(bdnews24.com, June 10, 2011)
Many many years ago, when I was a very small girl, I remember going to the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai with my parents and looking up at an enormous wall. There were these huge horses galloping toward me, all black, white, grey and brown, their tails flowing, their manes waving, their eyes wild, nostrils flared. They were beautiful, free and fast, running against the wind along an open plain. And I was awed, even then, by the fast that all that freedom, all that movement, all that speed, was captured in just a few brushstrokes on a wall. The artist was a man who epitomised the spirit of the city he made his home for many years, Mumbai, colourful, always excited, youthful and just that wee bit crazy. He was MF Husain, who went on to earn titles like ‘Picasso of India’, and died earlier this week in London at the age of 95.
Maqbool Fida Husain, born in Pandharpur, a Hindu pilgrimage town in Maharashtra. His father made kandeels, or lanterns and the family was not very wealthy. The young Maqbool made his way to Mumbai, where he eked out a living – at one stage, he hand-painted posters for Hindi films, developing a passionate interest in the world of cinema, which led him to make a couple of movies with popular Bollywood stars. By the late 1940s, he was making a name for himself as an artist and had joined FN Souza’s Progressive Artists’ Group, a clique of like-minded artists who wanted to foster the avant-garde, with an Indian flavour, and break away from the more traditional portrayals familiar in the Bengal School of art. In 1952 he had his first international showing in Zurich and over the next few years had become known all over the United States and Europe. Along with his art, he also made films – his 1967 Through the Eyes of a Painter won a Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival; Gaja Gamini, starring Madhuri Dixit (who became his muse after he saw her in Hum Aapke Hain Kaun?) showed off the various manifestations of a woman; Meenaxi: A Take of Three Cities was a paean to actress Tabu. None of these was commercially successful, but they were appreciated by a discerning audience. A film on his life, his autobiography, is planned for a film called The Making of a Painter.
Controversy could have been Husain’s very believable alter ego. Some of his works have been incomprehensible, mystifying fellow artists, critics and viewers alike. I remember, when I had just started working as a journalist, I walked into a major Mumbai gallery to see Husain’s new show. Called Shwetambari, it made little sense to me, but it somehow gave me a feeling of clean serenity, a peace that could only come from within and radiate towards the rest of my world. Seen from a more practical perspective, it was all about white – the walls of the large space were draped in white handloom fabric, while the floor was covered in torn, crumpled bits of newspaper. When asked about it by a rather outraged public, Husain’s explanation was simple, and in a strange way, logical: “It is a powerful statement that is meant to be experiences, not understood and interpreted,” he maintained, “I wanted people to come and stand there and feel the overabundance of white, which is the basis of all colour.” To him, the man with the artistic soul, it was only in the presence of white that other colours could be seen and felt and appreciated. From that point of view, it all made perfect sense.
I have seen Husain often in Mumbai, wandering around art galleries, at parties, in hotels, even in bookshops. He was usually barefoot – until the time he, as rumour had it, developed some kind of fungal infection in the foot and was made to wear shoes – and carried a long paintbrush. His white beard was immaculately neat, his glasses glinted with his passion for life and he eyes watched the world as it moved around him. He walked fast, spoke gently and laughed delightedly. And he got into messes of all sorts – from the controversial works of goddesses as nude figures to an unclad Mother India used in an advertisement – which, eventually, made him flee India in 2006 to settle in the Middle East. Qatar was thrilled to have him there and offered him citizenship, which he accepted in 2010. Even in exile, he had to face problems – the government of Kerala was to give him the Raja Ravi Varma award, but a petition was filed against it for various reasons.
Right now, in India, there is a sadness at the death of an artist of such stature. But many of us feel another grief – that we ourselves could not prevent a treasure slipping out of our own hands. And even here there is controversy – many believe that he wanted to be buried in his homeland, India. He did say in a television interview last year, “My heart will always be in India...it is my beloved land.” But his family tells us that “He said he should be buried wherever he dies.” And though he is no longer here, he will live for ever in the work that he left behind – work that is thought-provoking, thoughtful, beautiful and always worth seeing.
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