Photo: Ashoke Chakrabarty

WITH A MESSAGE: Visitors taking a look at cartoons in Bhubaneswar on Monday.

BHUBANESWAR: Their innocence and humility belies the fact that these three youths have the guts to take on the mighty politicians, industrialists, modern day gurus, MNCs, NGOs and even mediapersons. Of course through their cartoons.

From American President George Bush to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and from the World Bank to the Korean steel major POSCO and the Nithari serial killer, they have spared none.

They are city-based software developers Soumya Dev and Jeetu Ranjan Hota and their painter friend Sarasi Das, all in their early 20's, who have put up an exhibition of their combined work at the Lohia Academy here that has stirred up the minds of the social activists. They are showing seeds of change through the art of cartoons.

Software developers

"None of us ever planned to put up a show like this. As friends, we often used to deliberate different issues that concern our lives and society at large. We were looking for a medium to express our agony and concerns when cartoons came to our mind. As Sarasi was a trained artist and both Jeetu and me were software developers, we helped her with computer graphics. It took us one and a half years to develop our skills," revealed Soumya, son of professor Birendra Nayak, a known social activist of the state. The trio have named their forum as `Aaltu Faltu".

While Soumya and Jeetu Ranjan conceived the ideas, Sarasi, alumnae of the prestigious Khallikote College of Art, crafted the cartoons.

"Initially it was quite difficult for me to draw cartoons with computers as I was not trained in both cartoon drawing and computers. But we three had the determination to do it this way," said the shy girl whose works have shown signs of maturity.

"We owe a lot to the `Samadrushti' magazine that regularly carried our cartoons and helped us to mount an exhibition here on the occasion of their silver jubilee issue's release celebration," Soumya acknowledged.

Several political cartoons apart, the collection of 81 cartoons, include an interesting section on India's modern day ad, corporate, yoga, management and spiritual gurus as great hairstyle managers. In another section, their satire shows how vultures announce `health is wealth' signifying the money spinning business in the health sector.

And the trio have even made sharp criticism of journalists of the state who flew to Korea on POSCO's invitation in one of their cartoons on media today.

"We will publish these cartoons in shape of a book soon. It will be released during the ensuing Bhubaneswar book fair," informed Jeetu Ranjan, the Aaltu Faltu Publications partner.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail