I came to know Maqbool Fida Husain (1915-2011) sometime around 1994. I had a graphic design studio in Ahmedabad. One day, Husain approached me to help him out with some design-related things, and that's how we first connected. But obviously, the connection was far deeper than we thought at first and despite our age difference, we became friends for life. He was my mentor, more than anything else.
Around the time we met, Madhuri Dixit's Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! had just become a blockbuster at the box office and Husain was totally fida over her. Thanks to Husain, I ended up seeing the movie so many times as well, and even today, I can remember each and every scene. We would walk into a theatre, watch some parts and sneak out. That was how he always saw his favourite film—one set piece at a time. Once, we watched it at a drive-in theatre in Ahmedabad and Husain started painting 'live' on the bonnet of my car. This was pure Husain—present in the moment but also somehow restless and in his mind already someplace else.
Many think of his 'Madhuri mania' as superficial or something that he was doing for effect. Partly, that is true, but he had a philosophy about it. In 1995, he had a show at the India Today Art gallery in New Delhi which featured a collection of paintings in which Dixit was the muse as well as some older works dealing with several of his other pet subjects. He had invited Dixit for the inauguration. Excited like a child, Husain saab himself designed the publicity campaign. As someone who loved a good spectacle, he arranged for a real-life horse and drew Dixit on it instantly. The onlookers were amazed at his virtuosity. It was followed by a press conference in which Husain and Dixit sat in the gallery and fielded questions. Art openings are usually dry affairs, but this one was full of drama and an unexpectedly fun evening for everyone. Husain went mad over Dixit. The press and public went mad over Dixit and the gallery had to call the police to manage the crowd.
"IMAGINE THE WONDERS MY ASSOCIATION WITH MADHURI CAN DO. SHE WILL TAKE ART TO THE STREETS OF INDIA. THERE'S A POWER IN THE LANGUAGE OF CINEMA THAT TOUCHES EVERY INDIAN."M F HUSAIN
There was so much hype around the show that it became a phenomenal hit. Baba, as everyone in his close circle lovingly called him, had achieved what he had set out to do. It won't be wrong to suggest that with this kind of showmanship Husain was instrumental in opening up a new market for art in India. He made it possible for the 'artist' to be a 'superstar' in his/her own right. Husain has had shows in Bombay, London and Paris earlier, but nothing remotely compared to the fanfare of the one in New Delhi. Husain had now tasted the blood of glamour.
After this event, Husain became even more ambitious. He decided to offer Dixit his dream project—a Bollywood movie on his idea of 'Indian womanhood.' I still have a poster that he had painted in which he wrote, “Untitled Film with Madhuri.” So sure was he about casting Dixit that even before he had a script in mind he knew that she would be in the film. Well, I had no personal interest in film stars and felt Husain saab was wasting his time trying to pursue a celebrity who might not be able to reciprocate his adoration. It was Yash Chopra who rang up Dixit’s secretary and got us an appointment. Dixit was getting ready to go somewhere the morning we landed at her first-floor apartment in Juhu. Her house help announced, "Madam has to attend an urgent meeting. Come tomorrow." As we took the stairs, I told Baba that I didn't like the way Dixit behaved. I pleaded to him, "For me, you are everything while Madhuri is nothing. She should have honoured her commitment if she had called us. I don't care about myself but it's not right that she humiliates a prestigious artist like you." Seeing me upset, Baba tried to reassure me, saying, "Anil, don't feel bad. I am no fool. It is not Madhuri that I am interested in. It is her persona. Imagine the wonders my association with Madhuri can do. She will take art to the streets of India. There's a power in the language of cinema that touches every Indian."
Husain knew Bollywood's reach because he started his career as a cinema billboard painter in Grant Road back in the 1930s and understood the influence of visual metaphors on the Indian mind. I was more curious to know how Dixit would benefit from him. He promptly replied, "Madhuri is a matinee idol and her posters are pasted on the walls of roadside tea stalls, women's hair parlours and the back of lorries. Nobody puts posters of film stars in their home. But when I paint her, wealthy patrons will give her image a pride of place in their plush homes and offices."
Dixit agreed to play the role of his ideal woman in Gaja Gamini (2000), the title of which was inspired by one of Husain's previous paintings. He had also made a sketch of a woman walking gracefully, with a gathri (cloth bag) on her head and an infant clinging to her bosom, which became his reference point for the film. Baba had lost his own mother when he was a child, and had never seen her face. As a result, all Husain paintings portray faceless women, symbolic of the maternal and nurturing figure that he was deprived of. This loss haunted him all his life. He used to say that the only asset his mother left behind for him was a gathri. His father remarried later and Husain had a step-mother. I have a painting in my home which is his ode to mothers. In it, Husain has attempted to depict his own mother on one side. Next to it, there's the tale of Lord Krishna's two mothers. In the middle, he has painted Mother Teresa with an orphan who's holding a plant in his tiny hands—a metaphor for Mother Teresa providing a new life to the poor of Calcutta. He finishes it with the figure of Dixit, jokingly summing up, "Maa Adhuri." In Gaja Gamini, Dixit brought the woman of his imagination alive on screen. The movie reflects his personal vision and memories of his own life journey, particularly his admiration for some of the greatest Indian heroines—Kalidasa's Shakuntala, Premchand's Nirmala and Abhisarika from the Indian epics.
Husain's obsession with his own popularity and fame was legendary. It was only matched by his genius for art and his extremely prolific and significant output that was created simply because he spent every single minute of his life working. His mind was always bubbling with new ideas. Every day, he woke up with the single-minded purpose of conquering the world. He didn't care so much for money, though he made more in his lifetime than he knew what to do with it. He never took himself seriously. Every now and then, he allowed himself to be exploited by dealers and buyers. I used to say, "Baba, yeh log aapko ullu bana rahe hai." He'd reply, gently, "Bana ne do, Anil. Ullu banne ka bhi ek anand hai." He was a man who enjoyed everything, the good, the bad, whatever life threw at him. If he was not a born painter, he would have been a great Sufi saint.
Often considered one of the most famous modern artists that India has produced, what distinguished Husain from others was that his stardom was genuine. Even if you had never seen a painting by him you knew what MF Husain looked like. On the one hand, that was exactly what he wanted but on the other, the limelight he craved was also responsible for his run-ins with controversies. But it was much ado about nothing. He was a product of a secular India, whose diversity inspired him and made him the man he was. Despite being a global nomad, Husain's art was rooted in Indian culture. Unfortunately, some miscreants misinterpreted his art, labelling it as vulgar and offensive to the Hindu religion. He was an artist but here he was forced to defend mounting court cases and death threats instead. There were mob attacks at his home and his exhibitions were cancelled. Worse, he was vilified when he should have been celebrated. Ultimately, in 2006, he decided to leave his homeland and spent the rest of his life in self-imposed exile in Dubai, London and Qatar. While living abroad, he was homesick and missed India terribly. My wife Tanuja used to make home-cooked sukhdi and puranpoli that he relished. Whenever he would visit us in Ahmedabad the first thing he would do is sit on the jhula and swing joyously. During one of my trips to Dubai, I gave him a jhula with a stand which he kept in his Emaar Tower balcony.
I count myself among the lucky few who have come to know Husain closely. He has generously gifted me paintings over the years. One of my personal favourites remains the family portrait he made for the Relias; it’s a prized possession. The story behind the portrait is equally interesting. He started painting it in Ahmedabad but got busy with his travels soon after. Many years passed and he didn't get a chance to return to Ahmedabad. Then, he went overseas—and this time, for good. I casually reminded him of the unfinished portrait once. "Carry it when you come over to London next time," he urged. He started the painting in Ahmedabad and completed it in London. Therefore, it is signed 'Ahmedabad-London.' Since the year was 2007 he emblazoned it with '007,' with impish glee. He was a big James Bond fan and always found a way to indulge his 007 fantasy.
I have met and hosted many artists in my life. There was SH Raza, Bhupen Khakhar, KG Subramanyan, Manjit Bawa and Jeram Patel. But none like Husain. Unlike other artists, Baba wasn't an enigma or a myth so much as a man of paradox. He was an unapologetic bon vivant but a man of simple and frugal living at the same time. He loved fancy Ferraris but preferred to walk barefoot. (Somebody rightly called him, 'Fakir in a Ferrari.') He was larger than life but it was the small moments that made him truly happy. He was both flamboyant and modest at once, making it difficult to pin him down but very easy to love. It's now clichéd to say that he lived life to the fullest. Is there any other way to describe him? Let me borrow Dixit’s memorable words from Gaja Gamini, "Hum bhi zinda reh kar marne ka maza lete hain."
(Anil Relia is the founder of the Archer Art Gallery and serves as the chairman and honorary director of MF Husain-BV Doshi's Amdavad Ni Gufa in Ahmedabad. He spoke to Shaikh Ayaz.)