I left Bharat and landed in Dubai,
On a plane ride so bumpy that I almost cried.
Clergymen in uniform and Amirs counting gold,
Everyone was there to greet me when I stepped outside.
Newspapermen eating kebabs
Had to be held down by big police.
Someday, everything is gonna be different
When I paint my masterpiece.
My apologies to Bob Dylan for twisting his beautiful lyrics to suit my purpose, but God’s like him are all forgiving.
But things are really “different” for Maqbool Fida Hussain has who has been leaving in self imposed exile for last four years. He exile, albeit self imposed, is more or less for the same reason as Ms. Taslima Nasrin is out of Bangladesh or Salman Rushdie has been collecting girlfriends in his self imposed hiding.
Maqbool Fida Hussain has been conferred the prized Qatari citizenship by Qatar’s powerful first lady, Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser al Missned, wife of the emirate’s ruler, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani and the “masterpiece” is a series of canvasses depicting the history of Arab culture.
Maqbool Fida Hussain has accepted the privilege with honor and has to give up the citizenship of India, the land where he was born.
While Taslima could not conjure so much publicity as she is more obscure because of her regional, gender biased writing and Mr. Rushdie has been a shade of his former self writing subdued novels from the dungeons, people are “fida” about Fida and shakes and stirs at the mention of his name.
Whether it’s New York Times or The Tribune, both local and international media have been crying foul about the “exiled” status of the painter, who has been dubbed as the “Picasso of India”.
Mr. Hussain has a summer residence in London and spends the rest of his time shuttling in Middle East countries.
But the basic question remains why Mr. Hussain is in self imposed exile?
If one has to believe in the reports of the “secularism” obsessed press, the reason is given below. The lines are from Mr. N Ram, editor of “The Hindu”.
“Since 2006, when the Hindutva hate campaign against him escalated, Mr. Husain has been living in Dubai, spending his summers in London. He travels freely except to India, where he faces legal harassment and physical threats, with the system impotent and not committed to enabling his return. Though the Supreme Court has intervened on the right side, it was too little, too late. The Congress-led government, it is clear, has done no better than the preceding BJP-led governments in protecting Mr. Husain’s freedom of creativity and peace of mind.”
Maqbool Fida Hussain was born in pre independent India in 1915 in a village in Maharashtra and went to Sir J.J. School of Art. He started is career (earning money) by painting billboards for Bollywood and then joined the Progressive Artists Group which wanted to break free from the nationalist Bengal School of Art and focused more towards the avant - garde modern redemptions in painting.
Painting, when made commercial, by nature is a bourgeois form of art. It is understood by limited people, adored and appreciated by much lesser population and can be afforded only by the rich and famous.
Even a canvas painting from an outgoing student of Pune School of Art will command a grand. We, the middle class, know more about Hussain’s painting after the auctions at Christies or when bought by a connoisseur by spending an amount which could have eradicated poverty in few small African villages. For the 450 million people living in villages Maqbool Hussain may resonate with the name of a person living in the nearby village.
Painters are creative people, but creativity does not feed you in today’s world. You need to sell and to sell you need to be popular and the easiest way to create popularity is to create a controversy.
Hussain’s paintings started earning him rich dividends mostly after the controversy broke out on pictures which were drawn few decades back.
The controversy started with his Ramayana and Mahabharata series and his depictions of Hindu deities in the nude.
Most of us who would like to discuss Hussain, due to lack of any current topics on making money or cricket, have no credible information about the drawings and all their coffee table dissertations are based on hearsay.
The Hindu belief in God is based on mythology as Hinduism does not have a flesh and blood proponent in the form of a Prophet or Son of God. The belief is older than any man made religion and the scriptures profess equality for all rather than having an expansionist view. That is why we have seen Gautam Buddha choosing a different path and forming his own sect and the same holds true for Jainism. Hindu philosophy is like a huge Banyan tree which shelters other sects and sub sects to grow in peace.
The mythological figures have been in our sub consciousness from the time we are introduced to them and we are given an option to choose our religion and not forced as in case of others. While the same mythology depicts Goddess Kali in the nude, whose form depicts destruction, and through the centuries the idea of that picture is instilled in our head, the same depiction of Lakshmi or Saraswati, Goddess of fortune and knowledge is in their purest form.
It hurts sentiments of people, who are devoid of understanding to that extent, the Indian version of selective freedom of speech, more so in case of abstract art, when such deities are depicted in impure form.
“Indeed, Husain has painted several goddesses from the Hindu pantheon in the nude, including Saraswati, the goddess of learning, Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, and Durga, a martial goddess who slays demons. These are bold works that reshape our thinking about Hindu myths, revealing them in new light; they are not lewd drawings meant to titillate. His nudes delineate the body in sharp lines, elevating it to an abstract realm, suggesting the formlessness of divinity.
This explanation, which is faithful to Hindu philosophy, is too abstract for fundamentalists who have protested against his works, and in some cases, ransacked art galleries in India displaying his art. Some Hindu groups have also used the courts: More than 1,200 cases have been filed against him.” - The New York Times
For common man the above report in the New York Times is pure Esperanto.
We are as we present ourselves to the world and whatever be the form of art, the representation should not be a matter of ridicule.
Maqbool Hussain made a film titled “Meenaxi – Tale of Three Cities” which was pulled out of the theatres after four days of release.
A religious Muslim body found a qawwali number in the film, ‘Noor-un-Ala-Noor’ as blasphemous. The council claimed that the song featuring the film’s main protagonist, contained words directly lifted from the Quran.
The response of Hussain to his withdrawal was succinct,” I have not made the film to make money, nor have I sold it to anyone. Therefore, I need not give any reason for the withdrawal of the screening of the film to public.”
We clearly live in a world of dichotomy and our actions are guided more now by commercial and political motives than by any of our bodily organs.
We can accept the depiction of Sita in nude riding on Hanuman’s tail, claiming it as a form of abstract art or may find it objectionable.
When a greater mass find the painting objectionable then it should be mated with the same fate as that of the Danish Cartoon, Satanic Verses or Meenaxi.
These drawing have been made not for Hussain’s bedroom but for public consumption in the western world. Hussain may have received loads of support from quarters that profit from religious divide in the veil of pseudo secularism, but there had been criticism that supersedes the appeasement.
Satish Gujral has gone on record to ask Husain whether he will be bold enough to treat icons of Islam in the same manner.
According to a senior artist and former President, Bombay Art Society, Gopal Adivrekar, “Nothing is bad in being creative but the artists should not go for such artwork, which may hurt the sentiments of a segment of the society.”
The biggest noise was made by the media, who nowadays play more of a disruptive role rather than the constructive role that they are supposed to play.
Hussain’s acceptance of the Qatari citizenship is a blow to their pseudo secularist role and that’s the reason you see only passing remarks about this issue.
To the pseudo secularists, art lovers or those who pretend to understand art, Maqbool Fida Hussain, may be the Picasso or Paul Gauguin of India but to me, like the majority masses of India, it is just another name and his acceptance of Qatari nationality will mean that we have one less citizen.
Good luck and Goodbye – Maqbool Fida Hussain.
On a plane ride so bumpy that I almost cried.
Clergymen in uniform and Amirs counting gold,
Everyone was there to greet me when I stepped outside.
Newspapermen eating kebabs
Had to be held down by big police.
Someday, everything is gonna be different
When I paint my masterpiece.
My apologies to Bob Dylan for twisting his beautiful lyrics to suit my purpose, but God’s like him are all forgiving.
But things are really “different” for Maqbool Fida Hussain has who has been leaving in self imposed exile for last four years. He exile, albeit self imposed, is more or less for the same reason as Ms. Taslima Nasrin is out of Bangladesh or Salman Rushdie has been collecting girlfriends in his self imposed hiding.
Maqbool Fida Hussain has been conferred the prized Qatari citizenship by Qatar’s powerful first lady, Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser al Missned, wife of the emirate’s ruler, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani and the “masterpiece” is a series of canvasses depicting the history of Arab culture.
Maqbool Fida Hussain has accepted the privilege with honor and has to give up the citizenship of India, the land where he was born.
While Taslima could not conjure so much publicity as she is more obscure because of her regional, gender biased writing and Mr. Rushdie has been a shade of his former self writing subdued novels from the dungeons, people are “fida” about Fida and shakes and stirs at the mention of his name.
Whether it’s New York Times or The Tribune, both local and international media have been crying foul about the “exiled” status of the painter, who has been dubbed as the “Picasso of India”.
Mr. Hussain has a summer residence in London and spends the rest of his time shuttling in Middle East countries.
But the basic question remains why Mr. Hussain is in self imposed exile?
If one has to believe in the reports of the “secularism” obsessed press, the reason is given below. The lines are from Mr. N Ram, editor of “The Hindu”.
“Since 2006, when the Hindutva hate campaign against him escalated, Mr. Husain has been living in Dubai, spending his summers in London. He travels freely except to India, where he faces legal harassment and physical threats, with the system impotent and not committed to enabling his return. Though the Supreme Court has intervened on the right side, it was too little, too late. The Congress-led government, it is clear, has done no better than the preceding BJP-led governments in protecting Mr. Husain’s freedom of creativity and peace of mind.”
Maqbool Fida Hussain was born in pre independent India in 1915 in a village in Maharashtra and went to Sir J.J. School of Art. He started is career (earning money) by painting billboards for Bollywood and then joined the Progressive Artists Group which wanted to break free from the nationalist Bengal School of Art and focused more towards the avant - garde modern redemptions in painting.
Painting, when made commercial, by nature is a bourgeois form of art. It is understood by limited people, adored and appreciated by much lesser population and can be afforded only by the rich and famous.
Even a canvas painting from an outgoing student of Pune School of Art will command a grand. We, the middle class, know more about Hussain’s painting after the auctions at Christies or when bought by a connoisseur by spending an amount which could have eradicated poverty in few small African villages. For the 450 million people living in villages Maqbool Hussain may resonate with the name of a person living in the nearby village.
Painters are creative people, but creativity does not feed you in today’s world. You need to sell and to sell you need to be popular and the easiest way to create popularity is to create a controversy.
Hussain’s paintings started earning him rich dividends mostly after the controversy broke out on pictures which were drawn few decades back.
The controversy started with his Ramayana and Mahabharata series and his depictions of Hindu deities in the nude.
Most of us who would like to discuss Hussain, due to lack of any current topics on making money or cricket, have no credible information about the drawings and all their coffee table dissertations are based on hearsay.
The Hindu belief in God is based on mythology as Hinduism does not have a flesh and blood proponent in the form of a Prophet or Son of God. The belief is older than any man made religion and the scriptures profess equality for all rather than having an expansionist view. That is why we have seen Gautam Buddha choosing a different path and forming his own sect and the same holds true for Jainism. Hindu philosophy is like a huge Banyan tree which shelters other sects and sub sects to grow in peace.
The mythological figures have been in our sub consciousness from the time we are introduced to them and we are given an option to choose our religion and not forced as in case of others. While the same mythology depicts Goddess Kali in the nude, whose form depicts destruction, and through the centuries the idea of that picture is instilled in our head, the same depiction of Lakshmi or Saraswati, Goddess of fortune and knowledge is in their purest form.
It hurts sentiments of people, who are devoid of understanding to that extent, the Indian version of selective freedom of speech, more so in case of abstract art, when such deities are depicted in impure form.
“Indeed, Husain has painted several goddesses from the Hindu pantheon in the nude, including Saraswati, the goddess of learning, Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, and Durga, a martial goddess who slays demons. These are bold works that reshape our thinking about Hindu myths, revealing them in new light; they are not lewd drawings meant to titillate. His nudes delineate the body in sharp lines, elevating it to an abstract realm, suggesting the formlessness of divinity.
This explanation, which is faithful to Hindu philosophy, is too abstract for fundamentalists who have protested against his works, and in some cases, ransacked art galleries in India displaying his art. Some Hindu groups have also used the courts: More than 1,200 cases have been filed against him.” - The New York Times
For common man the above report in the New York Times is pure Esperanto.
We are as we present ourselves to the world and whatever be the form of art, the representation should not be a matter of ridicule.
Maqbool Hussain made a film titled “Meenaxi – Tale of Three Cities” which was pulled out of the theatres after four days of release.
A religious Muslim body found a qawwali number in the film, ‘Noor-un-Ala-Noor’ as blasphemous. The council claimed that the song featuring the film’s main protagonist, contained words directly lifted from the Quran.
The response of Hussain to his withdrawal was succinct,” I have not made the film to make money, nor have I sold it to anyone. Therefore, I need not give any reason for the withdrawal of the screening of the film to public.”
We clearly live in a world of dichotomy and our actions are guided more now by commercial and political motives than by any of our bodily organs.
We can accept the depiction of Sita in nude riding on Hanuman’s tail, claiming it as a form of abstract art or may find it objectionable.
When a greater mass find the painting objectionable then it should be mated with the same fate as that of the Danish Cartoon, Satanic Verses or Meenaxi.
These drawing have been made not for Hussain’s bedroom but for public consumption in the western world. Hussain may have received loads of support from quarters that profit from religious divide in the veil of pseudo secularism, but there had been criticism that supersedes the appeasement.
Satish Gujral has gone on record to ask Husain whether he will be bold enough to treat icons of Islam in the same manner.
According to a senior artist and former President, Bombay Art Society, Gopal Adivrekar, “Nothing is bad in being creative but the artists should not go for such artwork, which may hurt the sentiments of a segment of the society.”
The biggest noise was made by the media, who nowadays play more of a disruptive role rather than the constructive role that they are supposed to play.
Hussain’s acceptance of the Qatari citizenship is a blow to their pseudo secularist role and that’s the reason you see only passing remarks about this issue.
To the pseudo secularists, art lovers or those who pretend to understand art, Maqbool Fida Hussain, may be the Picasso or Paul Gauguin of India but to me, like the majority masses of India, it is just another name and his acceptance of Qatari nationality will mean that we have one less citizen.
Good luck and Goodbye – Maqbool Fida Hussain.
