The Tunnel of Time - R.K. Laxman's Autobiography
BY SMRUTI
I had no clue I'd end up buying this book, honestly!
I mean, here I was going to the Strand Book Sale with the
sole purpose of buying as many P.G.Wodehouses as possible. I
had stumbled across P.G. Wodehouse during my college days,
thanks to my English professor and became an avid fan of his
writings. Anyway, so here I was, having dragged along my
unwilling cousin to the sale. After buying most of the P.G.
Wodehouses on sale and few other books, I was just giving a
cursory glance to the Penguin's section as an
afterthought.
Here, I chanced upon R.K. Laxman's autobiography. I have
always read his common man cartoons in The Times of India,
although not always understanding them. It intrigued me enough
to read the gist given at the back of the cover. I found the
excerpts given on the cover amusing and interesting and got
the feeling that the book would be enjoyable. On an impulse I
bought it.
I'm not much of a non-fiction reader and I have never read
an autobiography before. So I didn't know what to expect in
the book. The book starts with a disclaimer from R.K. Laxman.
He makes it abundantly clear that he cannot recollect events
in their chronological order. And so you have a narrative
interweaving past, present, and future at any point in the
book. By rights this should make the book sound disjointed and
jerky, but it doesn't. The story flows smoothly and has the
rare quality of making you feel like an omniscient presence
sharing Laxman's life.
In spite of the book being an autobiography, the overall
impression that one gets while reading is that of
dispassionate objectivity. This maybe due to the fact that
passage of time may have lent objectivity or maybe because
Laxman's irreverence and a cock-a-snook-unto-others-kind of
attitude. But there are instances where despite the light
tone; the underlying injured professional pride is visible.
Some of his reactions and actions seem a little high-handed
but again, may very well be his irreverence speaking. All
Laxman's thoughts, actions, and reactions are an honest, or as
close to honest as possible, account of his feelings. You also
get the feeling that here is a man who has little or no
illusions about himself. Whether this quality has come due to
passage of time and experience, or was always a part of his
personality, or is a mere a façade, is a difficult call.
The book also contains mini travelogues about the places he
has traveled. They give an interesting account of RK Laxman's
wanderings in these places and the small discoveries that he
makes there and of course, his own impressions about the
places. Another interesting aspect of the book is the fact
that Laxman has an affinity towards drawing crows and Lord
Ganesha. According to him, these two subjects are a constant
source of inspiration and relaxation. It is surprising that a
political cartoonist would be happy sketching something as
simple as crows! The few sketches of crows and Lord Ganesha
that I have seen in the book have a life of their own. In each
sketch, one can make out an almost human expression. In the
sketches of crows, the mood or the expression is captured
merely by the dot that forms the eye of the crow! One crow is
angry; one inquisitively looking at the ground, and one is
irately speaking!
While the book is full of details of R K Laxman's
professional life, his personal life has just been given the
token lip service. The overall effect is of him having
recorded events in his personal life as fillers when nothing
much was happening on the professional front. Glimpses of
Laxman's personal life are very few and far between. But one
place where his natural emotion just bounds forth is when it
comes to his granddaughter. Here, he is just like any other
gushing grandfather, who cannot believe the joy that she has
brought in his life and how life is unimaginable without her
around. One thing that kept jarring my reading was the number
of typos and missing prepositions and conjunctions. It is
highly disappointing from a publishing house like Penguin.
On the whole, much of the book sounds like a grandparent
narrating his life story to his grandchildren; just giving his
impressions and not getting overly dramatic. But then what
else can you expect from the country's best known and best
loved political cartoonist and satirist? All in all, the book
is enjoyable and takes you on a delightful journey giving you
a glimpse of R.K. Laxman's life.
BY SMRUTI
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