If you are lucky, you can ride a Cartoon Cab!
Kolkata is slowly warming up to a new Car-Toon that would soon hit the roads and you could be the lucky one to ride on the same. A retro milk white ambassador with a grassy roof and embellished with cartoons all over. This city has seen before the Green Man’s cool ambassador with a carpet of green grass atop which not just carried the important message of keeping everything green, but also was an innovative concept that only a cabbie from Kolkata could think of!
Now, Dhananjoy Chakraborty, better known as Bapi of the Green Taxi fame, will be giving Kolkata riders another new concept, thanks to artists of Cartoon Dal. This time it is a Cartoon Cab. Cartoon Dal, is a group of well-known artists of Bengal who have tried over the years to popularise cartoons. Member of the group and well-known city cartoonist Anup Ray mentions: “The younger generation and artists are not to keen on drawing cartoons. We fear this art and expression form might vanish someday. So, to popularise cartoons among youngsters we had formed Cartoon Dal and tried doing activities that would draw the attention of the masses.”
The cartoons drawn on Bapi’s Cartoon Cab, blend razor sharp wit and deft brush strokes, and hold up a mirror to our idiosyncratic city. Old world charm of Kolkata, the recurrent motifs of Bong life, eco conservation messages, Bengal icons, couplets, Big B caricature, the football mania and of course the G.I. tag empowered Rosogolla ---- all these motifs sit pretty on the glistened exterior of the white taxi. It is the outcome of the tireless efforts of Cartoon Dal, who have been creatively engaged with the car.
The vehicle was gifted to Bapi by Pradip Moitra, an eminent artist and water colourist par excellence. Hiran Mitra, the ace artist and a cartoon lover as well, was seen doodling on the car along with the youthful and energetic members of Cartoon Dal. The car also bears the imprints of Anup Ray and Uday Deb, eminent city cartoonists. Now just wait and watch, and take a chance, you might be a passenger on this Cartoon Cab one day!
