Giving light relief to hard times
Oma Chunchi’s cartoons have a whiff of nostalgia about them. They’re largely political, and within the clean, precise lines of his artwork there’s the undeniably satirical touch. His captions are not slick and the little thought bubbles that emanate from his characters’ heads are in colloquial Lankan English which is precisely why the artist manages to capture the trials and aspirations of the majority so easily.
Spot on: Cartoons with a touch of satire and colloquial English and right his book
The work feels natural, the dialogue something you might hear on the street. For a man who has ‘been out of work’ for seven years, the cartoons are spot on.
He lives with his mother in Pelawatte, at the very end of a quiet lane. “On good days, I can draw for hours,” he tells us. “And then there are the bad days.” The bad days are not an allusion to the acute creative block most of us face at some point- it’s more in reference to a form of bipolar disorder with which he was diagnosed at 19. He is matter of fact. “It’s a terrible thing.”
At 19 Oma had already dropped out of school (Trinity College, Kandy), eventually finding work as a trainee site supervisor. He had always been an artist, having once had a cartoon published in a children’s newspaper and been thrilled with the result. So in Colombo, he signed himself up for an art and cartoon course with Winfred Hettigoda. It was then that he began to seriously consider a career as a cartoonist-in addition to a short stint at the Daily Mirror, Oma’s persistence and sheer tenacity (he kept bombarding the editor with his work) landed him work as a cartoonist for the Daily News. For a long time he served the paper, commentating on politics, people and current issues.
Inspired by the day to day he draws the common man, staring perplexed at the television as yet another price hike is announced, worn down and haggard with the trials of getting by. Electricity tariff hikes, oil price increases, bribery and corruption…you’ll find them all in his book ‘Toon Choon by Oma’, a compilation of amusing, often thought provoking cartoons from a period beginning in 2004. The decision to publish a volume of some of his best work was something he made independently and after that, it was a matter of popping 
in to the printers down the road. Although he’s a little miffed that the man at the printers mixed up the chronologically ordered series he had prepared so meticulously. “He probably thought it didn’t matter because of my condition.” We’re a little startled by his passivity at the slur. You get used to it, says the artist.
On the back of the book are two portraits titled simply-‘Depression’- stark and haunting depictions of the condition’s many faces. The cartoonist is keen on people knowing of his illness because “it might help someone else like me.” At 43, Oma still remembers when he was first admitted to the hospital. It was in the late 80s, the Indo-Lanka Accord had been signed and the IPKF had officially made their stand in Sri Lanka. Oma was on the streets, demanding that people take down their flags. “I remember repeatedly saying ‘we have no independence you fools’,” he says. “Eventually a guy came up to me and took my address. He had visited my parents and convinced them to admit me somewhere.” Since then, he has been at the National Institute of Mental Health in Angoda eight times, received electroconvulsive therapy 45 times and been hospitalised many, many times.
But he has also made a life for himself. Oma volunteers with the National Council for Mental Health ‘Sahanaya’ programme and Thidora, keen to help those facing similar struggles. He even formed Art Circle ’71, which was doing well until he decided to end it during a bad spell. An avid theatre enthusiast, he attends as many plays as he can, even taking part in a Ruwanthie De Chickera production once. In fact, he plans to use the proceeds from the sale of this book to
Oma: Drawing cartoons from a young age. Pix by Mangala Weerasekera
enrol in a drama course. He’s already sold almost all of the 100 books he has printed. “I just might do a reprint,” he muses. “To be privately sold, of course.”
“I just want to tell people that if I can do it, you can too,” he shares. “I’ve been living with this since the age of 19 and I’m still taking medication. But I have a career, do what I enjoy and now I’m sharing that with other people too.” There’s a lot you can do if you just put your mind to it, he smiles. That very mind can sometimes turn on you, plunging you into depths of despair that others may struggle to understand. But it can also be the beginning of a wonderful thing.
Email Oma at ochunchi@gmail.com if you’d like to get your hands on a copy of Toon Choon by Oma.