayed on contemplative heights renewing the prophecy, redeeming the dream. Perhaps trying to achieve the equivalent of a Fifth International.
COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL/ courtesy: DC Books
RELATED PAGES
» OV Vijayan Collection
» Search Colours
We all live by simplistic image representations of events, it seems to me. Cartoon type representation of events are probably what we file away in the receptors of our brains. For all the elegant verbal analysis, the massive precise information that is available, a series of shorthand images may well be what we make decisions on.I think Vijayan, as a great master of words, felt this and so his venture into the cartoon world.
-Bruce Petty
(Excerpts from the book TRAGIC IDIOM, OV Vijayan's Cartoons and Notes on India, edited by Sundar Ramanathaiyer and Nancy Hudson-Rodd. Foreword by Bruce Petty.)At any given moment nearly 300 of our nuclear scientists are junketing abroad. It is to this diners' club that our unborn generations are entrusted. Perhaps they might never need that care, the end coming sooner. And when it does, we can always go with the satisfaction that not all of it was imported, that we too had our little bombs, the underdog's densepack.
The cartoon is, ideally, word and picture, with words chosen with poetic exactness. Even when the cartoon is a mere visual, deep down within it there is the experience of the word, and it is this experience that it ultimately communicates. The Indian psyche, despite the malnourishment of the Indian body, even despite low literacy, is refined. The Indian experience is so compelling that it precludes trivialization. And we have an inheritance which could embody a new imagery, and make the Indian cartoon a thing of great serenity.
We whip up, or try to, a synthetic chauvinism by means of external adventure. We marched into Kashmir, on the strength of that state's provisional accession, to repel raiders and stayed put. We marched into East Pakistan on the strength of a legal figment, in defence of the East Bengalee's right to self-determination and abandoned the new state to intrigue and militarism. We marched into Sri Lanka on the strength of no figment whatsoever to put down the very same urge for self-determination, and are yet to experience the long-term backlash. These are fatal aids to our crumbling core of nationhood, and can do no better than provide hallucinatory comfort. For, behind this front of heroism and self righteousness our internal tragedy grows and acquires chronicity.
EMS was letting himself down into the porous earth, becoming one with his little brethren who crawled over the slime. Call it what you will, it is hard to dissociate the Acharya from the intellectual aristocracy that is inherent in the destiny of civilizations. Instead of tinkering with inconsequential issues which his comrades drove him to, he should have celebrated his profound knowledge and wisdom, and he should have stayed on contemplative heights renewing the prophecy, redeeming the dream. Perhaps trying to achieve the equivalent of a Fifth International.
COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL/ courtesy: DC Books
RELATED PAGES
» OV Vijayan Collection
» Search Colours
1 Comments:
How I miss Vijayan's cartoons! Having seen them in The Hindu from the time I was in school, often not grasping much of its significance but yet making me think, I hardly feel like looking at most of today's cartoons. Geniuses like him happen only once in a century.
Post a Comment
Please note that anonymous comments may not be approved.
- team indulekha
>> CHANNEL HOME >> INDULEKHA HOME