What am I facing? Nothing. The cases and all are just minor things: MF Husain

Actually, I like to walk in different places. For the last fifty years, I8217;ve been roaming around the world. I don8217;t have a studio anywhere. I just take take the colours and take up a hotel room, or go to a friend8217;s house, or just go anywhere and I just do painting. I think my way of working is that of an artist8230;I have been coming here for the last 3-4 years because I think this is a city that is really growing fast. I used to come here often because my brother was here for the past 25 years. I have seen this city grow, because earlier it was all desert8230;

8230;they give total freedom. Here you can do anything except breaking law and order. So I decided to come and work here8230;I worked here and had a show about three years back and people liked it. Now I am working on Al-Arhab, the Arab civilisation. Not on the nihilism, but how the Arab civilisation helped mankind, in astronomy, in travelling, in science and all that. Based on that I8217;ve already done some sketches, and there8217;ll be about 99 paintings.

I am a citizen of the world, and that8217;s how a painter should be, because his concern is the visual world. Though my basic attitude for the last 60-70 years is to capture the Indian civilization, which is 5,000 years old. So, I8217;ve worked there, painted the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, and I8217;ve roamed all around the country, each corner. One reason why I have this lust for wandering is because my mother died when I was one and a half years old, and if you miss that affection, that lap of mother, then there is no place in this world8230;that is the main reason and I am searching my mother in every woman I see in every corner of the world. That8217;s precisely what I am seekingiquest;because the essence of Indian culture is Shakti, the woman.

8226; How do you find it when people describe you as India8217;s most famous exile?

I really laugh at this word! What is 8220;exile8221;? Because I8217;ve been wandering all over the world for the last 50 years? I have been working all the time, there is no such thing as exile. About three years back, I came and established my studio here, because this is very close to India, and the Arab world and India have shared so much over the years. Even when I go to London, because there also there it is half-India, everything is so familiar. Only when I go to New York do I feel like

an outsider.

8226; Why do you feel like an outsider in America?

First of all, because I belong to a country that is 5,000 years old, and America is just 200 years old. And 200 years is nothing! They have to live another 1,000 years to realise8230;

8226; But, if you were a painter working in Paris or New York, or even London, you would not have faced what you are facing right now in India?

What am I facing? Nothing! The cases and all are just minor things. After all, we are a democratic country. And whatever I have depicted is not realistic, I have painted in the idiom of modern art, the contemporary way! So that8217;s very difficult to understand. Where there is a figure of a woman I paint, it is nude but that figure is not realistic. I am not painting every part of the body in detail. Which is even there in our temples. The nudity is a metaphor for purity and strength!

8226; So you think people have not understood this? Or have they deliberately chosen not to understand?

I don8217;t know what8217;s the reason, but I think it will take time. Like after the Renaissance, when the Impressionists came, in Europe it was rejected. They called it nonsense. But today it has become a classic thing. There has been a big art movement in India since Independence, with all the contemporary artists working. Hundreds of artists are working and they are all based on this.

8226; So maybe it was an idea of creativity a little bit ahead of its time?

That has always been. The visual arts are always ahead of time because they foresee certain structures changing in the life and the landscape. Man is a phenomenon the way he has mastered the matter! The way he has created another world!

8226; Did this worry or upset you? You faced controversies all your life, but this one in particular.

Not at all. The cases are going on, but no one is stopping me. And the thing that I did 20 or 30 years back, I don8217;t do it now! It8217;s not as if I am doing it even today.

8226; But this time it got a bit violent, there was an assault, and there was some damage, some vandalism.

No, there was nothing. No vandalism. Who says there was? This is all OK, the protest and all. But they never damaged me or even stopped me from doing anything.

8226; You say that your being away from India has nothing to do with the controversy?

No. Nothing.

8226; But there has been a long gap now. Many of us admirers are now getting worried.

I don8217;t know all this. In fact my exhibition is opening on December 30 in Calcutta. And I8217;ll be there.

8226; But do you have a message for the people who got upset about your paintings, who filed these cases?

The thing is in the court. These are people who are annoyed. How to go to each person, especially the masses! It8217;s very difficult.

8226; But have you expressed regrets, in some way, that you have offended somebody?

I8217;ve already said that whatever I8217;ve done I did it with conviction and with love. But if in the process somebody8217;s feelings are hurt, then I apologise.

8226; And as you8217;ve said in the past, that you see God as one. Because if I can bring in the most unkind of all criticisms, question that many people would like to throw at you8230;

Look at this beautiful landscape, lets talk of the beauty8230;of the positive aspects of this worldiquest;because these are such minor things, and we are such a great country. We have evolved a unique culture called the composite culture, where all the forces outside came8230;

8226; But this gets complicated at time like this, when this cartoon controversy is on8230;

I am not concerned with them at all8230;I am only concerned about aesthetics, that8217;s all! Nothing bothers me!

8226; You8217;ve painted Hindu gods and goddesses with a lot of devotioniquest;for example Ganesha. It has been a metaphor with you for a very long time.

In India, you go to any of the houses, and you find many Ganeshas and not one.

8226; Are you a devout person in your personal life?

I am a believer and not a non-believer!

8226; Do you follow a way of prayer, do you go to a temple or a mosque?

I was born in Pandarpur and my mother was a Maharashtrian, and instead of saying 8220;khudai kasam8221; she used to say 8220;devasheesh shapath8221;8230;I was brought up in that atmosphere.

8226; No wonder you have grown up to be such a symbol of composite syncretic culture! So, the question that people would like to throw at you is 8212; if you can paint Hindu gods and godesses like this, why don8217;t you paint the Prophet?

I don8217;t want to say anything!

8226; And this has not affected your creativity in any way?

No. I am doing my work well8230;

8226; We were all very concerned when you damaged your right hand in London.

Yes, for two months my right hand was in a plaster. So I thought what to do! Then I started with my left hand. That is when I experienced with the structure of the colour. After painting for 60-70 years, now you don8217;t struggle for the technical part, but the vision.

8226; In terms of evolution, in which area is your painting evolving now?

Now I am concerned more about history8230;and now what you do should become history! Three years back I8217;d done a series called 8220;A Painter8217;s Vision of the 20th Century8221;, because 20th century was the most dynamic period in the history of mankind. So many things happened. 1911 was the first flight, and by 1950 they reached the moon. All science, technology, literature, poetry 8212; all that has happened I have painted it! I have done all 25 paintings that I8217;ll show here, then in Singapore and different palces. And I am working on the rest of 75. And the other thing is the history of Arab civilisation. But above all, instead of a painter I wanted to become a film-maker, because I consider film media as the most dynamic media as it incorporates all the arts 8212; literature, music, poetry, everything is here. I don8217;t care about the commercial but about the creative. There I got got a chance after 40-50 years as I made the film Gajagamini with Madhuri Dixit, because the woman that I was seeking in my painting for the last 50-60 years was here completed by Madhuri in Gajagamini, because it is the whole body language, her every movement is so Indian. After 10-11 years I found another female form, figure, and in Indian cinema, and that is Amrita Rao. She is from Mangalore and she has hardly done a few films. But in this film of Sooraj Bharjatya called Vivaah, depicting a small town girl and the values, I think it is an extraordinary film! And it is going to be a big hit. So, I am working on that now! And I have already seen the film ten times.

8226; So there is a long way to reach the 75 times you saw Hum Aapke Hain Kaun?

No, I think I am going to see this film at least 100 times. Because it is more realistic, in the sense, less of fantasy8230;like a huge house and loud dance and music. This one is down to earth, set in a small town, depicting a middle-class family.

8226; Also, film-making has become better in India!

I made two films. I made Gajagamini and I made Tale of Two Cities because I am very fond of cities. One is Hyderabad and the other is Jaisalmer, and the third Prague, which I consider

so far as the most beautiful cities in the whole of Europe8230;

8226; What8217;s so special about Amrita Rao? And I know a lot of females in Bombay cinema will be really dissappointediquest;

There are many good actresses, but I am concerned with anything relevant to our culture. You may do a great painting in France or New York or anywhere, but if it has that essense of the Indian 8212; I am concerned with that! And all my life I have retained that. Though I don8217;t dismiss what is being done in other countries. I am OK with avant garde and what America produced, such as Andy Warhol. He was a good painter, but he belonged to a culture called the junk culture. So it is valid there, but why should I ape here.

8226; You said Vivaah is a cut above Hum Aapke Hain Kaun. Is Amrita Rao a cut above Madhuri?

In acting she is just new, but she has tremendous potential. That8217;s why I have decided to work on her, and I have very seldom gone wrong in my choice.

8226; So you8217;ve never gone wrong with your choice of what is glamourous, beautiful and attractive?

That is true. That is the secret of how you keep interest in the zest of life. That is there, that you must be always in love! Not only in love with women, but real passion!

8226; And what8217;s so different or special about Amrita Rao?

I said I am concerned about the body language and anything that has to do with our culture. Whatever you create should come out from your own soil, only then it is genuine!

8226; Do you now see an increasing American or Western influence on cinema as well?

Americans are just 200 years old8230;the only thing that they had was jazz, and it was only because of the blacks, and it is their contribution.

To be continued