Until a couple of weeks ago, the walls of Al-Saj Recreation Centre in Kochi were plain and a boring shade of white. But they don't look the same now. Instead, the walls now boast the graffiti of 100 women cartoon characters — the ones whose pictures were etched in our memories years ago.
The graffiti was created by 13 students of Union Christian College, Aluva, under the mentorship of cartoonist Ibrahim Badusha on Women's Day 2020. "This Women's Day is all about granting equal rights to men and women and I wanted to do something different this year to spread that message. That was when I noticed how there is a dearth of women cartoonists and cartoon characters, in general. So, I wanted to conduct this event to pay tribute to all the women of the cartoon world, both fictional and real," he says.
The wall also has drawings of a few notable Malayalam cartoon characters like Mahakshemadevi, Molly, Ponnamma Superintendent and Mrs Nair. Apart from that, there are also cartoons by women cartoonists Manjula Padmanabhan and Maya Kammath. "We came up with this idea after a lot of research. Interestingly, that was when I noticed how even noted cartoonists like RK Laxman never gave much prominence to women in his cartoons," says Badusha.
"We then went ahead and trained a few students of UC College. There are a lot of talented students out there who have great potential to become well-known cartoonists. However, not many are ready to come to the mainstream. I hope that this changes soon," he concludes.
