Then he met with the editor of The Free press Journal. The editor agreed to employ him. Laxman Narayan met Bal Thackeray in this office. It is from here that his friendship blossomed with the former Shiv Sena supreme.
After some years, R K Laxman decided to quit the job because he faced immense pressure from the editor who was evidently bias.
He later joined the Times of India and worked there for over sixty years.
It is here that he created the ‘Common Man'.
In an interview, Laxman once explained the concept behind the Common Man. He said, “There is no single attribute that is common to all Indians. So I created a mythical character in a striped coat, with a bushy moustache, a bald head with a white wisp of hair at the back, a bulbous nose on which is perched a pair of glasses, and he has thick black eyebrows permanently raised, expressing bewilderment. He stands for all Indians and goes through life without uttering a word, but watches with amusement the ironies, paradoxes and contradictions of the human situation.”
