(Poli) Tickle/Prickle: Keshav Between the Lines

Introduction

An interview with an editorial cartoonist, especially in these times of crises in cartoon-dom—the Danish Cartoon Controversy in 2005; the Charlie Hebdo Shooting in 2015; the arrests of Zunar (Malaysian cartoonist), Leslie Chew (Singaporean cartoonist), Musa Kart (Turkish cartoonist), Islam Gawish (Egyptian cartoonist) and Ali Ferzat (Syrian cartoonist) between 2007 and 2016; and the detention of Nsé Ramón Esono Ebalé by Equatorial Guinean authorities in September 2017—helps to understand their predicament. It is a profession in which life thinly hangs between the smooth and the scathed lines of visual commentary. Kuipers’ observation that ‘the cartoon crisis is best understood as a transnational “humour scandal”’ (2011, p. 64) points to humour’s critical role in political cartoons. Polemical works such as Henri Bergson’s Laughter (2008), Michael Billig’s Laughter and Ridicule: Towards a Social Critique of Humour (2005), Sharon Lockyer and Michael Pickering’s Beyond a Joke: The Limits of Humour (2005) and Moira Smith’s ‘Humor, Laughter and Boundary Maintenance’ (2009) suggest the aporetic ¹ limit of the language of humour, which sometimes fails to amuse its audience. When humour is misread in an intolerant political environment, cartooning itself is threatened. While interviewing Keshav, we were curious to find answers to the following questions: How does cartoon as a medium inform our knowledge system? What decides the rhetoric of a political cartoon? What distinguishes political correctness from political incorrectness? and How does humour transmute into anger?

Keshav Venkataraghavan, Keshav to his readers, has been The Hindu’s ² staff cartoonist for 30 years and is also its editorial consultant. Keshav, compared to his contemporaries, is content to be a genial critic than play the gadfly. Following Laxman’s dictum—a sense of history, drawing skill and a sense of humour—Keshav takes on the mantle of the cartoonist by being a keen observer and a sharp researcher, who is punctiliously accurate with facts. Since joining The Hindu in 1987, he has ‘sketched over 15,000 political cartoons and over 10,000 illustrations’ (Kumar, 2016). The school of Ananda Vikatan, ³ a training ground for cartoonists including Madhan, Mali and Gopulu, also groomed Keshav, who was, otherwise, self-taught.

While Keshav has drawn attention as an artist (Moses, 2016; Nambirajan, 2012; Sridar, 2014; Subramaniam, 2016; Viswanathan, 2017), his style of cartooning, surprisingly, has not been examined at length. While his contemporaries have courted controversies, Keshav has survived over 30 years, without the smear of controversies; proof of his dexterity to balance the sibling tension between humour and anger in the language of cartooning. Chitra Subramaniam (2016), best describes his artistry: ‘Strokes of pen and plume are that of a soul at peace as much as they are that of an enquiring one, the ultimate paradox that is life’. What sets him apart is that fine blend of the artist and the cartoon journalist. The art of painting solely becomes his platform to express ideas subjectively even as he objectively interprets events, passes judgement on the quotidian through cartoons. The difficult combination of free expression and the monitored expression makes him draw that fine line between political correctness and the unpolitical correctness. The interview whets curiosity about the precarity of cartooning.

The style reflects the cartoonist’s character, he says. Describing his own as subtle, he is averse to the use of violent symbols and prefers to confront political issues with straight and tenuous metaphors. Commenting on the instrumentality of humour in political cartooning, he draws attention to satire, which would rather prick than wound a person; it calls for an adroitly achieved balance between humour that carefully skirts anger. ⁴ Both his cartoons in the editorial ‘Cartoonscape’ as well as in the ‘Dr Humerus’ (refer Figure 1) column are a mesh of fine lines of criticism embellished with humour; a sort of ‘dignified irreverence’ or, in Laxman’s words, they demonstrate a ‘firm control over satirical draftsmanship’ (Laxman, 2015). Opening up on the purpose of cartooning as giving ‘voice to the voiceless’, Keshav becomes candid about the profession, the ethics and the aesthetics. This interview took place in Chennai on 8 September 2017.

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Figure 1.

Source: The Hindu. ⁵

The review of studies, from 1895 to 2017, throws light on the chequered history of cartooning. The studies between 1895 and 1937 concentrated on tendencies, techniques and principles of caricaturing (Cary, 1933; Lemann, 1935; McBride & Verbeck, 1895; Robinson, 1917). Caricaturing as a basic technique predates the tradition of cartooning and is derived from the Italian carricare meaning to overload or exaggerate. While caricature looks at the deformation of personalities, cartooning focuses on the ambivalences of issues and events. After the 1930s, as cartooning began influencing newspaper circulation, studies focused the historical and sociological intervention by cartoons (Bader, 1941; Cuff, 1945; Hess & Kaplan, 1968; Kemnitz, 1973; Shaw, 1966; Ross, 1974; Vinson, 1957). Isabel Simeral Johnson’s ‘Cartoons’ (1937) is perhaps the earliest historical account of cartoons from England, Holland, France and the United States. The sociological study of political cartoons primarily evaluates its role in forging social control as well as public opinion (Asher & Sargent, 1941; Bogardus, 1945; Hines, 1933; Streicher, 1965). Ernst Gombrich’s ‘The Cartoonist’s Armoury’ (1963), from the perspective of an art historian, looks into ‘what role the image may play in the household of our mind’ (1963, p. 127).

With Roland Barthes’ ‘Image Music Text’ (1977), interest turned to the elements contributing towards the image’s rhetoricity. Lawrence H. Streicher’s ‘On a Theory of Political Caricature’ (1967) is arguably the earliest attempt to theorize the elements of political caricaturing. Numerous studies on the structural approach and metaphorical analysis of political cartoons soon followed (Conners, 2005, 2007; Coupe, 1969; El Refaie, 2009; Gamson & Stuart, 1992; Greenberg, 2002; Medhurst & Desousa, 1981; Morris, 1993; Sani et al., 2012). After the Danish Cartoon Crisis, the cartoon has been seen ‘as a visual source that reflects discourse and counter-discourse’ (Khanduri, 2014, p. 14). The academic world jolted, by the crisis, started examining the role of censors besides freedom of expression (Freedman, 2012; Goolam, 2006; Keane, 2008). Victor Navasky’s The Art of Controversy (2013) analyses factors like image, content and stimulus which make political cartoons controversial. While most studies theorized techniques, principles and stylistics of cartooning, the role of humour and its rhetoric still remain fallow territories.

Compared to the Western tradition of cartooning, which dates back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, India began as a market where cartoons were imported as the ‘affective registers of empire’ (Khanduri, 2014, p. 3). Today, India boasts of a strong tradition of cartooning and caricature with a creative effort from 29 states and 22 scheduled languages. Paradoxically, the most coercive colonial rule of almost 200 years (1757–1947) institutionalized cartooning culture in India. Before the colonial era, the vidūsaka, the court jester like Tenali Rama or Birbal, was the symbol of political cartooning.

Cartooning in India developed through the strokes of Thomas Rowlandson, James Gilray and James Moffat (Khanduri, 2014, p. 3). The arrival of Punch: The London Charivari, which introduced the popular style of cartooning, spurred numerous Indian-version magazines that covered imperial politics such as The Indian Charivari, The Oudh Punch, The Delhi Punch, The Punjab Punch, The Indian Punch, Urdu Punch, Basantak, Gujarati Punch, Hindu Punch, Parsi Punch and The Hindi Punch (Mitter, 1994, p. 138). The earliest cartoons that circulated among Indians came through Bengal Hurkaru (1795–1866) and The Indian Gazette (Mitter, 1994, p. 137) and it continued through Amrita Bazar Patrika (1868) and Sulav Samachar (1870). The Indianized caricature albums known as Chitravalis (Khanduri, 2014, p. 8) captured the realities of untouchability and other social evils through cartoons which were popular among Indians who had not caught up with the English puns and metaphors. Pre-independence era cartooning followed what Peter Barry (2002) calls the ‘adopt’ stage when the English tradition was mimed and, later, ‘adapted’ to communicate the social problems pertaining to Indian society.

In the post-independence era, in the ‘adept’ stage, Keshav Shankar Pillai (1902–1989), the father of Indian cartooning, set the platform for cartooning through Shankar’s Weekly (1948–1975). The mantle passed from Shankar to Kutty (1921–2011), R. K. Laxman (1921–2015), Abu Abraham (1924–2002) and Mario Miranda (1926–2011). Abu Abraham’s double of Laurel–Hardy characters in ‘Private View’ (Krishnakumar, 2002); the exaggeratedly curvy lines of Mario Miranda and Kutty have been signature styles. R. K. Laxman, the creator of ‘The Common Man’, produced hard-hitting cartoons that nailed political issues with ‘You Said It’ through the view from the streets. The second generation including O. V. Vijayan (1930–2005), the ‘unforgiving cartoonist’ (The Hindu, 2002), and Rajinder Puri (1934–2015) took cartooning to the next level, through an unsparing, aggressive style. The tradition continues in the cartoons of E. P. Unny (The Indian Express, ‘Business As Usual’) ⁶ , Ravi Shankar, Ajit Ninan (The Times of India, ‘Ninan’s World’) ⁷ , Sandeep Adhwaryu (The Times of India, ‘The Line of No Control’) ⁸ , Keshav (The Hindu, Cartoonscape) ⁹ , Surendra (The Hindu, Cartoonscape) ¹⁰ , Gokul Gopalakrishnan (Deccan Chronicle) ¹¹ and Shreyas Navare (The Hindustan Times, ‘Dabs and Jabs’) ¹² . With the newspaper circulation touching 329,204,841 in 2011 (Khanduri, 2014, p. 2), cartooning has become serious business. In recent times, India too witnessed a slew of crises and the attendant activism: The murder of Outlook cartoonist, Irfan Hussain in 1999; sedition charge against Aseem Trivedi in 2011, for an anti-corruption cartoon which insulted national symbols; the controversy of Shankar’s cartoon in the NCERT political science textbook in 2012; and recently, the arrest of Cartoonist Bala from Tamil Nadu in 2017 for representing ministers in the buff. Taking cognizance of this disturbing trend, one aims to understand whether there is an Indian ‘sense’ of cartooning? If so, to what extent has it graduated?

The earliest studies on political cartooning, understandably, have been by practitioners like Abu Abraham and R. K. Laxman. Abu’s ‘Anatomy of Political Cartoons’ (1975), ‘Why Does Kerala Produce so many Cartoonists?’ (1995) and Vijayan’s The Cartoonist Remembers (2002) present the nuances of cartooning and its development in India. Laxman’s ‘Freedom to Cartoon, Freedom to Expression’ (1989) discusses the history of Indian cartooning buttressed by his stint with the Times of India. The NCERT cartoon controversy (refer Editorial, 2012; NCERT, 2012) gave momentum to studies on political cartoons (Chakrabarti, 2004; Chatterjee, 2007; Roy, 2012; Sampat, 2007; Singh, 2012). Ritu Gairola Khanduri’s Caricaturing Culture in India: Cartoons and History in the Modern World (2014) ‘combines historical narrative with ethnographic testimony to give a pioneering account of the role that cartoons have played ... in political communication, public discourse, and the refraction of ideals central to the creation of the Indian post-colonial state’ (2014). ¹³ Christel R. Devadawson’s Out of Line: Cartoons, Caricature and Contemporary India (2014) gives an account of the graphic satire through a reading of Shankar, Laxman, Abu, Vijayan and Ninan. Largely, studies on Indian political cartoons have focused the historical and anthropological accounts (Fisher, 2004) while studies on an Indian ‘sense’ of cartooning and a theoretical approach towards the rhetoricity of an image are negligible. The paucity of studies—on Indian cartooning and the role of humour—set us on a pursuit of a theory about humour. In a wide-ranging interview, Keshav addresses the concerns regarding the tradition of Indian cartooning, the rhetoric of the image, humour, metaphor, the ethics and aesthetics of cartooning.

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Figure 2.

Source: Author.

V. B. & V. V. What would you like to say about the profession of cartooning?

K. V. See, this is a very critical area, there are no teachers. Nobody teaches cartooning and cartoonists come up by themselves. It is something like being a writer. You just become one someday. Because there is something that tells us that you have to do this. You are equipped by nature, by drawing and the education that you have gone through. Moreover, your interest in history and your knowledge of current affairs take you far in your career. The initial years in this profession, I would compare it to the slog overs in cricket. You will have to work aggressively for the first 10 years and keep updating yourself. Homework is very important.

As far as reading of the cartoon is considered, if the editor is not happy with the cartoon, it means, the communication is bad. Then you see what is lacking and improve the cartoon which makes it more communicative. So it is by trial and error. And now how many seconds do you give to a cartoon? Within two seconds, if it does not hit your eye, the readers will not make the effort to understand what one is trying to say. So you have got only two seconds to make the point. Merciless! In that moment, we will have to grab the attention. Or it has to hit you so hard that it will remain in your mind forever. That was what David Low and others did.

V. B. & V. V. You began your career as an illustrator in Ananda Vikatan and then joined The Hindu as a cartoonist. How different was editorial cartooning from illustrating comic strips?

K. V. In an illustration, you are narrating a story, while cartooning is about commenting on the society, on politics and on economics. When you are telling a story, it is just a narration of events. But in cartooning, you are dealing with facts and they are sacred to this art; it cannot be doctored.

In cartooning, we are directly communicating with the people. It is essential that the audience understands what we say; it is unlike classical art which is left to their imagination. In cartoons, if the people read them differently, it is plain bad communication. And as a cartoonist, you learn the right methods of communication only through trial and error, as it takes time to know how an idea can reach people through effective communication.

V. B. & V. V. Bharata, in the Nāṭya Śāstra, proposes six different kinds of humour ranging from a mild smile to vulgar and mad laughter. Though there is a space to hold different kinds of humour, cartoons of Aseem Trivedi became controversial in 2011; his cartoons were criticized for being too dark and blunt with no humour at all. What is your take on the cartoons?

K. V. I would say cartooning reflects your character, and his [Aseem’s] cartoons were part of a campaign. They were not a part of mainstream cartooning. He drew cartoons for Anna Hazare’s ¹⁴ campaign against corruption and those were anti-government cartoons displayed in the place where they protested. We [in The Hindu] do not do campaign cartooning, where you keep on hitting a target. We are into mainstream cartooning and we comment on all kinds of social and political issues. We are observers; we do not comment personally—it is only on issues. We are perceived to be negative when we make a point against the establishment. If we start praising the government, we only become poster boys. It does not work that way. We have to take a stand. Or, explain the real position. Or, as Nehru told the cartoonist Shankar, ‘Don’t spare me, Shankar!’

We are just pulling down their egos a peg or two, pricking them.

V. B. & V. V. In your interview, ¹⁵ you said, R. K. Laxman identified three elements in political cartooning—a sense of history, drawing skill and a sense of humour. What is your order of preference?

K. V. My order of preference is exactly the same. First, you will have to be aware of the facts because as a cartoonist you cannot afford to meddle with them. For example, take the Rohingya ¹⁶ crisis (refer Figure 3). It has been festering for a long time. What exactly is the issue? We will have to research and go to the crux of it. That is why we should be aware of the facts. And then comment on it. What do you have to say? And how should you say it? If you have a sense of humour, it is a plus which gives you a leverage to present things in an effective manner. Depending on the subject, one can use humour.

V. B. & V. V. How do you see the use of humour in political cartoons and the reader’s reaction?

K. V. It is the people who are reading and you are communicating to them directly. Incidentally, the affected parties or people who are criticized in the cartoon are also reading. Those who support the criticism are also reading the cartoon. But, if you ask me, ‘What is the barometer?’ Why do some cartoons succeed and some are doomed? [Trails off]

When a lot of people are angry and they feel strongly that something has to be done. Protests? Debates? Ranting? Bandh? Lot of anger. Now, we try to take the thoughts a step further and draw our comment. It actually converts that anger into humour. It is successful when the readers can relate to it saying: ‘yes, he nailed it’. Like Laxman’s ‘You Said It’; the pulse of the people. That can stay in the memory of the people for long.

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Figure 3.

Source: The Hindu. ¹⁷

V. B. & V. V. How do you differentiate between ‘good humour’ and ‘bad humour’?

K. V. There are so many ways to look at it. Satire is one thing, ridicule is quite another and there are also sledge hammer type humour. For some, hurting would be fun but I would not prefer the harsh way. The language that you use in visuals tells about your character. You can draw anything in a no holds barred style hoping that people will still take it; that they will be tolerant. I do not use too much of violence like ‘stabbing in the back’, or the guillotine kind of visuals, unless absolutely necessary. If it communicates, I am fine with that. Some may call it subtle; many others say ‘not hard-hitting enough’. It is a matter of taste and I prefer it refined.

V. B. & V. V. Talking about judgement, how do you decide on the visuals and your stance in the cartoons?

K. V. To arrive at the comment is the biggest part. What you have to say is 90 per cent of the job and it is the biggest challenge. Some of us give an off-the-cuff remark, which is not proper because we are dealing with facts. One cannot be victimized in a cartoon without authoritative evidence. Pat Oliphant, the leading American cartoonist, says, ‘in law, until proven, you are innocent’. But in cartooning, he says, ‘everybody is guilty until proven innocent’, which is why his cartoons are forthright and uncompromising. Probably, he is the best cartoonist we will ever have in today’s world. It takes a lot to reach that level. After knowing what to say, how to say it is a matter of craft. By experience, eventually, one attains it.

V. B. & V. V. You said in one of your interviews, ¹⁸ that political pressure brings out the best of ideas and the cartoons of Iran and China are very impressive. How does the political atmosphere affect the art of cartooning?

K. V. I have seen a few cartoons in http://Irancartoon.com. There they even have women cartoonists. In India we do not have many women cartoonists. In fact, India is a very casual place to do cartooning because everything is allowed. There is lot of freedom, all said and done. Otherwise, you cannot see the kind of comments coming up in the social media. When there is freedom, there will be counterattack. But in those societies [Iran and China], the scenario is different. There are severe constraints under which the cartoonist works. Here also, we have unwritten rules like: we do not use government emblems and religious symbols. If you are using them against one, then, we will have to use it against everyone. It becomes difficult. You need to have a common understanding. If you are not using it for one, then do not use it for another. Just because one side is tolerant, you go hammer and tongs at it? That is not right. You have your own lakshman rekha. ¹⁹ The editor will not tell and you have to form your own restraints and take a stand. That is how it works.

V. B. & V. V. Can we, then, say that the language of cartooning is restrictive where the cartoonist has to be sensitive rather than being candid?

K. V. I mean to say, the freedom or licence we have should be used with responsibility. Visuals have a very strong impact. I would say, the amount of liberty a cartoonist takes is determined by the cartoonist. Nobody sets standards for the cartoonist. He sets his own standards. For example, Laxman did very well through his cartoons; it is because he had a natural instinct for satire; so also Shankar, Abu Abraham, Rajinder Puri and O. V. Vijayan. Some people are born that way. It does not come easily. Also, a good understanding with the editor will help one go a long way in getting one’s views across. You keep learning as you comment and sharpen your wits along the way.

V. B. & V. V. Coming to the lifespan of a cartoon, you had said that unlike art (painting), cartoons have an instant and a natural death. They just live for a day. But then how would you see the controversy of Shankar’s Ambedkar cartoon, ²⁰ which in 2012, got a different interpretation when it was published in the textbook?

K. V. You wake up after 45 years; that is not right. The person who had introduced this [in the textbook] had a good idea. Rather than the dull (black and white) images which the students cannot even decipher, these line drawings are attractive and make a striking point. It is easier to make them understand. So, it was the right way to make people understand. Now when you see Dr Ambedkar in a cartoon, you feel a God is defiled in the cartoon. It is not like that. Shankar has drawn cartoons on Gandhi: did that mean he did not respect Gandhi? Or even Nehru. He has been a good friend of Nehru’s and made fun of him. But some people capitalize on it and try to score brownie points. Why would one lose an opportunity to gain publicity?!

That apart, a good cartoon will last as long as history is discussed. David Low is a case in point. The great war-time cartoonist is a legend and some of his cartoons are remembered to this day.

V. B. & V. V. Is there any template or framework from which metaphors are drawn suitable for the Indian audience?

K. V. (Chuckles) You have to say that. I will quote Laxman again. We are not social reformers. We are trying to explain things. Make things easy; laugh at it and walk away; understand what is going on. Scams are not going to affect the common man; for them, their livelihood is what matters. You can say in the national and economic contexts GST [Goods and Service Tax] was right. It will yield its effects or benefits, say, after two or three years. But it is the immediate result that the common man is looking at. Nobody understands that.

V. B. & V. V. When you said that the Indian audience provides a narrow repertoire of visual signs, does that mean that a cartoonist essentially uses stereotypes to make the visual language effective?

K. V. If something comes into our mind, we will use that visual or we would improvise on the existing clichés. Clichés are the visual signs the cartoonist has used for a long time like ‘crocodile tears’ or ‘walking the tightrope’. Taking these clichés we will have to change and adapt them over a period of time. You have to take a lingo which the people understand. People do not know about Alice in Wonderland anymore. It is a classic. But how many people know about it? They do not read anymore. They are in the age of Facebook and Twitter where communication is really fast. There is always a risk that only some people will understand. What I have read may not be read by them. You have to go on adding new ideas.

It is a problem. In your vocabulary, you may have, say 2,000 words or 3,000 words. In visuals, it is much, much less. The visual memory that the people have is less. I have to communicate within the limited force field of the visuals for you to understand.

V. B. & V. V. So how do you keep yourself up in the business of cartooning with a narrow repertoire of visual signs?

K. V. You have to take a risk and create new visuals. And creating that is very agonizing. Take for example, today’s Rohingya cartoon (refer Figure 3). I have been working on it right through yesterday. I made three cartoons. Now Google is there. You can update yourself and check whether the visuals have been done before. The visuals I had drawn were already there. The comment and the idea are the same. Everybody is going to say the same thing. How differently are you going to say, is going to make the difference. Of course, the Rohingyas are being pushed from here to there. Many things are happening. What is India’s stand on that? That is another part of the story. You will have to take the broader view and there are so many digs to that. When it comes to visuals you have to check whether it is already there. The visual representation often gets repeated. For me, it [being pre-empted] happened twice on the same day. So, the repetition of ideas does happen. But coming to a new idea is so agonizing. You have to create visuals and make them [the reader] understand. They will understand.

V. B. & V. V. How do you perceive the aesthetics of representation in political cartooning?

K. V. We always fit our idea into the story, not take a story and then fit it into the idea. Having a brilliant visual and then looking out for a story—it does not work that way. Your idea should fit into a story which the readers understand. The cartoons are like the phrases or pazhamozhikal [maxims]. It is like how your grandmother comes up with a two-liner which exactly fits the situation.

The principles of cartooning have evolved, over a period of time. Now even Panchatantra ²¹ is not being used. It is not barred but it has become stale as portraying characters in animal form; the reader gets offended. It was easy to use animals in cartooning because they do not change character. But now it has become a taboo. Remember, the two donkeys that appear on the mast head of Thuglak; ²² people used to take offence even to that. So, now, the visuals have become very sensitive. It is the same with every political leader— you cannot say whatever you want to say. Society itself has become very polarized and it has become very political. Everybody has become pro-this or anti-that. Make the point but in a more subtle way. Or, you will have to stand out and fight with different vested interests, which is never-ending. I have been cartooning for around 30 years. Things have changed over a period of time. We have criticized every government that came to power, but people often tend to ignore the fact of us being critical.

V. B. & V. V. How do you see the future of political cartooning as we have entered the digital age of trolls and memes?

K. V. This anti-establishment streak [in cartooning] will always be there. Maybe the form may change. From newspapers, people will graduate to the web. But still, it [cartooning] will be there because a person who wants to say something interesting will always be there. The truth is that avenues for cartooning have changed. The field of animation is emerging and, financially, it is more rewarding. But, regular newspaper cartooning is not like that. It is hard work for at least 10–15 years. You will not be paid well in the beginning. And it is for the love of cartooning one keeps at it for 10 years. That is the time it takes to groom a cartoonist. So you will have to push on and it needs persistence.

Conclusion

This freewheeling conversation with Keshav has traversed a gamut of topics that a political cartoonist negotiates on a daily basis. As a genre and as an increasingly endangered one, political cartoons are more linguistic (regional) in nature (Khanduri, 2014, p. 18) as every single frame presents a slice of myths, customs and habits of a particular nation/state or region, making it ‘ethnographic’ (Gopalakrishnan, 2014), and hence, the cartoonist is verily a cultural historian. An editorial cartoonist, adept at the ‘art of intervention’ ²³ (Devadawson, 2014, p. 1), wears many hats: as an artist, a journalist and a humorist. The chance to experiment with the visual is a Damoclean sword. The licence to cartooning comes with huge responsibility; even as one exposes the warts of the system; the sharpened pencil points must not poke persons or their public image.

A cartoonist like Keshav charges his pen every day to confront the sharp (sarcastic) and smooth (flattering) lines of visual political commentary. Though the cartoonist unfalteringly responds to the call by religiously choosing to be ethical, honest and direct in his commenting, he/she walks a tightrope with the career in perpetual jeopardy. Recognizing the place for protest in a developed society, Keshav is optimistic about the future of cartooning which he is sure will exist in one way or the other; perhaps the platforms for expression may change with time but the purpose of cartooning—of fluttering like a butterfly though stinging like a bee—will merrily continue even in the digital world of e-cartoons, trolls and memes.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.