An Illustrator called Super Mario

Mario Miranda, who for so many years captured the vignettes of Indian life and polity passed away today leaving a void that of an great artist,cartoonist whose characteristics Mario had imbibed in his repertoire as a painter.He along with RK Lakshman were the finest in their field atleast in an Indian context and I have always enjoyed what they have sketched whether it being Times of India or the erstwhile Illustrated Weekly of India. I still haven't understood why B&C had to shut down the Weekly 19 winters ago. I am sure space wasn't the reason. Mario, like any seasoned cartoonist was sensitive to societal happenings and instantly sketched the context through his characters - Who can forget the immortalised "stereotypical images of the Anglo-Indian secretary Miss Fonseca, actress Rajni Nimbopaani or the Catholic girl Petrification Pereira" week after week in the Illustrated Weekly. Those were the days when laying hands on a new magazine like the Weekly, Sunday, Blitz or the Caravan meant you had access to the latest in the world of journalism and bi-partisan news. I was, as a high school  kid inculcated into reading these at the (CFTRI) Food Research Institute Gymkhana in Mysore while my father played endless hours of table tennis with his colleagues from the scientific fraternity. Table tennis with hot tea and bajjis during breaks and the Weekly defined a typical rainy evening when you couldn't go to the 2 clay courts to play tennis. These were the years that growing up meant reading up a lot as television was still nascent and it was easy to follow such icons who would be heroes until probably Sachin Tendulkar,Shahrukh Khan and the likes came to the scene.  Following Behramji 'BusyBee' Contractor (Free Press Journal and later the Mid Day), MV Kamath, Pritish Nandy, Mario Miranda, Khushwanth Singh and Anil Dharkar (Illustrated Weekly), The ever controversial Russy Karanjia (Blitz) and Vir Sanghvi (The Sunday) was a regular habit then in the limited window I had to the media world. 
With the passing of every stalwart from that era only brings fond and nostalgic memories. It was only last week when the ever young Dev Anand passed away. 2011 has already taken away a lot of artists..While tributes are pouring for Mario, the best one was probably from a tweet  "After a singer, painter, actor, photographer, art director and filmmaker, God needed an illustrator in the heaven of 2011!"


Living in Germany these days, the Mario painting that comes to mind in the German winter is the Floh Markt (flea Market) from the collection 'Germany in Winter'. More on the Floh Market experience sometime soon

The Flea Market - Winter in Germany, Mario Miranda

RIP Mario, You will be missed.