The Mind Creative
Mario Miranda was born in Daman, then in Portuguese India, to
Goan Catholic parents of Goud Saraswat Brahmin origin. His
ancestral surname was originally Sardessai, before the family
converted to Roman Catholicism in the 1750s.
Mario’s extraordinary talent was first discovered by his mother
when she found him drawing on the walls at home. Consequently,
she bought him a little notebook to draw in. His schooling was at
St. Joseph’s BoysHigh School in the city of Bangalore (India) where
he often got into trouble for drawing caricatures of the Catholic
priests who ran the school. Later he completed his Bachelor’s
degree in history and was encouraged by his parents to complete
a degree in architecture. However, the creative calls from within
were too strong to ignore and soon Mario lost all interest in
pursuing his studies.
The interesting fact is that
Mario Miranda did not study
art formally and started his
career at an advertising firm.
Later, urged by his friends, he
took up cartooning as a fulltime profession. His initial
works were published in a
popular magazine called The
Illustrated Weekly in 1953 and
after many heartbreaking
rejections, his cartoons were
accepted in the Current
magazine and finally won him
a slot in India’s major
newspaper The Times Of
India. Miranda’s unforgettable
creations (characters like Miss
Nimbupani and Miss Fonseca)
soon
started
appearing
regularly in some of the most
popular Indian publications
like Femina, Economic Times
and The Illustrated Weekly.
“Miss Fonseca”
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