Kutty

Puthukkody Kottuthody Sankaran Kutty Nair (4 September 1921 – 22 October 2011), better known as Kutty, was an Indian political cartoonist.

Biography Kutty was born at Ottapalam, Kerala in 1921 to Kayarat Narayana Menon and Kottuthodi Lakshmi Amma. Kutty was educated at Ottapalam and Malabar Christian College, Kozhikode. Kutty's talent was discovered by the famous Malayalam satirist, Professor M. R. Nair (better known by his pen name "Sanjayan"). His first cartoon appeared in the Malayalam humor magazine Viswaroopam (edited by Sanjayan) in 1940. Shankar used to sketch cartoons for Hindustan Times and was looking for a trainee. V. P. Menon requested Shankar to train Kutty, who reached New Delhi on 3 January 1941. In those days, Jawaharlal Nehru (later India's first Prime Minister), a great admirer of Shankar's cartoons, was looking for a cartoonist for his newly started English Daily, National Herald, published from Lucknow. Shankar trained Kutty for 6 months and recommended him for Nehru's newspaper. Kutty became staff cartoonist of National Herald (Lucknow). His used to caption his cartoons in English, which were translated into Bengali. Kutty's cartoons have also appeared in many Malayalam language periodicals (Malayalam was his mother tongue).

Kutty officially retired in 1997. He then moved to Madison, Wisconsin. In May 2005, rumors of Kutty's death started circulating in Kolkata. In response to this, Kutty's former colleagues at Aaj Kaal published the denial of the rumor with a new cartoon drawn by Kutty. This led to requests for more cartoons from his admirers. Kutty complied and sketched few more cartoons that were published in Aaj Kaal. However, he could not continue due to his deteriorating eyesight. He died on 22 October 2011 in the Madison, Wisconsin.