Business as Usual (Journeys of The Indian Express Cartoonist)

Business as Usual is a careful selection of Unny's work at The Indian Express since 1996. He is that rare cartoonist who with his sardonic wit and keen insight blends reporting, commentary and illustration to make a scathingly funny and very simple point: the powerful nose needs to be tweaked. No matter on whose face it happens to be.

With his inimitable draughtsmanship, he pokes his pen at politics and politicians. Each of his cartoons casts a vote. Satire at its finest, this collection chronicles politicians and power to keep and tell its deepest truths.

E.P. Unny is Chief Political Cartoonist at The Indian Express. His first cartoon appeared in the legendary Shankar's Weekly in 1972. A staff cartoonist with The Hindu from 1977 to 1989, Unny moved from Chennai to New Delhi where after a stint with Sunday Mail and The Economic Times, he joined The Indian Express in 1996.

He has sketched and written Spices & Souls, A Doodler's Journey through Kerala and Language, Landscape & Livelihoods, Through 5 Drought-prone Districts of Andhra Pradesh. His work has featured at the Asian Cartoonists Conference in Tokyo and at the International Cartoon Festival in Carquefou, France. In 2009, Unny won the life time Achievement Award of The Indian Institute of Cartoonists. He lives in New Delhi.

If journalism of courage defines The Indian Express's coverage of politics and power, E P Unny is its resident artist.

As the newspaper's political cartoonist since 1996, Unny's work is unique: he is that rare cartoonist who blends reporting, commentary and illustration with a profound political insight to make a very simple point - the powerful nose needs to be tweaked. No matter on whose face it happens to be.

So be it H D Deve Gowda or Prakash Karat, Sonia Gandhi or Narendra Modi, Manmohan Singh or LK Advani, no one is spared a swipe from the innocent little boy who walks into each Unny frame. He's the one who keeps telling us that the Emperor, usually, has no clothes.

This book is a celebration of that spirit. It brings in one place a careful selection of his work at The Indian Express that cover the defining moments in contemporary politics: from single-party governments to multi-party coalitions, the rise of regional satraps and kingmakers, the wranglings and the compromises, the stunning decisions and the remarkable rollbacks, intrigue and power play. Inside and outside Parliament, business as usual.

It's incredibly serious business - and incredibly funny. And, in the end, this collection underlines what we all know but seldom acknowledge: nothing is more eloquent a tribute to our freedom of expression than an irreverence that's fiercely independent - and genuinely witty.