The last laugh is Sudhir Tailang’s

Sudhir Tailang was deeply suspicious of all authority. And he was completely unafraid. This is what made him India’s finest contemporary political cartoonist.

A career of over three decades was cut cruelly short by brain cancer on 6 February. Sudhir would have been 56 on February 26. He would have been brave to the end but he would not have failed to ask God why. It was an old trait, this challenging of authority, one that we his colleagues had experienced time and again.

He had an air of old Bikaner, where he was born and which remained in his heart. The years of drawing for various leading newspapers of the country had honed his paintbrush to a rapier point always seeking the tenderest spot, pricking, thrusting, never a wild slash. There was nuance but never so subtle that it would escape his audience. He could be gentle with his victim, and congratulatory very rarely, but when he wielded his brush like a weapon the ink could turn to blood. His was not an easy job, he would say. On his blog he repeated one of his favourite lines, that though he had to work very hard he could always count on the politicians to work for him full-time. Prime Ministers and Presidents would ask him for copies of his drawings of them. During the Kandahar hijack episode he drew Jaswant Singh in Taliban attire and, Sudhir said, the then minister, far from offended, sought the signed original. But my favourite was the one that showed Lalu Prasad Yadav, his hair like a pile of hay, looking around and saying "Fodder What fodder " That was classic Sudhir. He began with Indira Gandhi early in his career and thereafter spared no one. No subject was taboo and even an incomplete list of his assassinations would require a lengthy chargesheet.

Sudhir would have wanted us to find some humour even in his death. I have tried, unsuccessfully, for the better part of the day. Many artists are cut down in their prime but Sudhir would have known, as many of his breed do, that he would live in his work. He believed there were few real cartoonists left. Actually he was the last of them and by his death that special species can be pronounced extinct. We revelled in his fame for he belonged to us. God is laughing up there now that he has him for company. He will find out sooner than later that Sudhir Tailang is used to having the last laugh. Rest in peace, my friend.