“Dude, what were you doing for four years? You should have amended the Constitution. You should have made black laws; should have passed them in Parliament. Should have purchased MPs. Should have got judges on your side by intimidatingó them. Should have subjugated the courts. Should have packed the police and military with party people. Should have burnt old documents and erased history. Should have constructed a new White House. Stupid phriend, what you did just now is illegal.”

The blond mane and the signature hairdo, not to mention the trademark red tie and blue suit, make it clear the receiver of the telephone advice is Donald Trump.

The identity of the indignant, if not exasperated, adviser at the other end of the line is not mentioned in black and white but anyone mildly conversant with contemporary events should not find it hard to crack the puzzle.

Sometimes, the deadliest of cartoons reveal more by saying less — or knowing what not to say.

A Malayalam cartoon (translated text in italics above) has depicted the telephone monologue as purportedly heard by the outgoing US President who is now at the centre of a riot storm.

The cartoon, uploaded on Facebook, has drawn attention on a day the almost friendless Trump found a vocal friend in the BJP, some of whose leaders decried the Twitter ban on the US President.

The cartoon has been created by a medical doctor, G.R. Santhosh Kumar, 57.

Asked about the unseen dispenser of the sermon on the phone, Kumar chuckled and said: “Yes, it’s ….”

For the sake of cartooning justice, this newspaper is leaving it to the imagination of its readers to figure out the identity of the adviser.

Kumar, a Thiruvananthapuram native currently working for a tribal health project in Wayanad, said: “Of course, the trigger for Friday’s cartoon was what happened in the Capitol, which led to Trump getting cornered by most world leaders.”

Kumar could not think of a better peg than the vaunted “friendship” between Trump and his unseen adviser.

The text, which names neither Trump nor his friend, took “just a few minutes of jotting down from memory”. A few more minutes and the Trump likeness was done, with a speech bubble in place.

Kumar said he began drawing cartoons as a student of the government medical college in Thiruvananthapuram, from where he graduated in the 1980s.

“My drawings were then limited to highlighting issues relating to the campus, medical malpractices, unscientific practices and the like,” he said.

After becoming a doctor, he had found himself with neither time nor inclination to continue with the hobby. However, the political developments after 2014 “inspired” him to take up the pen again.

Kumar was quick to add that although he leant to the Left of the political spectrum, “I draw cartoons against Left leaders and their politics too”.

Kumar has been posting his creations on Facebook and, more recently, his own blog.

“These are one-off drawings that stand on their own and reflect my thinking on that given day or moment,” he said.