HIS LUST for life wasn’t contagious. It was humbling. The experience of walking on the wintry London streets with an indefatigable Maqbool Fida Husain, characteristically barefoot, belonged to the realm of the unbelievable.
Neither extreme cold nor heat affected his soles. In fact he believed that the absorption of extreme heat and cold was one of the reasons of his longevity.
He never admitted nor denied this but the artist gave up on footwear because his eldest son had covertly blown up some money on a pair of shoes, at a time when there wasn’t enough to keep the kitchen fires burning. In a fit of pique he told his son he would never wear shoes again. Astonishingly though, towards the autumn of his life, he had an enormous collection of designer shoes, boots and sandals. He would be thrilled to slip on calf-leather boots for formal, unavoidable occasions. That he had once been evicted from Mumbai’s upper-crust Willingdon Club for being shoeless will remain one of the myriad ironies in a life that spanned en ever-eventful 95 years.
The artist would laugh, tongue-in-cheek, whenever birthday parties were hosted for him as he entered his 88th year. If a belly dance had been set up for one such evening, he didn’t balk at the idea of saucy entertainment. In fact, he performed a quaint little belly jig himself to enhance the mood of the evening. Absolutely candid about the thrill he derived from his iconic status, besides being unwaveringly sharp to ensure that his canvases fetched the highest prices in the art market, he would admit: “Frankly, I have always been a bestseller.”
The story of M.F. Husain’s rise from rags to riches is replete with elements of tragedy, emotional lacerations and self-confidence. He longed to recall his mother, who passed away before he could sketch her in his memory. Practically every woman whom he has paid an ode to through his art is an alter-ego of his mother. Perhaps that’s why we never see distinct, outlined features of women on his canvases. Take his minimalist recreation of Mother Teresa. He would say there was no need to detail the face, a mother lives within the heart and mind. Firmly, Husain would add that he is not an artist of photographic images or traditionally figurative illustrations.
His art debunked categories. If he pursued any theme, it was of humanism, his colours and strokes being thick and swift. Picasso’s Guernica was the one masterwork which drove him to tears, the lighting patterns of Rembrandt excited him, the sheer modernity of Andy Warhol he approved of, albeit within limits. He abhorred comparisons with any artist, affirming that his inspiration was rooted in the Indian soil.
Unbeknownst to many, Husain crafted wooden toys of bullock carts, farmers harvesting crop and rustic musicians. His more sophisticated, elliptical paintings have been lauded as his finest achievements although he contradicted that by insisting that he has been evolving every new day. Pointing to a freshly completed set of large canvases of the Beatles (in the Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band avatar) and a series of oils inspired by the cult film Mughal-e-Azam, he would cluck about the market cliché that his early work was his most accomplished. Yes, he was part of the Progressive Artists’ Movement, but didn’t turn to any Westernised fad to blend into the avant-garde club.
Of late, Husain had started writing poems and essays which would chronicle his self-imposed exile since 2006. The poems, written in black felt ink, add up to a thick tome which certainly needs to be collected and published. Constantly, he would console his friends that he would return to India, but he was wary of being targeted by the various groups which had raised a furore about his so-called “objectionable” paintings of goddesses. Scores of court cases had been registered against the artist. Even if some had been resolved, another one would ensure that he would have to spend time in prison on landing in the country of his birth. Bestowed with the title of Padma Vibhushan, his displacement is proof of how even the highest honours in the land can be redundant.
Fleeting attempts were made by artists and the intelligentsia, at home, to lobby for M.F. Husain’s return. When he accepted the offer of Qatari citizenship last year, those attempts petered out. We can only console ourselves that M.F. Husain kept himself and his art together, that nothing could affect his creative spirit. He was working on a series of paintings titled “History of the Civilisation of India”. He painted without disaffection, he painted out of an inner compulsion — like a child who longs to return to the womb of his mother.