Husainsaab, aren’t you disgusted?

He does not need enemies even in death; he has friends. A look at the tributes reveals just how everyone is riding on the secular gravy cart with their own agenda.

Isn't there any sense of proportion? Above its masthead, the Times of India has quotes from well-known people about the controversies. What about his art? And then there is the headline:

'Hounded By Hindu Extremists, Our Most Famous Artist Breathes His Last In London, A Qatari National
INDIA’S PICASSO DIES IN EXILE
M F Husain’s Death Stokes Anger And Regret Back Home'

Did he breathe his last because he was hounded? Where is the stoking of anger and regret? This has been expressed earlier, so what is new about it? This is irresponsible.

I am aware that the TOI has to keep its moneyed advertisers happy, and irrespective of what their political/communal views are in private, Husain was their idea of the perfect Indian, although they were happier in the Alps.

And I am quite sick of reading about "India's Picasso". On the one hand, he is called our pride and then they shamelessly hang on to some other crutch to validate him. Can he not just be Husain?

If he wished to be buried in India, I hope this will be granted to him. Many criminals are in our graveyards and crematoria. And that he was not.

I do not know the reasons and I do not care, but this from the same report stood out as the most sensible bit:

BJP condoled his death and said it was not the right time to comment on controversies that surrounded him. Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray said, “May Allah give him peace,” while MNS chief Raj Thackeray called for Husain to be buried in Maharashtra, the artist’s birthplace.

Compared to this, TOI used a wicked comparison:

Like Husain, he too lived abroad, but at 89, Sayed Haider Raza was back in India, the motherland he left 60 years ago. Regretting Husain’s death in exile, Raza, the last living member of the Progressive Artists’ Group, said, “If I had been in his place where some of my ideas or paintings offended the Hindu community I would have apologized, explained myself and talked it over. I don’t know if that was done…one has to be very careful in these things.”

Raza went of his own accord and there was no controversy. Why are they raking up the apology business now? Don’t you see? They get a Muslim artist to say it. The good guy.

Here are a few quotes that are revealing, and my response to them:

"The only way Cong can atone for not defending Husain is by posthumously awarding him the Bharat Ratna."

- Ramchandra Guha, historian

Of course, this is what governments do. It is puerile to suggest that an award is atonement enough, if any is required at all.

"The stupid controversy was motivated; it was created by bad politicians for publicity and to serve their own interest. One of these days, I’ll name those culprits."

- Anjolie Ela Menon, artist

Is she an investigative reporter? If so, it has taken her a long time to wake up. Is there any use protecting the dead?

"None of our supposed tolerance applied to Husain. We should hang our heads in shame."

- Shyam Benegal, film director

Did Husain need 'tolerance'? Did these people stop doing their work in a place where they want to hang their heads in shame?

"The manner in which Husain died reflects a false people in a great nation."

- Jatin Das, artist

A nation is made up of people.

"Being Muslim was only accidental…And that is exactly why he was so totally taken aback when the attacks on him began. Of all things, for denigrating Hindu gods and goddesses. He lived, breathed, talked about Indian culture all the time, and for him Indian culture was synonymous with Hindu culture. He was as Hindu as any one of us, in spirit if not in faith. His worked was steeped in our culture and mythology."

- Pritish Nandy, writer

Why is it so important to be a ‘Hindu’ when his being a Muslim was “accidental” as it is for all? And on what grounds does Nandy talk about Indian culture being synonymous with Hindu culture? Husain used mythology because he found it interesting, just as Raza uses the ‘shunya’. Indian culture is an amalgamation of various regional cultures and influences of colonisers. Had he chosen to paint miniatures would he be seen as Muslim? Does stained glass painting make an artist a Christian?

As for living and breathing Indian culture, perhaps one might like to check out how much of it our high society does so. Will they need a certificate for their Indiannness?

Leave him be...and if he wanted Mumbai falooda, then there are several Indian restaurants in London where he spent his last days. In his state, he might have been happy enough to get it...or from the several eateries in Southall, both Indian and Pakistani, that serve it. They also make it pink like the Crawford Market one. But then exile would not sound so romantic.

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My other views were expressed here yesterday.

M.F.Husain: Heaven can't wait...

There's no looking back

M.F.Husain has taken off on his paint brush into the other world. Age 95. Dead. Obituaries are tricky. I think about the ceiling of his house; he had sketched stars – black on white. I sat on a chair waiting for him to turn up. He did not. His wife said no one knows when he comes and when he goes. I disliked him, anyway, and my conversation would not have been about him walking without shoes.

He was surrounded by women, the kind we rather disparagingly refer to as society dames. What could he find so entertaining, forget enlivening, about them? For them he was Fame. At one of their homes I saw a painting by him that was unspeakably sad. Fine crystal shone below it on a mantelpiece. I smirked. Then one day many years later I saw shards on the floor…and experienced the sadness of broken crystal.

Husain, for reasons I have been unable to fathom, continued to look like an arriviste, despite all the celebrity, the money and the artistic talent. We all perceive art in different ways – for me he was more skill than soul, and not many possess that kind of skill, the adhesive-like hold on the imagination of the artistic fraternity.

Curiously, I got a note yesterday from a person of the rightwing persuasion questioning me about his portrayal of nude goddesses that I had tried to explore in an earlier piece. This is what he became known for – not the works, not the ideas, but the controversies. He was restless, but not a gypsy. He was the nomad who had luxurious homes everywhere he went. It won’t be much different now.

duniya ne hum pe jab koi ilzaam rakh diya

hum ne muqaabil us ke tera naam rakh diya

ik khaas had pe aa gayi jab teri berukhee

naam us ka hum ne gardish-e-ayyaam rakh diya

- Qateel Shifai

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Here is an old piece I had written in my Rediff column of October 27, 1997, well before they started stoning galleries where his works were displayed:

The unmaking of a maverick

M F Husain has a major problem. If we start with this premise it would be far easier to approach his persona. And the problem lies not with what he is, but what he is seeking to be.

Today, few talk of Husain as an artist – he is either the showman, the maverick, the risk-taker and, finally and conclusively, a product. His market value is under discussion rather than his palette's wild guesses and sometimes calculated conundrums. It is very likely that he feels trapped and is now seeking to assert his independence. No artist in his right mind would rush from one canvas to the other to show the onlookers the process of painting, as Husain claims to have tried to do. But, at this point in time, he is not in his right mind. He is on a binge to negate his art by harking to his hoarding-painter days of relative freedom. The days when he could paint the other icons of cinema, without having to worry about whether his unshod feet would gain celebrity status.

Husain' painting on the Mumbai blasts

The very concept of being a celebrity can be difficult to handle, its reality even more so. Husain's position as a product has to do with his being many other things. As a showman performer, he is expected to toe the classic 'I pretend, therefore I am' line. This includes massive image-building. But the man about whom it was made shows all signs of not being at peace with himself. The result is whimsical behaviour. The charitable will call it maverick moods.

But why would a man already on the pedestal want to be a maverick? It cannot be to get attention. Not a genuine desire for experimentation either, so the possibility of his sense of boredom at being 'known for being known' cannot be ignored.

To this end, the artist has begun taking risks, not so much with his work but with his reputation, which has been the cause of most of his ecstasy and all of his anguish. Kierkegaard put it beautifully when he analysed, "It lays a prodigious burden on a person to have to support the weight of everyone's eyes." Even a Husain work is merely a work of Husain. Snapping the chain with his offbeat acts, he has in effect put the ball in the court of his 'audience', the subliminal message being, "Since you have made me, you might want to unmake me. But before you can do that, I will do it myself."

Therefore, the new Husain is essentially the old one trying to come out clean, but not without attempting to kill two birds with one stone – by hankering after his freedom and at the same time (and perhaps because of it) making sure that the public does not run after someone else. This is the hallmark of a celebrity. Or an insecure man.

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Updated in new post here