How to say goodbye to your best buddy

What can you say when you lose your best buddy — that the void will never ever be filled for none has walked that path with you or been a witness to your life — as much as you have been to his As an incorrigible latecomer he would often joke that people have started calling him the late Sudhir Tailang Today when the witty quip has become a reality, I wish he had never uttered those words. Words have a horrible habit of coming back to haunt you by becoming a reality.

It is difficult for me to even think about him in the past tense — even though God did give us preparation time, for Sudhir battled repeated onslaughts of brain tumour for almost a year and a half. Yet all of us around him hoped against hope for a miracle to happen that didn’t and exactly 20 days before his 56th birthday the boatman came for him.

My mind is a flood of memories as it is bound to be when you have been closely associated with someone for over 25 years. The one thing about him that was so special and stood head and shoulders above everything in his persona was his wit. He was one of the wittiest people I can think of and one could never even hope to get the better of him as far as wordy repartee went. I didn’t even try – why fight losing battles His entire work centered around his wit, humour, satire and of course his pithy drawing. He was an educated person and as an English literature master his wit harked back to the typical British understatement and quick repartee.

He was my one stop-shop for a very balanced political analysis — well before I even got up — he would have read the papers and if I needed any information I could safely call and he would have it all on his fingertips. This balanced analysis and ability to call a spade a spade in a rather tongue-in-cheek manner made him a darling of current affairs shows on television. And some days he was on so many shows that he would say — mujhe aapni overdose ho gayi hai! (I am suffering from an overdose of myself). This ability to laugh at himself was evident even on operating table where he told the doctor: You are the only one who can claim to have seen the inside of a cartoonist’s head!

We did a book together Pathfinders — Artistes of One World where he caricatured the international artistes that I had interviewed including greats like Pina Baush, Philip Glass, Marcel Marceau, Ahmad Faraz among others. I believe that this was one of his finest works — for he was able to peek into the very souls of these artistes to capture and highlight their persona, some even without meeting them.

I wrote the preface to a couple of his cartoon collections and over the years there has hardly been a group show that that I have curated in which Sudhir’s work did not feature in some form — as drawings, caricatures or cartoons. The last group show that I had curated too featured his drawings from Germany. It turned out to be Sudhir’s last show.

He used to call his cartoons visual editorials. “If you have nothing to say, you cannot say it well. It is the wit behind the cartoon, the point of view that you are putting across, that is the heart and soul of every fine cartoon. The drawing part is important, but the point-of-view is where the magic lies. A good idea can survive a not-so-great drawing, but a poor idea cannot cut through even with a superb design. The words complement the visuals to create a context and a story. Incidentally, the best cartoons are the ones without any words.”

His academic background and intense conviction in his art form made him take cartooning as a serious form of political and social dissent and he made quite a few films on the subject that are educative and have been shown extensively. He held the legendary cartoonist Abu Abraham in great esteem and had made a short film on him too.

At the rate of seven cartoons a week, he drew thousands of cartoons and caricatures in the past three decades of professional cartooning. Sudhir had worked with The Illustrated Weekly and other The Times Group publications, Indian Express, The Hindustan Times. His last job was with The Asian Age and The Deccan Chronicle. He was awarded the Padma Shri for his contribution to the art of Cartooning and Journalism.

He leaves a vast body of work behind him that makes for a great serious study on the art of cartooning and political dissent. A genuinely clean person with a great sense of freedom and a liberal, Sudhir lived life responsibly — he was a strict vegetarian, non-smoker, teetotaler and loved walking and would constantly upbraid me for my weight.

Sudhir’s personal charm endeared him to all and made him a darling of all those he met and his humour and genuineness made sure that he was remembered fondly.

It seems like yesterday that he was singing Alla Jaleela Bai’s popular Maand Kesariya Balam Padharo Mahre Desh The kesariya bana has indeed padharoed to the next world and the rang majitha — a hue of red mixed with saffron peculiar to the Thar desert — has turned a shade deeper as it mourns its illustrious son Dr Alka Raghuvanshi is an art writer, curator and artist and can be contacted on alkaraghuvanshi@yahoo.com Alka Raghuvanshi