15th Feb 2010

A day of immense importance as I turned 24 on this day and entered the countdown towards my 25, the silver anniversary. Voila! Am excited abhi se.

And was extremely lucky that evening as I attended the talk by eminent cartoonists @ British Council (CP, New Delhi). Cartoonists included Mr. Ajit Ninan (cartoonist, The Times of India) and Mr. Martin Rowson (cartoonist, The Guardian, UK). The talk started with Mr. Martin Rowson giving a presentation on past and present cartoons taking us through evolution of cartoons. The chronological styled presentation had major events of world cartoonized in the most humorous style; all giving an intended message and making that sarcastic statement. The presentation also made me realize how ‘open’ UK’s society is? Man! They can show off testicles (hand appearing in between legs giving that look of adultery) and butts in newspapers with no fear or shyness. Bush and Blair are the prime guinea pigs for Martin and almost every second cartoon of his had these two world leaders. An eye opener which I got to know from one of his cartoons was that
“total aid given to developing countries was less than one-third of total bonus paid to bankers in US in pre-recessionary market”.
I have started admiring him for his sense of humour. Like me he can humourize just anything ;)

Next speaker was Mr. Ajit Ninan (cartoonist, the Times of India). Incase you follow his cartoons, you will know his style. His cartoons are more statement oriented rather than eye-pleasing. He gave his insights on cartooning and those were simply brilliant. A couple of them –
1) use of minimum words so that even a Chinese can understand what you want to say.
2) the charm of hand-made black and white caricature and the philosophy behind the reasons for one's choice of black or white in his creations

I indeed was very lucky to see both of them cartooning LIVE. Infact I got a cartoon exclusive for myself from Mr. Ajit Ninan – the best of Best Wishes received on my 24th birthday. Man! He took less than 15 seconds to do it. Am wondering whether he actually lifted the pen or not?
The congregation was organized to announce the winners of a cartoon contest (click here to view finalists and winners). I too was a participant but my entry didn’t made it though. Here is mine (copyrights - British Council, CP, New Delhi)


ps: Very special thanks to Su, Tau, KP for taking time and wishing me. Thanks to NRI Singh, Sethi saab for their online versions. Party coming soon…
Cheers
AG

“I want to see myself paying for my cartoons” – Mr. Ajit Ninan
“The essential qualities which a cartoonist should have are arrogance and laziness” – Mr. Martin Rowson

"All you need is passion to learn and practice this art" - Mr. AG ;)