M M W f/,/ ' &ffiffiM#s%, ffi6ryw sffi, ff /.a - &ffiffiffiffiffi qtuffiffiffiffiffiffiffiMwffi# 1 #*ffihWffi ffi%#ffi ffiW WW --a>?-- Abu Abraham's cartoons may be decades old, \s,-=: il\, butthey retain punch, says Jaideep Sen. The dis*nt lhi ng[ to do Abu Abrahnm (ig ht) eatned no torie ty for hmp o oning Indira Gandhi and thz Congre s s Party in the mid: 70s Abu Abraham's views were sometimes Sunday paper's first full-time political startlingly contradictory. During the mid- cartoonist in 1956, by which time he had 1970s, in the midst of an Emergency that already made it to the pages of Punch and, saw suspended elections, restricted civil Tribune. AtPriuate View, someofthe pieces liberties and a media clampdown in the date back to those years, when Abu would country, enforced by the Congress party, describe himself as a "Nehruvian in India Abu was friends with then Prime Minister and a Bevanite in England", referring to his Indira Gandhi, and supportive of her party. leanings towardsJawaharlal Nehru, and the (His stance didn't find approval from those Left wing movement of the Labour Party led around him, including his wife Sarojini.) But by Nye Bevan in the late-'S0s. despite his proximity to Gandhi and the The highlight of the show, however, will Congress, Abu repeatedly made her and the be his work around the time of the party a target of satire in his work as Emergency. Abu returned to India, and a cartoonist. joinedthe Indian Express inl969 - he stayed Third World", noted -\f isha. "He was Conversations on political affairs were the with the paper until 1982, and in the opposed to a free market, and unfettered free norm in the Abraham household, recalled disruptive years of the Emergency, he was enterprise, and the notion of 'survival of the the artist and filmmaker Ayisha Abraham even elected into the Rajya Sabha(1972:78). fittest'. He felt that India should be self- (Abu's daughter). Ayisha and her younger Abu had "an inherent suspicion for the sufficient, andnot dependent on the west." sister Janaki, both in their early teens motives of the west," offered Ayisha. "He In an essay written bv Abu sometime in then, wouid often listen in on those was shaped by an anti-colonial discourse, the '90s, which is part of the show's discussions. "Our home was always full of and felt that globalisation would mean the catalogue, he speaks of an undying journalists," she said. "And the evening exploitation of India's resources - again." fascination for nervsprint, and about sounds were those of animated arguments. The era of nationalistic fervour that he moving to Mumbai, rvhere he'd sustain My sister and I experienced this from behind grew up in unquestionably shaped his himself on vegetarian meals at Gopal half-open doors." personal ideology, she added. "Abu Ashram below the Press Club for six annas This fortnight, Bangaloreans will get a believed in the Nehruvian version of (the former currenc]-, equalling 1116 of a sense of those lacerating arguments that development - its [policies for] a mixed rupee), or a biryani at Karim's at Victoria would rent the air in the Abraham economy, and protection of the weakest Terminus for 12 annas; a lavish spread household - Pru'a ate Vieut, a retrospective of sections of society." meant a prawn salad at the Pioneer Coffee Abu's works at the Indian Institute of House at Churchgate for a rupee. He goes Cartoonists, distils those discussions into a on to describe his earliest interactions with representative body of work that offers a The Obseruer editor David Astor, who view of the cartoonist's political ideologies. urged him to pick a pseudonym, reasoning Born in a town calied Tiruvalla in Keraia that "any Abraham in Europe would be in 1924, Abu began as a journalist in the late- taken as aJew", and would add an unwanted '40s with Bombay Chronicle and The siant to his work. Abu, the name he himself Bombay Sentinel, while also contributing The years he spent in the west, when he came up with, seemed perfect to Astor, who cartoons toBlltz andBharat, before moving travelled to witness Fidei Castro's described it as "Suitably mysterious". to New Delhi in 1951 to work with Weekly, revolution in Cuba in the '60s, and later to Hence, as he states in the essay, he run by the feted cartoonist Shankar. cover the Vietnam War (for The Guardian, christened himself Abu on the morning of A chance meeting with a visiting British which he joined in 1966), also influenced Friday, April6, 1956. journalist ledhim to London, where he spent Abu's views, especially about holding "a Abu's work left an indelible mark in the 15 arguably the best years of his five-decade moral ground when it came to the power years that followed. In Fleet Street's Star of career with The Obseruer - he became the politics between Colonial powers and the India, a book on Abu's work, the writer 14 www,timeoutbengaluru.net March 4 - 77 2O1-! *.r'.*.,*"*/i+hffi AbuAbraham she said. "But he had a Bryant noted that The Guardianhad work that seemed World," Mark personalised sympathy for described the cartoonist as "the conscience offensive at the time, those who struggled for self- of the Left and the pea under the princess's but turns out to be a determination, and his views mattress". An obituary in The Independent remarkably playful any (Abu died in2002) by the journalist Kuldip take on the affairs of never emerged from rigidly ideological or polemical Singh described Abu's work as "unsparing, the time.In "The State and pricking pomposity and political chicanery of Humour", one position." Shrewd as Abu was in his with indolent ease". Abu "stood up to the among several articles analytical censors and drew scathing cartoons in the book, which opinions, his cartoons and lampooning Gandhi and her courtiers", were drawings were unwaveringly concerns wrole Singh, and in turn, "earned enviable later carried in various focused on everyday notoriety for criticising Gandhi's blind publications including of the masses, and almost gallingly considering political ambition". Debonair, Indian satirical, Express, Seminar and the conventional and Sunday Standard, restrained methods of Abu describes his cartoonists at the time. His predicament about signature characters - akin to creating cartoons RK Laxman's "Common man" during the obbligato, if you will - were, in Emergency: "Slipping fact, a duo of political leaders, In another obit, the journalist and British on a banana skin can unnamed as Labour Party politician Michael Foot said be comic commonly referred to "the tall man and the short that Abu was "always a true internationalist but also very political 33,Y;JSiJilYJ'" man", both always shown to the fingertips". Ayisha agreed with Foot's if the man who slips EVSOR OF TIU/^OVR? donned Nehru caps and judgement. "Even as he became a nationalist happens to be, for ,7' in +.7 glasses. Ayisha noted on the one hand, he was in every way an example, thePresident Gandhi "different would internationalist too - in what he read, wore, ofthe Congress." that PeoPle see different personalities in them Charan ate, the music he listened to, and his lifestyle The carioons in the book - such as one of - in general," she said. "His was not the Indira Gandhi leading a donkey wearing a Singh, Morarji Desai, orJagjivan Ram." a flag with the However, through the course of Abu's [elaborately artistic] tradition o{ [British Nehru cap and unfurling on it, and writing, a sense of disenchantment about artists Jamesl Gillray or [William] Hogarth. words "Revolution" emblazoned an another of a polling booth with the sign iournalism had also turnedapparent. "He had Though English cartooning had journalism"' on his politics and art, as "Vote your caste here" remain iconic a love-hate relationship with enormous impact - hurt did his growing up in the ecosystem of testaments to those controversial years. A said Ayisha. "I think he was shocked and journalism as he grew older. Kerala, witn its innate humour and acerbic selection of those works, bearing "Not to be by changes in lr Hindustan Times view of the world." In the catalogue essay, published" seals signed by Baldeo Sahai on [For instance] The part of the discontinued his column without informing Abu also speaks of how Astor explained his behalf of the Censor Board, are li interest in hiring him to work at The show as well (seepic above). him, [ostensibly] as they needed space.for stories." In his later years, Abu Obseruer, with the words, "You are not cruel In his early years, books such as las lifestyle (in 1989), cartoonists." Damnds de laTerre (or Inthe Wretched of the moved out of Delhi to Trivandrum like other the "politics Soon after the Emergency was lifted in Earth), by the Algerian philosophet Frantz becoming embittered with posturing" in the capital, she added' 1977, Abu released a book titled Games of Fanon, on the methods of torture used by the and in that he never the Emergency, containing articles and French forces in battles in Algeria in the '50s, Yet, Abu "was amazing Ayisha. There was no that he wasn't allowed to release had a profound impact on Abu, said Ayisha. did getcynical", noted cartoons with during the preceding 21-month period - "He was fiercely anti-war and pro-Third question- about him growing dispirited life, Janaki added. If anYthing, "he hated ageing, and didn't want to die," she said, adding that the appeal of Abu's work was overwhelmingly universal, as evidenced by the many Id greetings that they'd receive from across the country, all "addressed to Abu lbrahim".