SAJJIV BALAKRISHNAN-CARTOONIST

SAJJIV BALAKRISHNAN-

CARTOONIST & CARICATURIST

Sajjive Balakrishnan, assistant commissioner of income tax in the city, has thus sketched more than 35,000 people of various nationalities and the number is growing at a steady pace with at least 20 new caricatures a day.Two Onams before, the heavyweight cartoonist (whose email signature, 120, denotes his body mass) created a record by drawing full-body caricatures of 651 people in a 12-hour cartoon odyssey.Named Uthradapachil — indicative of the day before Thiruvonam when households get into a tizzy to make eleventh hour arrangements for the grand feast — the mission won him an entry into the Limca Book of Records. On Saturday, a day before this year’s Thiruvonam week , Chief Minister Oommen Chandy will honour the cartoonist at a function held by Kerala Cartoon Academy at Thrikkakara Municipal Town Hall. Union and State ministers and social figures will attend the event.

The cartoonist, who had a rather ‘colourless’ childhood at Pariyaram, is indebted to his father, a farmer, for letting him draw with charcoal doodles on the walls of his 130-year-old ancestral home. He learnt from everyone around him, from the local barber to village folks, and had formal training at the Santhanu’s Chitra Vidyalayam, Chennai.His first cartoon got published in 1976, when he was in 6th Standard, and after he won several prizes for cartoon at the university level, it became a serious preoccupation. Sajjive’s job at the income tax department launched him into a world of ‘speed caricaturing’, as time was at a premium.Thus began his journey as a one-minute caricaturist drawing full-body cartoons live. Sajjive got a shot in the arm when the IT department threw its weight behind this ‘heaviest cartoonist in India’, as he calls himself. Besides sponsoring his record-making cartoon odyssey in 2010, it also invited him over as special guest at their national festivals. When he was selected to do a three-month orientation course at the National Academy of Direct Taxes, he caricatured almost everybody there, from the NADT chief down to the daily wage workers and uploaded all of it on three blogs.

He also has a solo exhibition of caricatures held in the city over a decade ago to his credit. “Gurutwam (blessings of teachers) is what has helped me right through,” says Sajjive, who regales his subjects (he calls them victims) with situational and self-deprecating humour.An avid blogger, he is a regular at schools to caricature children. Apart from his Malayalam blogs with humorous stories and caricatures, Sajjive currently operates a blog featuring his one-minute caricatures,www.1minutecaricatures.blogspot.com.A music buff married to a playback singer, Sajjive is currently secretary of the Cartoon Academy. He yearns to be a cartoon evangelist accessible to everyone, especially differently-abled children. Cartoon Academy secretary

Prof. John Kurakar