Malli Mastan Babu, Who Scaled the World’s Tallest Mountains, Dies at 40

By HARESH PANDYAAPRIL 9, 2015

Malli Mastan Babu in Ahmedabad 2009.
CreditSam Panthaky/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Malli Mastan Babu, an Indian mountaineer who won fame as the first South Asian to scale the highest peak on each of the seven continents, and who had been missing in the Andes since late March, was found dead on Friday. He was 40.

India’s external affairs minister, Sushma Swaraj, announced on Sunday that Mr. Babu’s body had been found in the border region between Argentina and Chile. With the body was a bag containing a copy of the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, and an Indian flag.

Mr. Babu was known as one of the world’s fastest summiteers. In just 172 days, from Jan. 19 to July 10, 2006, he climbed the world’s tallest peaks on seven continents: Aconcagua in South America, McKinley in North America, Elbrus in Europe, Kilimanjaro in Africa, Kosciuszko in Australia, Everest in Asia and Vinson Massif in Antarctica.

In 2008, he trekked from Everest to Kanchenjunga, covering nearly 680 miles of the world’s highest terrain in 75 days. As was the case with most of his adventures, he did it alone.

Once asked in a radio interview why he preferred to travel alone, he said, “Simply because it would be difficult for other climbers and trekkers to match my pace.”

Mr. Babu was born Sept. 3, 1974, into a poor family of fishermen in Gandhi Jana Sangam, a village in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. He was the youngest of five children.

His survivors include his mother, two brothers and two sisters.

Mr. Babu was a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur and the Indian Institute of Management in Kolkata, the city formerly known as Calcutta. He had worked as a software engineer for three years.

He said his interest in mountaineering was inspired by a statue of a boyhood hero, Lt. M. Uday Bhaskar Rao, who died at an elevation of more than 26,000 feet during an Indian Army expedition on Everest in 1985. Lieutenant Rao was a fellow alumnus of a military school Mr. Babu attended as a youngster. As an 11-year-old, he said, he would stand before the statue, “awe-struck.”

In Kolkata, Mr. Babu formed an adventure club and organized trekking, skiing, rock climbing, rafting and meditation courses in the western Himalayas. He also lectured on leadership and management in India, Kenya, the United Arab Emirates and the United States.

Friday, February 13, 2015

A00006 - R. K. Laxman, Cartoonist Who Amused India for Decades

R. K. Laxman, Cartoonist Who Amused India for Decades, Dies at 93

By HARESH PANDYAJAN. 29, 2015

R.K. Laxman in an undated photo. His character, the Common Man, is pictured behind him in a checkered shirt.CreditPress Trust of India, via Associated Press

R. K. Laxman, a fixture of Indian society whose satirical comic strip featuring a character he called the Common Man appeared daily on the front page of The Times of India for more than five decades, died on Jan. 26 in the western Indian city of Pune. He was 93.

His death was confirmed by his son, Srinivas.

The Common Man was the star of “You Said It,” which Mr. Laxman created in 1951. Wearing a dhoti and a checkered coat, with a bushy mustache, a few wisps of hair, a bulbous nose on which perched a pair of glasses, and thick eyebrows that were permanently raised, the Common Man observed the contradictions, ironies and paradoxes of the world around him with a bewildered look but without ever uttering a word.

Political hypocrisy was Mr. Laxman’s favorite target. The Indian National Congress Party bore the brunt of his satire over the years because it was in power longer than any other party, but he spared no leader, however powerful.

“I am grateful to my leaders for keeping my profession flourishing,” he once remarked. “Alarmingly, the politicians walk, talk and behave as though they were modeling perpetually for the cartoonist.”

Rasipuram Krishnaswamy Iyer Laxman was born in the state of Mysore on Oct. 24, 1921. His father was a headmaster, his mother a homemaker. He had a sister and six brothers, one of whom, R. K. Narayan, went on to become a leading novelist and short-story writer.

“I do not remember wanting to do anything else except draw,” Mr. Laxman wrote in his autobiography, “The Tunnel of Time” (1998). He drew with chalk on the floors, walls and doors of his house and, when he learned to wield a pen and pencil, added beards, mustaches and shaggy eyebrows to photographs and sketches in books and magazines. At school, he drew caricatures of his teachers, who, instead of chiding him, encouraged his talent.

While studying at the University of Mysore, where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, political science and economics, he began contributing political cartoons to various publications. His first full-time job was withThe Free Press Journal in Mumbai. Six months later he joined The Times of India.

His marriage to the dancer and actress Kumari Kamala ended in divorce. In addition to his son, his survivors include his wife, Kamala Laxman, a writer of children’s stories.

Mr. Laxman also wrote short stories, essays and travel pieces, as well as the novels “The Hotel Riviera” (1988) and “The Messenger” (1993) and his autobiography.

In 2005, he received the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second-highest civilian award. Among his other honors is a statue of the Common Man in Pune.