Sudhir Dar

Meet Mr sudhir Dar, my inspiration, the cartoonist par excellence

Sudhir Dar [14 May 1932- 26 November 2019] was an Indian cartoonist and illustrator.

Born

14 May 1932

Allahabad

Died

26 November 2019 [aged 87] Noida, UP, India

Years active

1961-2019

Sudhir Dar, who was of Kashmiri descent, was born in 1932 in Allahabad to Krishna Prasad Dar and Rummy Dar. He earned a master's degree in geography from Allahabad university. He was fascinated with humor, particularly British and American humor, from a very young age. Growing up during the War years, it was the age of British Raj and there were a huge number of British and American ships stationed in India. To keep the troops entertained, there were a huge number of musicals, comedy programmes and theatricals to give them a feeling of home. He was only in his teens and for him, that was a goldmine - a vast trove of British and American humor. He read copies of "Punch" and "Saturday Evening post" [a fine family magazie from the United States, replete with the best of Americana] - both full of fine stories, humor and of course, cartoons. That's how it all began, simply through radio and magazines. He was greatly influenced by Shankar, who was a political cartoonist at the Hindustan Times. He found his work very fascinating. All these factors drew him into cartooning and then it was virtually a lifetime in cartooning.

 He worked in All-India Radio in the late fifties as an announcer and there he met the News Editor of "The Statesman" who had come for a talk. During the talk, he drew a portrait sketch of the News Editor. He looked at the portrait sketch and said "Why, you have made me look almost handsome". This culminated in his joining "The Statesman" a couple of weeks later. He proceeded to work in "the Statesman" from 1961 to 1967 and created a wordless cartoon series called "Out Of My Mind" which appeared every morning. Anyone can be funny with words but the true test of a cartoonist is to be funny without word. Incidentally, "Out Of My Mind" ran for seven years! The series moved to Page 1 after six months.   

He jointed "Hindustan Times" in 1967. Thus began a 22-year stint, drawing seven pocket cartoons and three political cartoons a week. After HT, he moved on to "The Independent" in Bombay where he worked for a couple of years. Then Vinod Mehta, the editor of "The Pioneer" called him and lured him back to Delhi. He was with "The Pioneer" from 1991 to 1998. After this he joined the "Delhi Times" for a year and then called it a day for cartooning after a career spanning forty years.

  

  

click here to read more about Sudhir Dar

click here to see the video of Sudhir Dar

Below are four of my creations:

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Cartooning terminology

There are a lot of different definitions of different terminologies in cartooning. What I could make out from various options available is

as under :

Illustration : A drawing used to explain something that is happening, usually without feelings.

Cartoon : A drawing with feelings, usually humorous or satirical in  nature.

Comics : A series of still images, ususally accompanied by text, coveying happenings and feelings.

Animation : An art of making a series of inanimated images in an illusion of movement.

Caricature : An illustration of a person drawn in an exaggerated style, to show up distinctive features

Below I showcase two of my cartoon creations:

A Cartoonist is born

During the lockdown due to corona virus pandemic, one day I casually asked my wife about the timing of dyeing of our grey hair and called out to her, asking "When is the time to dye?"  I suddenly realised, the sentence, although sounding the same, carried an altogether different meaning if I put it as " When is the time to die?", especially in the time of Corona Pandemic. A thought flashed in my mind that why not put it down in the shape of a cartoon. Although I am a Radiologist, dealing with images of different kinds viz. X-rays, Ultrasound and CT scans, I had never ever drawn a cartoon prior to this, in my life. I took the help of few images available on the internet and voila " A CARTOONIST WAS BORN" on 03.05.2020. My first cartoon creation is pictured below: