The 1984 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts

RESPONSE of Rasipuram Krishnaswamy Laxman

I am overwhelmed by your kind decision to select me to receive the prestigious Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts.

I did not imagine for a moment that my efforts in this field merited a reward of such dimensions. I thought all along I was providing a momentary relief to a public leading a monotonous humdrum existence. I pondered over this happy news and I realized the significance of the Award in relation to my role in society, and at the same time arrived at a very revealing philosophy. At the risk of it being considered somewhat too fanciful I would like to share it with you.

In this world there is no man who can say he is free from problems and nagging worries. A rich man has his worries about his wealth, I am sure, and so a poor man, obviously, has his about his impoverished state. The masses of people in between are, one way or another, victims of varying degrees of frustration, stress and tension. With these rather liberal assumptions and a dash of creative imagination, one can picture the common man running away in horror from the specter of poverty and at the same time, alas, not quite making it to the haven of contentment. In such a situation he bemoans his lot and blames it on rulers, administrators, petty officials, tax collectors, taxi drivers, grocers, doctors, judges and a score of others he has to deal with.

At this pyschological juncture the satirical commentator, in this case the cartoonist, steps in to administer the anodyne to his frustrated spirit and tickles his almost atrophied sense of humor.

I draw cartoons satirizing and lampooning his tormentors. He takes a look at them. A slow smile spreads over his face as he views his persecutors ridiculed and derives a vicarious comfort, as if he has been avenged! Such a pictorial comment helps him, to some degree, overcome his blues and relax his overwrought mind. Thus prepared he goes to face the battle of life, not with an impotent anger in his heart, but with a healthy good humor and an affable disposition, and survives another day.

A sense of humor is very essential for human welfare. A man with this quality is a better neighbor, a better friend, and above all a better citizen than the grumpy one among us who is bereft of it. Laughter is Mother Nature's device to insulate us against the onslaughts of harsh realities of existence. God must have, in his infinite wisdom, realized the sad state of the human condition on earth very clearly indeed.

That is why, I suspect, that of all the animals he created, he gave the gift of laughter only to humans so as to help them survive. It is the business of the satirical commentator to kindle, stimulate and develop this instinct in man for the collective good of the whole civilized community. I like to believe that this Award is a tribute to that supreme quality of laughter which we all possess. I am grateful to the enlightened trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for recognizing with such a grand and noble gesture the importance of this human quality and the significant role that it plays in our lives.