Mário João Carlos do Rosário de Brito Miranda (2 May 1926 – 11 December 2011), popularly known as Mario Miranda or Mario de Miranda, was an Indian cartoonist and painter based in Loutolim in the Indian state of Goa. Miranda had been a regular with The Times of India and other newspapers in Mumbai, 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 Miranda was born in Daman, then in Portuguese India, to Catholic parents of Brahmin origin and his family surname is Sardesai. 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. Career beginnings Miranda started his career in an advertising studio, where he worked for four years, before taking up cartooning full-time. He got his first break as a cartoonist with The Illustrated Weekly of India which published a few of his works. His drawings & cartoons also brought him an offer to work at the Current magazine. A year later, the Times of India offered him a slot, even though they had rejected him at first. Thereafter, his creations, such as Miss Nimbupani and Miss Fonseca, appeared on a regular basis in Femina, Economic Times, and The Illustrated Weekly of India. Mario then won a grant by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and lived in Portugal