That one page embodied entertainment for Malayalis for more than one generation. It was an age sans TV, comedy shows, mimicry or the new media, and no surprise, Bobanum Moliyum which appeared on the last page of Malayala Manorama Weekly became the weekly entertainment slot for the family. And Toms, the creator of the cartoon siblings, earned for himself a niche slot among the cartoonists.
“It was pure comedy though at times it slipped to slapstick variety,” says Raju Nair, cartoonist. However, he will be remembered for the creation of a peculiar structure for the cartoons, which has been copied several times,” he said.
At one level, the cartoon talked about the escapades of the two siblings. However, there was another layer where the supporting characters talked about and commented on concerns of middleclass social realities, providing a continuum for the strip.
Toms, alias V.T. Thomas, till his death, held on to the temperament of a rustic Kuttanadan farmer. And so were his characters, most whom he collected from real life. The two siblings were from his neighbour’s house in Kuttanad. Their father, a ‘non-practicing’ advocate, was modelled on a personal friend of his, who later left Kerala in search of a job only to return. The henpecked panchayat president and his imperious wife too were real life characters he picked up from his own village while the nameless political leader, a later addition, was a composite character.
Then there was Appy Hippy, his take on the rebel youth of the sixties and seventies. The person who provoked Toms for that character still lives in the town.
Says Sebastian Paul, who appeared for Toms in his legal battle with the management over copyright of the cartoons: “Toms was not a political cartoonist, but his cartoons were perfect political cartoons where he brought out the underlying politics of the social realities against the backdrop of the contemporary social milieu.”
He was the man who taught Malyalis the art of ‘reverse reading’ ‘(reading the weeklies from the last page to the first), Mr. Paul said. According to him, it was this underlying political satire in his cartoons which prompted the highly politicised Malyali reader to go first to the last page.
Says Mr. Nair: “Every new weekly started in the height of the “Ma Publication” spree wanted one cartoon strip modelled on the original. But now it is a new generation with a different perspective and temperament and a whole lot of new media the cartoon has to cater to. Only a new generation cartoonists and story providers will be needed to take these characters forward,” he said.
