VijayanPN at 09:34, 29 May 2026

2026-05-29T09:34:51Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 15:04, 29 May 2026
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			== Related Articles ==

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			{{ArticleCard\|Something-In-The-Air}}
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VijayanPN: VijayanPN moved page Submissions:Something-In-The-Air to Something-In-The-Air without leaving a redirect

2026-05-29T07:01:37Z

VijayanPN moved page Submissions:Something-In-The-Air to Something-In-The-Air without leaving a redirect

← Older revision		Revision as of 12:31, 29 May 2026
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VijayanPN: Created page with "{{EnglishArticle |display_name=Something in the Air? |author=Alan Moir |date=2005-02-24 |intro=Alan Moir's impressions on Kerala cartoonists and Kerala |content=Many foreigners visit India to `find themselves.' I had trouble finding the local railway stations. The cities are bubbling masses of buildings, people, cars, bicycles and animals. Colourful, everchanging, complex and bewildering for those of us from smaller, simpler societies. But easy for an Australian to tr..."

2026-05-26T11:44:09Z

Created page with "{{EnglishArticle |display_name=Something in the Air? |author=Alan Moir |date=2005-02-24 |intro=Alan Moir's impressions on Kerala cartoonists and Kerala |content=Many foreigners visit India to `find themselves.' I had trouble finding the local railway stations. The cities are bubbling masses of buildings, people, cars, bicycles and animals. Colourful, everchanging, complex and bewildering for those of us from smaller, simpler societies. But easy for an Australian to tr..."

New page

{{EnglishArticle
|display_name=Something in the Air?
|author=Alan Moir
|date=2005-02-24
|intro=Alan Moir's impressions on Kerala cartoonists and Kerala
|content=Many foreigners visit India to `find themselves.' I had trouble finding the local railway stations. The cities are bubbling masses of buildings, people, cars, bicycles and animals. Colourful, everchanging, complex and bewildering for those of us from smaller, simpler societies.

But easy for an Australian to travel as the main language is cricket. Even taxi drivers whose English may be limited to doubling the fare is fluent in test match statistics, ground conditions, Sachin's back problems and theories on how to defeat the `ozzies.'

It's a cartoonist's paradise.

I yearned to visit India after reading the novelist O V Vijayan's excellent autobiography, A Cartoonist Remembers, on his cartooning years and the difficulties faced by political cartoonists in an often corrupt developing society.

Then, as I met the Indian cartoonists, I began to realise the curious relationship to cartooning of the beautiful southern state of Kerala.

Kerala has about 3 percent of the population of India, yet the majority of major Indian cartoonists seem to have come from "God's own country," as Keralans describe their state.

The `father of Indian political cartooning' and mentor to so many, Shankar, was the first, but those who followed are a `Who's Who' of Indian cartooning. Names like Vijayan, Kutty, Abu, Samuel, Ravi Shankar and Unny, are nationally, some internationally, known, and there are many other cartoonists of the first order, such as Yesudasan, KP Thomas, KS Pilla and Gaffoor who decided to stay in Kerala.

I was fascinated by this exquisite tradition.

So I trekked south to Kochi, with a quick overnight stay up in the tea plantations of Munnar, speaking Waugh and Ganguly to the driver to keep him awake.

It may have been better if I'd gone to sleep, but try nodding off when there are hundred metre cliffs on one side, mountains on the other, a narrow winding road filled with pedestrians, goats, cows, pigs... and enormous carnivorous buses that don't slow through fear they may lose momentum. I'm used to wide, flat, empty, endlessly boring roads to nowhere, so wasn't prepared for the intensity, and of drivers being drawn to overtake on blind corners like a moth to a flame. And yet we were forever taken by the amazing patience and politeness of the drivers. In Australia, drivers tend to get road-rage if they see more that three vehicles in a day. But somehow the traffic, like the indescribably complex democracy of India, works. Forever breathtaking and bewildering, but it keeps moving.

Munnar, though, was the scene of a near-major accident. My wife and I stayed in a beautiful small hotel on a plantation just out of the town. There were only half a dozen guests, and waiters were very attentive, at breakfast offering a specially made Keralan rice roll. My wife declined, but the waiter looked so disappointed I accepted. Alanmoir But having already finished a large breakfast, I couldn't manage it, so whilst the waiter's back was turned I wrapped the steaming hot delicacy in a paper napkin, not enough as I was to learn, and pushed it into my trouser pocket. The waiter, delighted to see I had enjoyed it so much, offered me another, which I politely declined, my face grinning desperately in a painful grimace as the roll burnt into my leg like a Chernobyl core. Trying to get rid of it in the toilet without leaving telltale evidence of the crime was another error, as the parts disintegrated, but we won't go into that.
|thumbnail=Author-AlanMoir.jpg
|thumbnail_caption=Alan Moir
|image1=Culture-Something-1.jpg
|image1_caption=Sketch by Alan Moir
|image1_credit=Alan Moir
|image2=Culture-Something-2.jpg
|image2_caption=A Sketch by Alan Moir
|image2_credit=Alan Moir
|highlight1=The `father of Indian political cartooning' and mentor to so many, Shankar, was the first, but those who followed are a `Who's Who' of Indian cartooning
|highlight2=It may have been better if I'd gone to sleep, but try nodding off when there are hundred metre cliffs on one side, mountains on the other, a narrow winding road filled with pedestrians, goats, cows, pigs...
|category=Culture Arts & Cinema
}}

Something-In-The-Air - Revision history

VijayanPN at 09:34, 29 May 2026

VijayanPN: VijayanPN moved page Submissions:Something-In-The-Air to Something-In-The-Air without leaving a redirect