Interview – M F HUSSAIN

“I AM AN INDIAN AND WILL REMAIN AN INDIAN WHOLE OF MY LIFE. BY BECOMING A CITIZEN OF QATAR, I AM NOT GOING TO LOOSE MY INDIAN IDENTITY. MF HUSSAIN SPEAKS HIS HEART OUT TO PARVEZ AHMED, INDIA EDITOR OF ARY ONE WORLD CHANNEL.I AM GETTING NRI STATUS, MEANS A LIFE-LONG VISA AND RIGHT TO PURCHASE PROPERTY ANYWHERE IN INDIA. I WILL DEFINITELY COME TO INDIA, WHEN I DON’T KNOW BUT ANY TIME IN NEAR FUTURE.I HAVE TWO BIG PROJECTS IN HAND IN QATAR, I HAVE TO CREATE A WHOLE SERIES OF PAINTING ON, ‘ARABIAN CIVILAISATION’ AND IN ENGLAND, MY SUBJECT IS “INDIAN CIVILAISATION’. MEANS EVEN STAYING OUT SIDE INDIA, BUT STILL LIVING INDIA.’

Before accepting the citizenship of Qatar, renowned painter M F Hussain did a long interview with Parvez Ahmad in Dubai. Excerpts of that heart touching, bare all talk.

Q. You are out of your country for a long time now. You must be missing them all—friends, fans, alleys, neighbourhood, bazaar…
A. Memories have their own ways to touch your heartstrings…I have spent the best part of my life there. But the cell phones and computers have made the world small. I can talk to anybody, whenever I feel like. And I keep in touch with all of them. Distance does not matter anymore. I can say, I don’t miss anything… (Smiles , trying to hide his real feeling)

Q. You spent your childhood in Indore. What was it that pushed you towards painting?
A. I was fond of drawing since my childhood. I never threw tantrums for anything else. I never asked for anything else apart from eraser, pencil, paint and brush. I used to draw on every possible empty space. My family members had given up on me and were often heard saying that in this situation, I would neither land a decent job, nor would I ever have a girl to marry.  And guess what! They were bang on target. I never had a job in that sense and the girl I loved was not allowed by her parents to marry me. In the midst of Indore, in town-hall, there were these two large portraits of Maharaja Yashwantrao Holkar and his queen. I used to look at them for hours. I was later told that it was painted by French painter Brancusi who had stayed for two years in Indore on the invitation of Maharaja.  I used to think that even if they had given me two days, I would have produced a better work. As I grew up, I became participating in events. I used to closely study the paintings of great painters of that era and before.

Q. It is generally believed that the iconic horse of yours also traces its birth to Indore?
A. During Muharram, people used to make big Taziyas and huge horses. Somehow, I got attracted to them since my childhood. In fact, I used to visit Imambadas to see horses. And then, as time passed, I started to incorporate them in my paintings. I did a lot of experiments with them. I saw horses of different breeds—Chinese, Japanese, Turkish and of course Arabian. From them, my horse took birth. It is altogether different. If you watch closely, the hips of my horses have a feminine touch in them, and that is why they look so attractive.

Q. You were nominated in Rajya Sabha, but never showed inclination towards politics…
A. My personal belief is that every person should be politically aware, must have an ideology, a point of view and should have political street smartness. But, having said that, I also maintain that an artist must detach himself from all these. He should be away from active politics. During my growing days, I heard the speeches of several leaders —Gandhi, Nehru, Jinnah and Hitler to name a few. However, I did not get carried away. I supported whom I thought to be prudent. But never became part of their politics.

Q. You also saw the days of the Raj…
A. I hated Britishers…like anything. I used to be furious on people who were hangers around. In many of my initial paintings, I protested their policies. Way back in 1930, I made a painting where I showed a British laying on road and painted a dog beside him. They used to hate us and the same hate I reciprocated in my paintings.

Q. And when partitioned happened, it never occurred to you to migrate to Pakistan?
A. Never….never.. I was always against the partition. Leave alone going there, I barred the letters of one of my brother-in-laws who had migrated there.

Q. You have experimented a lot. You have made paintings with Pandit Ravi Shanker and Zakir Hussain playing their instruments, your brush and their fingers were moving in a rhythm…a  live jugalbandi. Does that mean anything?
A. Of course it does. If a painter has a caliber, he can bring every art, every emotion, and every mannerism on his canvas. The painting I did while Ravi Shanker or Zakir Hussain played, has broad strokes and colors that give a clear impression that music is being played.

Q. Then in Delhi, I clearly remember, you made several paintings sitting on roads for many days…
A. Actually, I wanted to prove that solitude is not a prerogative for any type of creation. It just requires right mood. It is just the tantrums of elite that you require solitude and quietness for painting. I painted for six days straight on roads and produced six paintings. People used to gather around me. There was lots of noise. But I used to be too engrossed in my work to notice that. You see them and you’ll realize that these are no different in quality from my other works. The concentration that you talk about comes from within. It has nothing to do with the surroundings. And mistakes are part of the life. People must not hide them. People who seek solitude for their art are the ones who are afraid that their mistakes would be public. I have made mistakes in the watchful eyes of the public and I have rectified them also.

Q. You did poetry, or rather Shayeri, wrote short stories and made films. Was canvas and paints not enough to assimilate your creativity?
A. I don’t think like that. I used the canvas and paint as my voice for long. But every art has its importance. In my hay days, I wrote short stories and done Shayeri too. Just out of hobby. I participated in Mushairas at Tonk (Rajasthan) too. My pen-name was ‘Haya’. My friends used to say jokingly that it should be changed to ‘Behaya’. I did poetry in English too. In fact, Octavio Paz organized a discussion on my poems in Mexico.

What poem was that?
It was titled ‘Landscapes’’: born My Words in you are yet unspoken

But I think film is the most powerful medium to translate your feeling forcefully. It has actors, dialogues, songs, music and yes, colors.

Q. Indira Gandhi gave you some responsibility in Film Division and you did a movie. It was mute.
A. I am a man of paintings. There is no sound in my world. I incorporated the same with camera. Long ago, we did have silent films. The difference was, I did not allow any kind of sound in my film and not the human voice alone.

Q. You have been so closely linked with the film world; who has been your favorite actors?
A. In my view, the country is yet to see a better actor than Dilip Kumar. But he was a misfit in ‘Mughal-e-Azam’ and so was Pirthvi Raj Kapoor. Madhubala was best in that movie. I preferred Dilip Kumar’s ‘Devdas’. His acting was superb.

Q. And among directors?
A. Every one of them stands pale in front of Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak.

Q. And if you have to name a film…
A. I consider Ray’s ‘Pather Panchali’ among the top ten films in the world.

Q. You liked Madhubala as well as Madhuri. What parallels did you find?
A. I merely liked Madhubala’s smile. But Madhuri’s talent and beauty has no parallels. She can not be compared with anybody. No director could use her talent well. Her career passed like that.

Q. So what was in her that you did not find in anybody else…
A. When film ‘Hum Aapke Hain Kaun’ released , some friends of mine, insisted that I must watch the movie. I came out of the hall after just 15 minutes. They insisted again and next next time I watched it for half an hour and came out. But then they said that I need to watch it complete. I went again. The film mesmerized me After that, I watched it for 78 times.

Q. It’s hard to believe…
A. No, you’ll have to believe. It had a song ‘Didi tera devar diwana’. In the starting of that song, Madhuri was standing with her semi-bare back towards camera. After the music starts, she takes five steps backwards. Those five steps is the soul of the movie. She looked so beautiful that it can not be expressed in words.  Any other heroine would have spoilt that scene. Her beautiful hips carried that day.  Her every step is magic, whether it is lighting a lamp in the temple or doing anything.

Q. So you went all the way and shot ‘Gajagamini’…
A. The idea was always there in my mind. I was looking for the right heroine and I got that in Madhuri. I was searching my mother in that movie. I had lost her in my childhood. I can not remember her face. That is why; I decided that mostly, in that film, I’ll show Madhuri from back.

Q. You love songs too. The film world has given us so many talented scorers. Who’s your pick?
A. Undoubtedly Naushad. Then, A R Rehman.  The uniqueness and variety in Rehman’s music is unparallel. It was never attempted before.  His scores in ‘Slumdog millionaire’ have touched new heights. In fact, I consider ‘Jai ho’ to be the single biggest incident post independence.  Gandhi’s rhetoric ’’Jai Hind’ was limited to India itself, while ‘Jai ho’ reverberated all round the globe.

Q. So you liked ‘Slumdog Millionaire’?
A. I loved it. Nobody gets Oscars just for the sake of it. That way it was conceived and mounted, impressed me. In our movies, drama is incorporated in rather forced ways. There is a lack of pretension in foreign movies. That is something which is extremely rare here.

Q. Your life has rather been a brimming river. Any regrets, any failure?
A. Way back in 1960, Hussain, as a painter was written off. It was said that there were no possibilities in me. I became desperate. I was unable to work. I spent three years in same dudgeon. But then things changed. Success again took wings. Then I realized that those three solitary years were very important. Otherwise we keep on working like oxen. We don’t have time to reflect upon life and its intricacies. Those three years are the most precious ones in my life.

Jo waqt aawargi main ganwayaa
Dar asal  wohi  kaam  aayaa

Q. Were you ever drawn to astrology, spells and superstition?
A. No way. I never ever showed my palms to anybody.  Not even for entertainment. I believe in scientific theories. But there is one incident that still bothers me. It was in 1952, and I got an invite to travel abroad. I had no passport. I needed my birth certificate and I wrote to the school authority, at Indore. They replied that since I had not cleared my dues there, I would not be given the certificate. So I did an affidavit and put my birth date as 17th September. After that, my career just took off.

Q. What time of the day do you work?

A. Twenty four hours. I paint for six hours in morning and six hours at night. In between, I read some books. I never kept an assistant. I do everything that goes in painting; even the menial works.

Q. Where do you draw so much energy from?
A. The passion and willingness to work is the biggest driving force. Geeta teaches the importance of ‘’ karma” that is supreme. Allama Iqbal used to say, “Amal se Zindagi banti hai, Jannat bhi Jahannum bhi…” And since my childhood, I used to accompany my uncle to ‘Akharas’ and I used to do all sorts of exercises. And you can not discount the fact that I was brought up on the iconic wheat of Malwa.

Q. Indore at one point of time was famous for Cricket starts. Col. C K Naidu and S.Mushtaq Ali were form Indore. It never caught your fancy though…
A. I never liked this game. But I like to see Tendulkar playing. Mushtaq Ali was my batch mate. He used to play cricket, and I was fond of hockey. Frankly, I hated cricket like anything. Five-five days, six-six days they used to play. And then, their mannerisms were that of elites. I played tennis and football. And I love football. Even today, I spare time for this game.

Q. So, who are your heroes in Football?
A. There are two names worth mentioning—Pele and Maradona. For quite sometime, Pele was everybody’s hero. Then came Maradona. He was magnificent but people destroyed him. He got entangled in sex and drug and the world never saw much of his talent.

Q. How do you spend your usual day…
A. There is no delight better than the first sip of morning tea.  When I was in Mumbai, the first thing I used to do in the morning, was to go to Irani hotel for a cup of tea. In Delhi, I loved teas from Nizamuddin Dhabas.  I used to get out alone. It has not changed here too.

Q. What do you like in food?
A. I was considered an avid meat-eater once; but no more. Though, I still love Qeema. I can eat anything but the truth is, there is no better food than Daal-Chawal and Daal-Roti.

Q. Do you smoke, or Drink?
A. I never fagged. After the open heart surgery in 1988, doctors suggested me to have Red Wine. So, like Ghalib, I also take only best quality red wine.

Q. You lost your mother and I lost my father in childhood—a sorrow we share…
A. There’s a big difference mian. Both mother and father are important for a child but there’s still a difference:
When you come back home, the mother asks, “Kya khaayaa?”
father asks, “Kya kamaayaa?”
and wife says, “Kya Bachaayaa?”

Q. And what about sons…?
A. Better not to ask ( big laughter )

Writer : PARVEZ AHMED, Editor-India for ARY ONE WORLD CHANNEL

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