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| Sunday, 9 June 2002 |
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The caricaturist of the middle class by ARAVINDA Camillus Perera whose strip cartoon has begun to appear on this page
from last week prefers to describe himself as a comic cartoonist. This is
both a measure of his modesty as well as an The middle and lower middle classes are Camillus' Great Theme. The middle class constitutes the spinal cord of society. Forever shifting between those segments above and beneath it in the social pyramid the middle-class is taken for granted by the politicians who canvas its votes, preached to and wooed by the mass media and courted by the merchants who want it to buy their goods. Called the petit bourgeoisie or the lumpen proletariat by the Marxist ideologues and largely neglected by the sociologists who have other esoteric themes to explore, the middle classes have provided the grist to Camillus' comic mills. Camillus portrays the lower middle and working classes in particular with a wry wit which is nevertheless leavened with a considerable compassion. His 'Siribiris' and 'Gajaman' are archetypal middle class characters. His 'Dekkoth Padmawathi' is the stylish working girl. They exemplify the dreams, aspirations and anxieties of the average man and woman living in the urban ghettoes which we call our major cities. Camillus himself is the typical middle class son. At school he was more keen on soccer than art and indeed played for a Negombo club. A self-taught artist his talent was discovered when he drew an accurate caricature of his headmaster in a bibulous condition. The pedagogue flew off the handle but recognised the boy's skill. Art teachers advised him not to go to Heywood and instead he taught himself the art of cartooning by studying the work of the Observer's Collette and the English cartoonist David Low. At that time he was a clerk in a series of kachcheries including Puttalam. He got his first break at Lake House and since then he has not looked back. There is no newspaper editor worth his salt who has not used his work at one time or another. Piyasena Nissanka, D. F. Kariyakarawana, Wimalasiri Perera, David Karunaratne, Sumana Saparamadu, Mervyn de Silva and Chintana Jayasena are some of the many who have made use of his work to adorn their pages. Today Camillus has his own crop of publications but still thinks of himself basically as a comic cartoonist. In his case it is perhaps a case of life imitating art for Camillus himself is a stocky jolly figure with an ever-present smile. He draws with malice towards none and for over three decades has been able to shed light on some of the most intriguing corners of our society. |
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understanding
of his own capacities and limitations. He has drawn political cartoons in
his time but would rather not get into the hurly burly of political
caricaturing and lampooning. On the contrary his forte is the caricaturing
and lampooning of the foibles, idiosyncrasies and pretensions of you and
me and the man in the street.
