M. F. Husain: In Hindu culture, nudity is a metaphor for purity.

[Guest guest]

'In Hindu culture, nudity is a metaphor for purity'

 

Maqbool Fida Husain tells Shoma Chaudhury why his faith

in India's secular and tolerant traditions remains

undiminished

 

Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 4

Dated Feb 02, 2008

 

Q: Husain saheb, what do you feel about the fundamentalist

attacks against you?

MFH: I'm not really perturbed by all this. India is a

democracy, everyone is entitled to their views. I only wish

people would air their views through debate rather than

violence.The media comes to me looking - almost hoping

- for strong statements, but I am actually very optimistic

about India. I see this as just a moment in time. For 5,000

years, our work has been going on with such force, this is

just a minor hiccough. I am certain the younger generation

will get fed up of the fundamentalist, conservative mood in

the country and change things. I didn't want to leave my

home. At the same time, it's not even as if I want the

conservative element to be pushed out of society. We are all

part of a large family and when a child breaks something at

home, you don't throw him out, you try and explain things

to him. Yeh aapas ka mamla hai. (This is a family matter.)

Those opposed to my art just do not understand it. Or have

never seen it. [....]

 

Q: Why did you apologise for your art? You know more

about Hindu iconography and the shastras than the goons

who deface your work.

MFH: Never. I have never apologised for my art. I stand by

it totally. What I said was that I have painted my canvases

- including those of gods and goddesses- with deep love

and conviction, and in celebration. If in doing that, I have

hurt anyone's feelings, I am sorry. That is all. I do not love

art less, I love humanity more. India is a completely unique

country. Liberal. Diverse. There is nothing like it in the

world. This mood in the country is just a historical process.

For me, India means a celebration of life. You cannot find

that same quality anywhere in the world.

 

Q: Could you talk about how your exposure and love for

Hindu iconography and culture began.

MFH: As a child, in Pandharpur, and later, Indore, I was

enchanted by the Ram Lila. My friend, Mankeshwar, and I

were always acting it out. The Ramayana is such a rich,

powerful story, as Dr Rajagopalachari says, its myth has

become a reality. But I really began to study spiritual texts

when I was 19. Because of what I had been through,

because I lost my mother, because I was sent away, I used to

have terrible nightmares when I was about 14 or 15. All of

this stopped when I was 19. I had a guru called Mohammad

Ishaq- I studied the holy texts with him for two years. I

also read and discussed the Gita and Upanishads and

Puranas with Mankeshwar, who had become an ascetic by

then. After he left for the Himalayas, I carried on studying

for years afterwards. All this made me completely calm. I

have never had dreams or nightmares ever again. Later, in

Hyderabad, in 1968, Dr Ram Manohar Lohia suggested I

paint the Ramayana. I was completely broke, but I painted

150 canvases over eight years. I read both the Valmiki and

Tulsidas Ramayana (the first is much more sensual) and

invited priests from Benaras to clarify and discuss the

nuances with me.

 

When I was doing this, some conservative Muslims told me,

why don't you paint on Islamic themes? I said, does Islam

have the same tolerance? If you get even the calligraphy

wrong, they can tear down a screen. I've painted hundreds

of Ganeshas in my lifetime - it is such a delightful form. I

always paint a Ganesha before I begin on any large work. I

also love the iconography of Shiva. The Nataraj - one of

the most complex forms in the world - has evolved over

thousands of years and, almost like an Einstein equation, it

is the result of deep philosophical and mathematical

calculations about the nature of the cosmos and physical

reality. When my daughter, Raeesa wanted to get married,

she did not want any ceremonies, so I drew a card

announcing her marriage and sent it to relatives across the

world. On the card, I had painted Parvati sitting on Shiva's

thigh, with his hand on her breast - the first marriage in the

cosmos.

 

Nudity, in Hindu culture, is a metaphor for purity. Would I

insult that which I feel so close to? I come from the

Suleimani community, a sub-sect of the Shias, and we have

many affinities with Hindus, including the idea of

reincarnation. As cultures, it is Judaism and Christianity that

are emotionally more distant. But it is impossible to discuss

all this with those who oppose me. Talk to them about

Khajuraho, they will tell you its sculpture was built to

encourage population growth and has outgrown its utility!

(laughs) It is people in the villages who understand the

sensual, living, evolving nature of Hindu gods. They just put

orange paint on a rock, and it comes to stand for Hanuman.

 

Q: In what terms would you like your paintings to be

spoken of and remembered?

MFH: I never wanted to be clever, esoteric, abstract. I

wanted to make simple statements. I wanted my canvases to

have a story. I wanted my art to talk to people. In 1948, I

exhibited my work publicly for the first time in the Bombay

Arts Society show. I had already been painting and

practising for years. Now in those paintings, I took the

classical images of the Gupta bronzes - the tribhanga form;

the sensuous and erotic colours of Pahari paintings - its

deep maroons, blacks, haldi; and the nine rasas. I wanted my

format to be classical, yet retain the innocence of the folk.

Souza came and asked me excitedly, from where have you

got this? I didn't tell him, I said, you go search it. This is

what lies at the heart of the artistic enterprise.

 

It is in picking from what has gone before. In India, there

have been so many high periods - Tanjore, Chola, Gupta...

Centuries of seeing lie behind that. You cannot reinvent the

wheel - your individuality, your creative eye lies in what

you pick. The other thing is to find one's own rhythm and

calculation: Where exactly do you place a line on an empty

canvas? Where exactly do you place the dot? How much

yellow should I use, how much red. If I use 1mm of red,

should the blue be a half millimeter or more? An artist's

voice lies in this calculation, this math. To find your style

and language takes 60-70 years of continuous work.

 

Q: Which among your paintings do you consider the most

significant, your equivalent of Picasso's Guernica?

MFH: 'Between the Spider and the Lamp' (1956). I feel

happy with the structure of that grouping - there is a kind

of mystery about what the five women are talking about.

Stories perhaps even unknown to themselves. There is

something in the precarious way the woman is holding the

spider on a delicate thread. A fear. I rarely draw eyes, I

don't want to use eyes because to give someone eyes is to

define and identify the person. I prefer to make the body

expressive. To understand hand expression, I had observed

Rodin's sculptures - 'Men of Calais'. To that I brought a

knowledge of classical mudras. So much is made of culture

and tradition in India, yet 60 years after Independence, art

students are still made to study the body from Greek art. Dr.

Kumaraswamy does not even find mention. In colleges, you

learn about Shakespeare and Keats; Kalidas does not find

mention. This is why there is no pehchan in India, no

recognition of what is Indian. Things are so farcical that

years ago when the Benaras Hindu University honoured

Subbulakshmi, JRD Tata, Mother Teresa and me, we were

given red caps and cloaks! (laughs) This was the seat of

Hindu learning! The custodian of Bharatiya sanskriti!

 

Q: Is there anything that you find obscene in the world?

MFH: Bad behaviour. That is all.

 

 

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