This was something new and exciting and all the boys at once set about it enthusiastically. We were soon absorbed in the creative task. Some boys sat wondering trying to imagine a leaf. One fellow drew a banana leaf that was so big it went out of the wooden frame of the slate. Another boy, after pondering for a while and failing to visualize a leaf, announced loudly, 'I am going to draw an elephant instead!' Thus were so busily engaged that we had not even noticed the teacher either leaving or returning. A couple of loud thumps on the table with the cane brought us back to reality.
He asked us to queue up and began to critically examine our efforts one by one, murmuring comments and giving marks. Sometimes he twisted a boy's ear or brought the cane down on the leg of another. When it was my turn, he stared at the drawing for an alarmingly long time and asked me, 'Did you draw it yourself, Laxman?' I was frightened and stepped back, expecting a shower of blows. I replied, 'You asked us to draw, sir....... I sat there and drew .....' fumbling for a safe excuse. But to my great surprise and joy he held my slate up before the class and announced, 'Attention! Look how nicely Laxman has drawn the leaf!' He turned to me and said, 'You will be an artist one day. Keep it up.' He gave me ten marks out of ten. He was very impressed by the perfect shape of my peepal leaf and the details of the veins branching out along the midrib. I had seen these leaves countless times strewn on the road under the peepal tree, and I could draw them effortlessly. I was inspired by this unexpected encouragement.. I began to think of myself as an artist in the making, never doubting that this was my destiny.
Excerpted from:
The Tunnel of Time
One day, instead of leaving the class in charge of the monitor before stepping out to have a couple of puffs, he (teacher) set up a task: we were ordered to draw a leaf, any leaf.
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY : (Page 11-12)
by R.K. Laxman
First published in Viking by Penguin Books India (P) Ltd. 1998.
Copyright (c) R.K. Laxman 1998
