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| By Santosh H K Narayan |
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Friday, August 15, 2008 (16:18:29) |
| Tags : Global Warming, Cartoon, Irfaan Khan, Environment |
Cartooning Global Warming to a solution |
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New Delhi: Deteriorating health of mother earth, rendered precarious, by her own children has been and should be a matter of concern for all of us. The matter has also been addressed at various levels ranging from social to political. But can the issue also be portrayed through cartoons? Of course, yes. Noted cartoonist Irfaan Khan has come up with the noble idea. Irfaan's collection of cartoons made on the burning issue of Global Warming is on display in the Capital.
Is it a subject change for him? "I don't think, it is so. We have been attached directly with the problem of people and have been expressing our views over a range of issues. Be it politics or anything. I thought the issue of Global Warming is the most relevant for the society," says Irfaan.
Wildlife and threat to animal life have rarely been a subject of cartoon depiction, but a few cartoons of Irfaan give enough food for thought. An Irfaan's caricature, the term he prefers for his cartoons, portrays a tiger with its cub looking at a city, saying "these are the areas where we used to roam," expresses the necessity and his sensitivity to maintain an ideal balance between growth, mindless and unidirectional, and development - sustainable and all round.
"When I came to know that leopards were attacking humans in their homes, I was amazed. Then my wife told me that these areas must have been jungles in the past. This was the inspiration of that cartoon (tiger and cub thinking about their past home)," he says.
The cartoonist believes in problem solving approach and his creations truly replicate the gloomy picture of future along with the possible solutions. In another marvellous piece of artistic news, he floats the innovative idea to save fuel and curb pollution generated by indiscriminate use of cars. The caricature shows an empty bus stop adjacent to a crowed 'car pool' stop. The message is clear and straight. Abandon the fad for big cars particularly in the respect of the bacterial growth of the four wheelers making the roads look shrinking.
But, in a world which is going in fast lanes of mindless and one point-prosperity, Where the idea of promoting awareness on Global Warming come from? "I was invited by a firm in Tokyo to make cartoons on the issue. It was for South-East Asian countries. Thailand, Indonesia, Japan and China along with India were other participants. They gave me a project to make 10 cartoons on the topic of Global Warming. Then I realised the gravity of the issue and worked extensively on it," he said.
Less read but having great impact on thoughts and acts, the cartoons, feels Irfaan, can stir not only the policy-makers and intelligentsia but the common man as well. He also hopes that his works would be able to turn people's attention towards the inevitability of protection of environment and ecology. He expresses confidence of creating a generation of environmentally active people who would contribute their part in bringing the nature back to nature.
"Thinking about the environment is just like picking up some habits in day to day life, like saving water, switching off lights when there is no need and use of fuel judiciously. Politicians should also take this issue on the priority basis," he appeals.
 | | Cartoonist Irfaan at the exhibition |
But, the cartoonist and environment activist at heart, feels that the media, his own profession by the very dint of it, has not played its part in securing future of the planet. He says, "Media has preferred sensational news to sensational issues," adding, "I hardly saw any media glare at environment related events. I had sent several messages to my media friends but two or three channels came to attend the (ongoing) exhibition. Should I make nude cartoons to attract media attention?"
Issues as important and sensitive as Global Warming, which is going to be the key to the existence of humankind itself, should certainly find some space not only on papers but also in our behaviour and action. And, cartoons, of course, have the potential to simmer all these with its lighter taste. |
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