“The legendary cartoonist, R. K. Laxman had a pet (nick) name called ‘Doodu’ at home. This world renowned uncle of mine used to doodle constantly, whenever he came to Mysore on holidays. RKL drew lots of totally and truthfully meaningless doodles over the years.

When we were in Delhi in  December 1975, my dad, R. K. Srinivasan (RKL’s elder brother), brought a big scrapbook and made RKL  create more meaningless doodles which had some bearing on that day’s specific conversation between them. The process started with the chat of the day (December 15, 1975) ‘Similarity of all Religions of India’ and the ever present ’Delightful Presence’ of poverty and people. The same evening they also chatted about the great ‘Winter Whiskey Session’.

On October 05, 1991, RKL drew a gist of their chat on the evolution of the then prime Minister, P.V.Narasimha Rao. Alas, there were no more cartoons after that as my father passed away on October 15, 1991. 

These  meaningfully  magnificent  doodles  were  created for 16  years  with  97 fantastic  sketches.Hundreds of people have seen these at home. Some have called them meaningless, nonsense. Some felt that they have deep philosophical and artistic significance. Only ‘Doodu’ knows the real answer”.

R.S Krishnaswamy

(R.K.Laxman’s nephew)