Visual diaries

A set of five books that presents a unique and vibrant collection of Mario Miranda's creative explorations.

IN 2009, Architecture Autonomous came up with a classic compilation of Mario Miranda's work in different forms of visual chronicling. Titled Mario de Miranda, it successfully put together Mario's work visual diaries as he would like to call them ranging from the social and political to outdoor cartooning, and sketches of people, places and structures. The volume contained a concise introduction to his life and insightful analyses of the visual maestro's work. The publishers have now followed this up with a set of five books presenting a unique and vibrant collection of Mario's creative explorations.

The set has two titles dedicated to cartooning, Best Cartoons Book I and Best Cartoons Book II. Two other books present Mario's vision of Goa and Bombay (now Mumbai) and are titled as such. Yet another title, Travels, is dedicated to his journeys through 10 countries over a span of four decades.

Unlike Mario de Miranda, these five books do not have much text accompanying the cartoons and drawings. In other words, there is no navigational introduction or any studied analysis accompanying the visuals. In that sense, this is essentially a collection for the initiated, for the connoisseur, of the impressions of a visual diarist who took recourse to hand-drawn images as a means of self-expression. Avid followers of Mario or the art of drawing and cartooning in general can easily deduce the chronological flow in the compilation.

Cartoons Book I covers Mario's work from his early days, starting from those he drew as a young adult and at a more mature stage. Naturally, it begins with those inspired by Goa, its people, multidimensional culture and everyday life. The compilation's character evolves later and it moves on slowly to other parts of India, including Delhi and Bombay. In the process, the subjects also advance from everyday life to relationships and on to politics. Altogether there are 13 themed sections in Cartoons Book I, which cover Mario's favourite subjects such as women, liquor and prohibition, newspapers and reading, children, rain, and hair. Some of the early cartoons may invite criticism for their tendencies of misogyny or gender insensitivity. But, in a different sense, they can be seen as the manifestations of a cartoonist growing up.

Cartoons Book II moves on both geographically and thematically. It comprises mostly of Mario's cartoons abroad, with the world and its people as main characters. It also addresses areas such as the arts, law, health and food.

The majority of these cartoons would impart joy even to a casual observer. Most of them underscore the saying about a picture being more eloquent and meaningful than a thousand words.

There are many cartoons that transcend the limitations of time; for instance, the one depicting a politician getting worried about the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) presence in India. He looks up many a closet and covered space to unearth the CIA only to find a hooded Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) emerging out of a trunk. Another classic is where the artist draws a blank screen to emphasise that one can never run out of gimmicks.

The drawings in Travels highlight yet another aspect of Mario's craft: how a country, its geography, culture and people influence the visual diarist's sense of seeing and movement of the hand. As he travels through Europe and records his impressions, the many hues of the continent and its people come alive. The overpowering dullness of the German winter gives way to a sprightly, romantic life in Paris and then to history and artistic experimentation in Spain and Portugal. The perennial imperial hangover of England is juxtaposed with the verve and exuberance of American life.

At every location, Mario takes care to look at the changing landscapes through different times in history. This clearly points to the possibility of another thematic compilation that should link architectural structures and history.

As has been recorded repeatedly, there is a certain fondness that comes over Mario or rather takes him over when he looks at Goa, his ancestral place, and Bombay, where he grew up as a student and as a professional. The compilations on Goa and Bombay once again exemplify these traits. The seven chapters of Goa cover almost every observation of the place by Mario starting from his early drawings in the 1950s. The section titled Growing Up' is an interestingly illustrated social commentary on Goa, its people and culture.

Bombay is also in the genre of social commentary. And of course, Mario imparts greater value to that social perspective with his unparalleled drawing that can suffuse each small frame with a hundred and one things, including men, mind and matter. In every sense, these drawings celebrate Mario's skills of observation and sense of detail. Put simply, it is the art of capturing the essence of the metropolis with all its myriad qualities and aspects from living and working conditions to social life.

Mario's work, right from his younger days, has consistently addressed the problems, issues, challenges, potentialities and possibilities of everyday life and sought to understand them both from contemporary and historical frameworks. That is why many of his works transcend time and social and political confines. As the sociologist Ranjit Hoskote noted in a commentary on Mario: It is only in retrospect, when we have equipped ourselves with a wealth of annotation, that we can truly appreciate the crucial role that such images play in the production of opinion in a public sphere hemmed in by violent identity politics, official censorship and censorship by mob action. And when we leaf through the archive of a distinguished editorial artist such as Mario Miranda, we realise just how vital these images have been, in the production of a popular consciousness.

The sensibility that the present set of five books imparts is no different. They underscore the visual diarist's role in the development and evolution of popular consciousness. And the near absence of text in this collection does not take away anything from this central theme.