Courtesy: Daily News and Analysis

May 16, 2007

Cartoonist Mario Miranda on idyllic Goa, meeting Charles Schulz and dealing with the the moral police.

His harassed grandmother had gifted him a blank book to draw cartoons instead of allowing further ‘damage’ to the walls of their ancestral home in Loutolim, Goa.

Decades later, Mario Joao Carlos do Rosario de Britto Miranda - or just Mario Miranda, if you will - must have laughed at life’s irony when he was formally invited to kindly do some signature ‘damage’ to the landmark Café Mondegar in Colaba.

“Yes, that’s one of the murals I’ve done and quite enjoyed the experience. I love doing just about anything new a couple of times,” says Mario who recently even did a series of special cartoons to spruce up the look of Mumbai’s BEST buses.

While he’s aware of the artist-moral police stand-off, he can hardly think of even one incident when he was pressured for his work. “Unless, of course, that thing about Miss Fonseca, one of the characters I created. She was a typical secretary of a successful boss, but I was accused of making her breasts too big,” he recalls. So, did he take a stand on the matter? “Oh, not at all. I just reduced them.”

Having lived and worked in Europe and the US, Mario’s own worldview is expansive and generous. “I think America has some of the best cartoonists. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting people like Charles Schulz (creator of Peanuts) and Herblock (of the Washington Post).”

For a celebrated cartoonist who earned a Padma Bhushan, travels the world and has captured the imagination of an entire generation, Mario leads a surprisingly idyllic life in Goa. “I’ve never bothered to get myself an e-mail address. That’s one of my problems — I don’t know how to work on a computer.” But it’s so simple, you protest. “Yeah,” he drawls good-naturedly, “That’s what everyone says…”