Buried in Exile!!

It was a unique journey of a man from Pandharpur Maharashtra to all over the world and then to England, where he died and buried on 10^th June, 2011. M. F. Husain, a very controversial figure yet a genius.

M. F. Husain

Born on September 17, 1915 in Pandharpur in Maharashtra, Husain was mainly a self-taught artist. He made ends meet in his initial days by painting cinema hoardings in Mumbai, paid barely four or six annas per square foot. As soon as he earned a little bit he used to take off for Surat, Baroda and Ahmedabad to paint landscapes. Husain first became well-known as an artist in the late 1940s. In 1967, he made his first film, ‘Through the Eyes of a Painter’.

He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in 1991. Husain went on to become the highest paid painter in India. His single canvases have fetched up to $2 million at a recent Christie's auction. He has also produced & directed a few movies, including Gaja Gamini and Meenaxi: A Tale of Three Cities. Indifferent to both religion and politics, Husain, a Muslim by upbringing, treated the gods and goddesses of Hinduism as visual stimuli rather than deities, depicting them unclothed and often in sexually suggestive poses.

In the 6 February 2006 issue, India Today, a national English weekly published an advertisement titled "Art For Mission Kashmir". This advertisement contains a painting of Bharatmata as a nude woman posed across a map of India with the names of Indian States on various parts of her body. Husain apologized and promised to withdraw the painting from an auction, which was later sold for Rs. 80 lakh in the auction. A series of cases were brought against him and a court case related to the alleged obscene depiction of Hindu goddesses in his paintings, included goddess of Saraswati and that resulted in issuing a non-bailable warrant against Husain after he failed to respond to summons. There were also reportedly death threats. M F Husain died aged 95 on 9 June 2011, he died at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London, and was buried in the city on 10 June 2011.

If we looked back to certain events then Husain played a crucial role in getting Sonali Dasgupta's escape from Mumbai's Tajmahal Hotel to Delhi to be with Roberto Rosillini. One night he booked a first class coupe on the Frontier Mail from Mumbai to Delhi. Accompanying him with her head covered was Sonali Dasgupta, travelling as Mrs Husain. Avoiding the paparazzi, Husain escorted Dasgupta to Delhi and set up a meeting with Rossellini. Soon the couple left for Rome and were married.

Husain's most passionate love may have been Marie Zurkova, an interpreter whom he met in 1953 on a trip to Czechoslovakia, his first outside India. Husain reportedly gave her 50 paintings and proposed that she become his second wife. However, she eventually married someone else and moved to Australia.

I am very honest in my declaration that I never liked his painting that brought wrath from the conservative Hindus. If a Danish paper office bombed for their cartoon that hurt the religious feeling of a community. I too have certain reservation about my religion and it is natural for me to get furious with whoever is trying the same with our God/Goddess, it is nothing to do with the communities, castes or creed in which the person is belongs. It not the question of any community but everyone should have respects for others religion and religious-believe and must think before hurting them. He often misused his artistic expression. At the same time, I am not a fanatic or an orthodox believer to force a person leaves his/her motherland for a mistake. It was the muscle power of the so-called Hindutva based parties like ShivSena, BJP and RSS, forced a genius like Husain to leave his country to exile. These parties those always behave as the face of the Hinduism, they are the people for whom Hinduism never spread its wing like Buddhism. Judiciary system also made him an offender and issued a non-bailable warrant, when multiple offender of genuine crime moving around freely.

!!!A genius never die, they live forever through their creation they left behind, R.I.P. M.F. Husain.!!!