Category: Featured

Satirical Cartoons, Satirical Editorial

Life offers you more drama than any fiction can.

Sanjay, barely out of school, was supervising a screen-printing unit his cousin owned. He had had no formal training in any kind of art. However, his keen interest remained in reading, drawing, painting, creating toys and in sociopolitical issues. As luck would have it, he encountered a newspaper owner. Looking at Sanjay’s drawings, the newspaper owner offered Sanjay the role of a cartoonist for the newspaper that was to launch a week later.

A little apprehensive, albeit excited and curious, Sanjay worked for the week to develop a cartoon style for the newspaper. He brushed up his knowledge of politics and society in India at large. On the eighth day, the newspaper came out, the cartoon pinched the people and quickly became a favorite. The cartoon column Tazurba was set, Sanjay’s satire and illustration style started to mature and was delivered to people daily. The central character of the column was Tazurba, an educated bagger, top naked, wearing torn pyjamas, who made sharp comments about contemporary socio-political situations with the passersby. Bursting with sarcasm, humor and ideas, Sanjay soon started his handwritten weekly satirical editorial Gutargun.

Unique to this situation, the inherent need to quickly gather knowledge daily and to think on his feet made Sanjay a quick thinker, good planner, and a diligent worker. Over time, his cartoons were delivered to people in three daily newspapers. He had a successful three years of political cartoons with the newspapers, yet life was to take another turn.

Gold Medals in National Competitions (Inter University)

Radio silence is all Sanjay received having taken an entrance exam for the school leaver program in design from the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, India. To evade being in constant gaze of his dad, Sanjay enrolled himself for the Bachelor of Commerce at Jiwaji University, Gwalior. The daily pocket cartoon and weekly editorial had grown to establish Sanjay as a cartoonist and a political satirist.

In 1991, Sanjay represented Jiwaji University, Gwalior, at the East/North Zone Inter-University competition in Poster Design and Cartoons held at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi with his unstoppable passion for drawing. He won the gold medal in the competition. This was the first-ever gold medal for Jiwaji University in the past 15 years. This event led to more competition and kept adding gold to the history of Jiwaji University. Sanjay again represented Jiwaji University, Gwalior at the Inter-University National Youth competition in Poster Design and Cartoons held at Bhavnagar University, Bhavnagar and took the Gold.

In 1992, Sanjay brought another two gold medals to the Jiwaji University, Gwalior from the North Zone inter-University youth competitions in Poster Design and Cartoons organized at Nagpur University, Nagpur, India, and Inter-University National competitions in Poster Design and Cartoons held at Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai.

Gaining self-confidence from the above occurrences, Sanjay applied to the NID again after completing his Bachelor of Commerce.

Cartoon Exhibition

After publishing his daily pocket cartoon column for two years, Sanjay went to meet the then Railways Minister of Govt. of India, Shri Madhavrao Scindia, to request him to inaugurate a cartoon exhibition. The minister said “Sure, next week?” which set an ultimate deadline for Sanjay to draw and paint about 50 of his cartoons in calendar size, find a sponsor and venue, make, and send out invitations. A crazy week of preparation ensued.

All was done in a week’s time as the cabinet minister reached the gallery’s door. Sanjay stumbled and ran to stand next to the minister in his dirty denim and originally white shirt. However, Sanjay had forgotten to arrange for a pair of scissors for the minister to cut the ribbon. He ran to the gallery’s garden to fetch a large pair of Gardening Scissors, which invited a burst of laughter from the assembled crowd. The exhibition ran for four days at Kala Vithika, Gwalior.

(Sadly, no pictures of those events are available except scans of some of those cartoons)

Master’s in communication design (MDes.) Specialization in Animation Film Design

At his second attempt, Sanjay got as far as an interview for admission at the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad for the ‘school-leavers’ (five years) program despite holding graduation in commerce. Seeing his creative work and academics the institute offered him a ‘Post Graduate Diploma’ (a 2.5-year program) course interview as well. He was interviewed for the PGD in a week and offered both seats to choose from. “What if we gave you admission in School Leavers and not in the Post Graduate course? You’d lose 2.5 years.” asked the interviewer. “I can live those extra years later,” said Sanjay. This led everyone to stand up and applaud Sanjay, who, before leaving the interview room, knew he was getting to do Post Graduate Diploma, specializing in Animation Film Design. (This was soon changed into a master’s degree.)

Sanjay joined PDG and the journey put him in transition from a cartoonist, and known political influencer to a design student, and a designer later. A completely new world fell open to Sanjay at NID for his intellectual being and for his professional skill. Due to financial pressures, Sanjay couldn’t have spent any additional semester’s fee. He worked diligently to finish the course in two years and two months. (Four months prior)

Courses taken: Sketching, drawing for animation, Basic animation, Character Design, Storytelling, storyboarding, sound design, animation to sound, Design Process, History of Design, Elective course with Channel V, Industrial training, pre diploma project, Diploma Project.

Corporate Identity, Photography, Brochures and pamphlets

To make ends meet and to afford the increasing cost of stationery, Sanjay also started to take up part-time freelance professional work while studying at NID. He worked for Mahila Samakhya Gujarat, a women’s group working to improve livelihood of women in Gujrat by providing different livelihood training such as weaving, handicraft products, etc. He went around the villages of Gujarat with the women’s group team in his spare time to observe and photograph the activities at the actual sites. Based on the images, he came up with an earthy brochure and a logo for this organization.

Promotional Film for Channel [V]

This project was a part of an elective course where students worked with the industry at NID campus. The creative team of Channel [V] had a briefing session about the channel and assigned students to produce ten promotional videos for the Channel [V]. Two of Sanjay’s concepts were amongst the ten selected out of fifty such concepts. Sanjay produced one of the two selected concepts and used cel animation to create the promo.

The film starts with a cave painting. One of the stick figures comes alive and shoots its spear at the animal. At the collision, the animal’s bone makes a [V] shape with the spear.

Indigenous Media- Project Lead

A drastic turn of events had Sanjay competing with 300 candidates and being interviewed amongst five by the Ford Foundation to leads its pilot Indigenous Media Project in five Greater Himalayan countries. In two months’ time, Sanjay had to disassemble his established life and don the cap of a Development Professional, with pleasure, of course.

With the onset of New Media (i.e., usage of television, computers, and mobile phones) the communities were broadly beginning to be divided into haves and have-nots. Simply put, those with access to electricity and these new gadgets were at the front line of receiving new and useful information. However, those without access to electricity and new gadgets, most of whom were already illiterate or semi-literate, were increasingly being left behind. In effect, on the one hand, the world was developing leaps and bounds, and on the other, a large section of the underdeveloped population was being pushed back into the dark ages. Waiting for this section of the community to become literate and/or have access to new media would further widen the void. This alarming void needed to be addressed urgently.

Aimed at improving communication methodologies between knowledge generators and knowledge seekers in the Greater Himalayan region, the project was to examine and promote the use of traditional media for passing on relevant agriculture and livelihood-related information to grassroots communities. Indigenous Media being a pilot project, Sanjay needed to exercise careful judgement in selecting project sites and partners that could provide representative samples of the regions of the Greater Himalayan region. Cultural attitudes, languages, currently used Indigenous Media and capabilities of local NGOs and institutions, were the basis for selecting partners and sites.

Having selected appropriate partners, and visiting each of the project partners in India, Nepal and Bangladesh, Sanjay trained partners in creating Indigenous Media prototypes, visual communication, composition, storytelling, entertainment, problem-solving, acting, puppet making, prop making and directing and producing presentations disseminating livelihood and agriculture-related messages and processes.

Violence Against Women and Girls in South Asia- Interactive Digital Program

In 2004, the United Nations Secretary-General’s Study on Violence against Children estimated that every year between 41 and 88 million children in South Asia witnessed violence at home – the highest regional total in the world. Evidence also showed that half of the world’s child brides lived in South Asia, and around 44 million children were engaged in child labour in the region. Sexual abuse and exploitation, as well as child trafficking and corporal punishment, were also the major concerns for countries in South Asia.

This interactive CDROM is aimed at training the local officers of UNICEF in understanding, preventing and /or helping the traumatized victims. The project required Sanjay to sensitize himself to the gender issues in Asia. He took extreme care with the kind of photographs published, and the interactivity in CDROM was simple considering the diverse age groups and cultural sensitivities of users and the quality of computers available to the trainers.

BeeCause- Street Theatre, Object Animation

Aimed at improving communication methodologies between knowledge generators and knowledge seekers in the Greater Himalayan region, the project was to examine and promote the use of traditional media for passing on relevant agriculture and livelihood-related information to grassroots communities. Indigenous Media being a pilot project, Sanjay needed to exercise careful judgement in selecting project sites and partners that could provide representative samples of the regions of the Greater Himalayan region. Cultural attitudes, languages, currently used Indigenous Media and capabilities of local NGOs and institutions, were the basis for selecting partners and sites.

To showcase the effective use of indigenous media to disseminate complex scientific processes and matters, Sanjay built a team of young talented college students and wrote, designed, storyboarded, choreographed a street theatre production ‘BeeCause’.

Sanjay trained the team in acting, puppet playing and puppet making. Emphasis was given to the fact that these productions were also to be replicated in impassable villages of the Greater Himalayan region; thus, producing these with minimal use of props and ensuring that the props were to be easily sourced locally. The production was designed such that each member of the team got to play each role on a rotation basis, i.e., the lead actor became the director the next day and the accountant the next day and so on. This ensured total focus of the team and ensured the smooth running of the production in case of any member’s absence.

This creative technique also trained each member to go to several villages and be able to reproduce the theatre all by themselves with the help of local talent and resources.

Another pioneering technique of animating the props to impart otherwise technically complex processes was used for this presentation.

ICIMOD Silver Jubilee Poster Designs

With rapid population growth, economic development, urbanization, high rates of out-migration, and consequent feminization of rural activities, the Greater Himalayan region has experienced huge changes in the past years. In particular, the mountains have gained greater attention as hotspots for climate change. These changes pose challenges to traditional livelihood strategies and coping mechanisms. At the same time, the mountains have been widely recognized for the ecosystem services they provide. ICIMOD Nepal has been working to enable sustainable and resilient mountain development for improved and equitable livelihoods through knowledge and regional cooperation.

On the silver jubilee of ICIMOD’s existence, a series of posters depicting the areas of ICIMOD’s efforts to bring safety and better incomes to the people of the Greater Himalayas were created by Sanjay.