00000 BASKARAN M (M.B.)
The early cartoons in Malayalam were published through the periodicals *Sanjayan* and *Vishwaroopam*, which were edited by Sanjayan. M. Bhaskaran was one of the cartoonists featured in *Sanjayan* and *Vishwaroopam*. Therefore, it would not be wrong to say that M. Bhaskaran was one of the pioneers in popularizing cartoons in the Malabar region. He was popularly known by the abbreviation “M.B.” and was also known as Cartoonist Bhaskaran.
To fully understand Bhaskaran as a cartoonist, one must also mention Sanjayan. Both of them suffered from tuberculosis. Bhaskaran also had leprosy. In the later years of his life, he was unable to draw because of the disease. In 1927, Sanjayan married Karthyayani Amma, the second daughter of retired Deputy Collector M. Ananthan Nair, who was his maternal uncle. They had a son in 1929. His wife died in 1930. In 1939, his only son, Babu, also passed away. Both men made others laugh while themselves enduring the bitterness of life’s realities.
The magazine *Sanjayan*, which began publication in April 1936, lasted only three years, and *Vishwaroopam*, which started in 1940, was published for only one year. It is worth noting that Bhaskaran worked alongside Sanjayan in both of these magazines. Although there was a six-year age difference between them, Sanjayan and Bhaskaran were like brothers. When Sanjayan died in September 1943 at the age of 40, Bhaskaran passed away later that same year, on December 22, at the age of 34.
e-mail me 
.jpg)
