Mario Miranda

Mário João Carlos do Rosário de Brito Miranda (2 May 1926 – 11 December 2011), also known as Mario de Miranda, was an Indian cartoonist and painter based in Loutolim, Goa. He had been a regular with The Times of India and other newspapers in Bombay, including The Economic Times, though he got his popularity with his works published in The Illustrated Weekly of India. He was awarded India's second highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan (posthumously) in 2012.

Life and career

Early life

Mário João Carlos do Rosário de Brito Miranda was born on 2 May 1926, in Damão, Portuguese India, to Goan Catholic parents. At an early age, he would draw caricatures and sketch on the walls of his home, until his mother brought him a blank book. He then began making personalised postcards for his friends, charging them a token amount, in the 1930s and 1940s. He even started getting into trouble at school, for sketching Catholic priests. Mario Miranda's early cartoons presented vignettes of Goan village life, a theme he is best known for even today. He would maintain diaries from the age of 10, sketching the life around him.

He studied at St. Joseph's Boys' High School, Bangalore and then did a B.A. in history at St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, while focusing on the Indian Administrative Service (IAS). Thereafter he started studying architecture at the behest of his parents, though he soon lost interest. He then began getting small commissions and would sketch people in his private diaries in 1949. He loved good food and red wine in moderation but would mainly visit eateries and taverns to document the lives of the patrons.