Sunday, June 17, 2001		VIP Toon Tales

GIANI Zail Singh had invited newsmen to the Mughul Gardens of Rashtrapati Bhavan on July 23, 1987, two days before he laid down office as President. I, too, was there to draw his "sketch," portraying him with a rose in the buttonhole and a wide grin on his face. When he looked at it, he was rather nonplussed and commented that it did not bear too great a resemblance to him. When one of the journalists present explained to him that it was a cartoon and not a sketch, Gianiji smiled and prepared to place his signature with a couplet in Urdu on it. But before signing, he narrated a tale about cartoonists and their clever sleights of hand. "Ravana, the 10-headed ruler of Lanka, was really a man with the intelligence and wisdom of 10 men. Owing to this, some clever cartoonist of his time hit upon the idea of portraying him with 10 heads so, from an extremely wise man, Ravana came to be perceived as a monster and remained a monster for ever!"