YESTERDATE
This day marks the death anniversary of one the finest Indian cartoonists, Jatindra Kumar Sen. Best known as the illustrator of one of the greatest Bengali humourists, Parashuram, Sen created a remarkable gallery with his drawings of Parashuram’s characters.
A character like Kariya Piret in Bhushandir Mathe, a story in which ghosts are haunted by their spouses from their three past lives, lives on in our minds also because of the sharp drawing by Sen, who, like Parashuram, with small touches, would at once define a character. This fineness marked both of them as satirists.
Parashuram was the pseudonym of Rajshekhar Basu, who was also an eminent translator, author of a Bengali dictionary and a renowned chemist who headed Bengal Chemicals.
Sen, a multi-faceted man, was Basu’s personal friend and worked with Basu at the firm from the early 1930s. Sen was the illustrator for all Bengal Chemicals advertisements.
He was born in 1882 in Chandernagore. He showed a flair for drawing from childhood. In Kolkata, he used to stay with his brother, who taught at the Bengal veterinary college. He taught himself many subjects, including science and music.
The “adda” at the residence of the Basu brothers, Shashishekhar, Krishnashekhar, Rajshekhar and Girindrashekhar, at 14 Parsibagan Lane, which attracted Bengal’s leading minds, shaped his talent.
Sen illustrated numerous books and helped to draw Bengali typefaces for Linotype machines.