A great cartoonist and I

Shri Reboti Bhusan Ghosh (1921 – 2007) was one of the great Indian cartoonists from the golden era of satirical cartoons. He was most well-known for his animal cartoons. He was the youngest pupil of Abanindranath Tagore. His cartoons impressed the famous cartoonist Shankar Pillai so much that he brought Reboti Bhushan to Delhi and made him the senior artist at Children’s Book Trust. The young artist from Bali in the Hooghly district of West Bengal spent the prime of his career, around 25 years, in Delhi as a regular cartoonist for various newspapers and magazines such as Sachitra Bharat, Dainik Yugantar, Dainik Basumati, Krishok, Jugantar, and Satya Yug where he mostly drew political satires. He was also an illustrator for the Bengali animation film “Michke Potash” (the character of a rat) made in the 1940s. He has designed book covers and illustrated stories by many well-known authors. He returned home to Bali in the later part of his life and started cartooning for The Statesman, The Times of India, etc. He was not only a cartoonist but also a poet, a writer, and a singer. He often created his cartoons and poems together, making one inseparable from the other.

I did not know any of this when I first met him. One morning, in the year 1997, during my first year of college, as I was preparing to go out, my father told me that an exhibition by a very famous cartoonist was going on, and that it would be worthwhile to go and see it. This was Reboti Bhusan’s first solo exhibition in Kolkata, being held at the Academy of Fine Arts. I had no idea what was awaiting me when I made a casual visit to the Academy that evening. There were very few visitors in the gallery when I entered it with a friend. The hall was almost empty. An elderly couple were sitting in front of a table in the middle of the room, surrounded by framed cartoons, mostly in black and white, a few in colour. Bold and easy lines rendered mostly animal and some human cartoons. They included political satires, as well as simple humorous drawings, caricatures with poems, and so on. I had never seen anything like these before, especially the animal cartoons. His works were completely different from the cartoonists I was used to — Chandi Lahiri, R. K. Laxman, Debabrata Chakraborty, Mario Miranda, etc. One distinctive feature (shared with R. K. Laxman) was the use of brush rather than pen, a rarity among cartoonists.

Thrilled and satisfied with the exhibition, I was about to leave when the elderly man caught me at the door. He showed me a comments book and requested me to put down my name, number, and comments. It was only then that I realised that he was the great artist himself! After we had signed our names and expressed how much we liked the exhibit, he did not let us leave and continued to chat with us over tea. He was particularly interested in knowing how a couple of young girls like us happened upon his exhibition; whether we came there by chance, or whether we were there specifically because it was his exhibition. Seeing the bewilderment in our eyes, he smiled and said, “Oh! I don’t usually get to meet people from your generation and I didn’t think anyone of your age knew me or any of my cartoons.”

Indeed, he was a regular newspaper cartoonist much before our time, and was active mostly in Delhi. The interaction over tea was an enriching experience. He narrated various stories about his life and work, and learned about us with utmost interest. I was overwhelmed by the simplicity, spontaneity, and accessibility of such a great personality.

Since then we have shared many short but precious moments together in book fairs, little magazine fairs, and on the telephone. The great artist, with his child-like excitement and fresh romanticism, used to talk about how the flowers bloomed in his garden, how the rain fell, and how the sun energised life on earth. At the time, I was interested in becoming an artist myself. I had a few productions of frescoes and posters that I had done professionally. I was quite elated when he expressed his keen interest in seeing those works, and planned to come to Kolkata from Bali, where he lived. Unfortunately for me, that trip never materialised.

Reboti Bhusan’s cartoons were almost always accompanied by poems. He wrote as effortlessly as he drew while sitting and conversing casually. In the midst of book-fair crowds, at little magazine stalls, he used to take paper napkins and draw cartoons and write poems on them for me as naturally as he would greet me. I learned later that he had interacted with Nandolal Bose when in Shantiniketan, and disagreed with his notion that good quality paper was a prerequisite for creating good art. Reboti Bhusan did not need elaborate preparations for his work. He sketched on anything he could put his hands on, from laundry bills to paper napkins; such was the force of his creativity and talent. He was always impatient about capturing all that he saw and liked. Observing him at work always reinforced the sense that his creations were an integral part of what he believed, felt, and lived.

He was a great man beyond his identity as a great artist. A romantic at heart to whom the journey of life was more important than where it took him, he was thrilled by each new dawn and every new season. He quoted Rabindranath most often for expressing his feelings, and also loved the poets of the “Kallol Jug” — the post-Rabindranath period of Bengali poetry.

Reboti Bhusan was also an exceptionally humble man with a lot of politeness and modesty in his approach — our generation has not learned such ways of life. Today I often feel that I had been too young when I met him to appreciate him fully and make the most of this acquaintance.