Opinion My Friend Husain
Last fortnight he told me,lets meet,the time is coming.
I first met M.F. Husain in 1948. It was at an exhibition at Bombay Art Society where both of us were showing our work. We instantly got along and a few days later he visited my studio at the Chateau Windsor to see my works. He sold my first canvas to Homi Bhabha for Rs 200. I was working in Grindlays Bank then,and doing art alongside,but both of us were struggling artists and were to become good friends and we continued to be in touch even after he went abroad. In fact,I spoke to him a fortnight ago,when he said,Ab milna chahiye,samay aa raha hai (We should meet,the time is coming). Dadiba Pundole,owner of Pundole Art Gallery in Mumbai,had called me from London earlier this week and spoke about Husain. He said Husain wasnt looking too well,but we expected him to bounce back,like he always did.
Whenever we were together,not surprisingly,art often dominated our discussions. My job at the bank was transferable and Husain often visited me and even stayed with me in Chennai,Kanpur,Shimla and Delhi. He was very encouraging and could be described as a true draughtsman who was predominantly original. He could do just about anything on canvas,from linear lines to the colour that he often splashed. His thinking was simple and had a poetic symphony.
Last year,he visited my daughter and her husband at the London airport,and followed it with a call to me saying that he was coming to India soon. He loved cars,so I asked him which car I should get to receive him at the airport. He asked for a Bugatti. When I questioned him about the colour,he started laughing. We loved sharing jokes. He wasnt the kind to be malicious or sly. Even after not being able to come back to India,he had nothing against the country. He believed that it was a political thing and had nothing more to it.
The first work of his that I owned was a gift he gave me for losing my copy of Clive Bells Art. He had borrowed it from me. One day when I returned from work I found a canvas with a note saying that he had forgotten my book in a taxi. It is a painting of a mother and child and is now on the walls of my Gurgaon home. Later,I bought several works of his,including Holi,which is one of his celebrated works. I had spotted it in the window of an art gallery,in the middle of driving through the infamous Mumbai traffic,and picked it up for Rs 350. I dont know much it would cost now,but to me it is an important work of my friend.
We shared an excellent rapport. It was he who inducted me to the Progressive Artists Group. There was a rule that each member could introduce one person,and Husain chose me. Our families were also close. I remember one morning,my wife Renu,woke up from a nightmare. She said she had gone to buy vegetables with Fazila,Husains wife,and she said,I lost my son this morning. I went to office and when Husain spoke to me later I was jovial as usual. Then he said,I lost my son this morning. All artists gathered and went to his house.
He was not the sort to complain; he was happy painting. When we were struggling he never complained about money,nor did he flaunt his wealth when he became famous. He provided for his family and wanted to share with others as well. Husain had a habit of wandering around and seeing places. I remember during one of his trips to my parents place in Shimla,my mother prepared his morning tea and went to his room to find that he was missing. None of us had a clue about where he had gone,but after a while he called and said,Main thane mein hoon (I am in the police station). He had taken his car and was driving on The Ridge,which was not allowed. He was fined a sum of Rs 40 or 50,but he took out a 100-rupee note and even offered to pay for a lady whose goats had wandered and eaten someones fruits.
Husain even offered a solution to the Kashmir issue. During one of his meetings with Benazir Bhutto,he made a friendly suggestion of an easy solution,where he said,You take Kashmir and give us Lahore. He loved Lahore. We roamed around Pakistan together,when one of our exhibitions was organised in Lahore. After the 1965 war with Pakistan,Husain,Ram Kumar,Tyeb Mehta and I visited Indian soldiers at the front. We even drew their sketches.
Artists back then shared a different kind of relationship. All of us were scattered in different places and did not meet each other a lot,but whenever we did,it was with great affection. We exchanged letters and even painted each other. I painted Husain on several occasions. Once,after his visit to China,I painted him with Chinese eyes. The work was kept at Bombay Art Society,but it was stolen from there. I also did a portrait from a sketch I had made while having tea with him at a small restaurant near a railway station. Husain too had painted all the artists. There was me,Gaitonde,Ram Kumar and Souza. This was some time in the late 1940s or 50s. The Progressive Group might have split in some sense,but all of us remained friends.
Krishen Khanna,among Indias leading artists,lives in Delhi
express@expressindia.com
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