Cartoonist Kutty - An unforgettable name among cartoonists

Today, Friday, October 28, 2011, morning the body of the famous Kerala born cartoonist Kutty's body will be cremated at Madison, USA. He died at Madison on last Friday, in his son Narayanan's hous. A representative of Kerala Cartoonist Academy will be present at the funeral function. As per his wish the ashes will be immersed in the Madison lake.

Kutty was born at Ottapalam in Palakkad district in the year 1921. His parents were Narayana Menon and Lakshmi. Puthukkodi Kottuthodi Sankaran Kutty is known as 'Kutty' among the public. He did his schooling at Ottapalam and had higher education at Malabar Christian college of Kozhikkode. The education period in this college actually helped him to come into the lime light as a cartoonist. Famous Malayalam satirist M. R. Nair (popularly known as 'Sanjayan') was teaching English in that college, who noticed Kutty's interest in drawing cartoons, and encouraged him.

Later when Sanjayan started working with a cartoon magazine 'Viswaroopam' (published by Mathrubhumi), he invited Kutty to join him (by that time Kutty had completed his education at Christian College). But Kutty's father wanted his son to go for a Government job. So he had to leave 'Viswaroopam' to go to Delhi to take up a job there which he got with the recommendation of late V.P. Menon (Private Secretary of the first Home Minister of India, Sardar Vallabhabhai Patel). He got acquainted with the famous cartoonist Shankar through V.P. Menon. This helped him to get closer to Jawaharlal Nehru. He started publishing cartoons for Nehru's 'National Herald' and joined the National Herald as its first cartoonist.
Kutty became famous through National Herald and Shankar's Weekly because of his political cartoons. He became very close to all the senior journalists of that period.

When the publication of National Herald was stopped he had to come back to his native place. Since he was not having a job he started publishing cartoons in Tamil News papers published from Madras. Later from there he moved to Bombay and slowly joined 'Hindustan Times'. He started drawing sports cartoons also during this time.

Again after a break he left for Delhi to join 'News Chronicle' and subsequently to 'Hindustan Standard'. He continued his connection with Shankar's weekly. Again he joined 'Hindustan Times' and later 'Indian Express'. Some of his cartoons appeared in 'Hindustan Times' were published by 'Newyork Times' , which made him popular outside India also. In 1951 he joined the 'Anand Bazar' group at Kalkotha and continued there drawing cartoons in all their publications for about 35 years. There after he worked with 'Aajkal' for a short period and stopped drawing cartoons in the year 2001. He left India and lived with his son in USA till his death.

There was an interesting news about his death. In an English news paper published from Kolkotha, a front page news in bold letters appeared on 4th April, 2005 showing that cartoonist Kutty was dead. It was a shock for the news paper readers and his lovers of West Bengal. The next day 'Aajkal' published Kutty's own clarification and a self caricature drawn by him to substantiate that he was still alive.

He has published his biography titled "Chiriyute Samvalsarangal, Oru Cartoonistinte Smaranakal" (Years of laughter, Memories of a Cartoonist). Kutty married Gowri in the year 1957 and have two children.