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M F Hussain and Shamshad Hussain |
The reek of paint and linseed oil makes the nostrils twitch. On the table is sprawled the signature, long-handled brush, even as others are strewn around the tubes and bottles of paint. Stacks of stretched, blank canvases are propped against the walls. Easels with works in several stages of completion recount their saga – a maestro is at work.
To call him merely the stormy pretzel of the art world would be an understatement. For he has almost single handedly led the march towards making Indian art not only aesthetically acceptable on the world art map but also commercially viable to the point where it is perceived as a blue chip investment. Bashing the media yet using it to his advantage. He has created his own rule book and broken each one of them with impunity and even reveled in it! He is constantly in a state of recreating himself – rather like the canvases he paints. Never predictable. Never boring.
And yet it is not easy to be your father’s son, especially in the Indian context where one is expected to overtly uphold tradition and yet covertly retain one’s own individuality to colour a sky that is yours alone. Can one soar higher than the previous generation and yet not break the established icons to go beyond the laxmanrekha of propriety to speak a language that is yours alone? Can one slay the shadowy demons of yesterday to emerge into today?
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| Alka Raghuvanshi brings together the father and the son in an rare, expansive moment as the soon-to-be-90 enfant terrible of Indian art, Maqbool Fida Hussain, merges the past and the present in a distilled moment of complete clarity with his son and fellow artist Shamshad Hussain. |
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| Shamshad : Unlike Indian music and dance, there are no gharanas in contemporary art. In fact if they happen even unconsciously, it is considered negative. If I used red I was accused of copying you, if I used blue, I was copying you! It took me 20 years to establish myself! |
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M F : You have to be like the Mayan civilization – metaphorically kill your father to find your way! It takes years to break the style of one’s teachers, so it is in the father-son equation. That is why I used to tempt you with a prize if you failed in art college! |
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Shamshad : I never disappointed you by always managing to get your prize! But why did you discourage us from earning our livelihood from art? |
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M F : It takes the stamina of 40 years to keep the belief in oneself and continue regardless of whether one is accepted or not. And the journey is very tough. Not everyone can do it. In Picasso’s time there were 50,000 artists. Where are they today? Nearly 90 percent are non-artists. |
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Shamshad : Lesser mortals succumb to it. Is art then fraud or Freud? When only Indian miniatures were on the world art map, where you consciously breaking every rule? |
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M F : Of course! I wanted to come at par with the west, which in any case had reached a point of stagnation and lost touch with itself. You don’t merely paint a canvas, you paint history – but few cross the barrier. I think US is the worst enemy of art – thank god, the very epitome of junk, Andy Warhol, left Indian art alone! |
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Shamshad : You know I still feel jealous sometimes of your energy! The amount of traveling you do so effortlessly! The fact that you don’t necessarily need a studio to paint and can paint even in the open! |
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M F : Remember how I would paint under the lamppost as the cinema posters were too huge to be brought indoors! |
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Shamshad : Sure! Since you were not around so much, Ammi had the tough job of keeping the discipline! But whenever you came, it was wonderful! And yet the shadows of penury are hard to erase. There is bound to be automatic influence. I learnt so much from you and Ammi that art school was merely an exercise. Still I am very much in awe of you. |
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M F : That is why you don’t smoke and drink in my presence! I think painting and poetry which have no fixed repertoire can’t be taught in school. In this day and age of technology, anyone can paint well, the idea is to paint brilliantly. |
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Shamshad : I got my break in the 80s when my work emerged on its own terms, without your having to say that yeh mera beta hai, isko show do! My one year London stay taught me so much. All those people who didn’t consider me an ‘intellectual’ as I went to a Gujarati medium school, were so shocked when they found that I was the one meeting Howard Hodgkins and the like! |
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M F : Just because you are such a gentle soul – Allah mian ki gaiya – you are no fool, just a little introvert – the exact opposite of me! And I think freedom is very important to grow and find your path that is why I left you alone – murder chod ke sab kuch kar sakte ho! |
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Shamshad : I think you are just very relieved that I left my primary profession of dadagiri and became a painter! Remember the time you made me remove my shoes and made me walk barefoot just when I was dressed to kill for a party! |
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M F : I thank the almighty that I have six continents for children who are all so different from each other – to keep a balance is not easy! While you boys are joru ke ghulam, my daughters are the ones with spunk – like Shakti! |
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Shamshad : Were you ever embarrassed by my reputation and being linked with film stars? |
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M F : Not really. When we were young, you didn’t have the reputation and by the time you did, we were old enough to understand. But why the forays into other arts like cinema? |
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Shamshad : The principle of aesthetics is the same. I am a keen student of cinema and wanted to be filmmaker but I had to wait so many years to make a film. |
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