The Hindu : New Delhi News : “I feel like coming back tomorrow”

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Oct 03, 2007
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New Delhi

New Delhi

“I feel like coming back tomorrow”

Staff Reporter

Says artist-in-exile M. F. Husain to his friends and admirers in Delhi

– PHOTO: SHIV KUMAR PUSHPAKAR

THE VIEW FROM DELHI: Shamshad Husain, son of artist M. F. Husain, face to face with his father’s photograph at Vithalbhai Patel House in the Capital on Tuesday.

NEW DELHI: Artists and cultural activists from across the Capital gathered on the Vithalbhai Patel House lawns here on Tuesday evening in a show of solidarity and support for the ostracised painter M. F. Husain who has been living in London and Dubai for over a year now.

Tucked away in London, Husain Saab interacted with his friends and admirers through a web-cam. Several of the grand old artist’s friends and patrons queued up to converse with him and wish him luck for a speedy return to India.

“I feel like coming back tomorrow,” said the painter in Hindi with his flowing white beard occupying most of the giant display screen. “I am grateful to this campaign as it is working for my cause. But I can return only once I am shown the green signal.”

A highlight of the evening was a huge billboard-shaped canvas, reminiscent of Husain’s fledgling years in Mumbai as a film poster painter, on which hoarding painters from Delhi’s Darya Ganj recreated images from the artist’s autobiography. Using a metal table as their palette, a few brush strokes were all it took the painters to transform the hoarding into a characteristic Husain motif.

Several khadi-clad visitors paused to contemplate before the large three-foot-by-two-foot pictures shot by photographer Parthiv Shah more than a decade ago at an art exhibition.

The role-reversing photographs re-invented the eminent artist as the objective – as an artist surrounded by his works.

Also gracing the occasion with her brand of sophisticated earthiness was actor Shabana Azmi. “There is nothing dearer to an artist than his motherland. I am sure Husain Saab will soon return to the country he loves so much,” she said.

Recalling her conversation with Madhuri Dixit during the days the latter was working under Husain’s direction for his much talked about film “Gajagamini”, Ms. Azmi said she had told Madhuri to obey “willingly and religiously” whatever directions she got from the painter for the film shoot: “When you are working for such a master, you do not raise questions. You merely follow what you are told.”

“The film was Husain’s attempt to convey an artistic message without the framework of a storyline. He allowed images to speak for themselves,” she added.

Anguished at the exile of the painter who has a pile of court cases pending against him for his works of art, artist Ram Rahman said the episode was both astonishing and frightening.

Holding artists’ freedom to be the key issue, Rahman said while Husain might be a victim of political games, his worth as an artist would continue to inhabit historical memory long after the politicking factions are dead and forgotten.

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