THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The artist who loved his bare-footed strides and brave strokes on canvas also had a rare liking for exotic teas. ‘’M F Husain would prepare hot cups of beverage with tea leaves gifted to him from various parts of the world. With each sip he would recount from where he got the tea and who had gifted it to him. It was so nice to see the great artist prepare and serve tea that tasted a different flavour every time,’’ reminisced film director Shaji N Karun while speaking at a function organised by Swaralaya at Press Club here on Monday to commemorate the artist. Shaji, who had spent quite a long time with the painter, was also struck by the artist’s love for silence. ‘’When he was a Parliament member, he would say how much he loved imagining the House proceedings in silence just like watching a Fellini-directed opera movie in silence. He would laugh out loud detailing how the entire Parliament dipped into silence when Jayalalitha walked in wearing black goggles that resembled those of MGR. He strongly believed that Renuka Chowdhary’s voice could be heard as far as Pakistan.’’ According to Shaji, the imageries in the paintings of M F Husain can be related to his mother and his father. ‘’He lost his mother as a little child. Ever since, his artistic pursuits had been in search of the face that would best fit his mother. But he could never find one and would efface the face of women from the paintings he drew. His father was a seller of hurricane lamps. He was so poor that he could not buy a lamp for himself. Husain had brilliantly painted the face of penury on his canvas so many times.’’ He added that Husain had always wished to surpass Picasso in terms of output. ‘’Picasso had drawn more than one lakh paintings. But MF was contented that he could live longer than Picasso.’’ Poet Prabha Varma, who also spoke on the occasion, lamented how the country has been rude to so many artists by denying their creative freedom. ‘’This is a country where Deepa Mehta cannot make a film or Alisha can’t perform at a pop concert. We have been mean to Husain saying that he had painted Saraswati Devi in a luscious mood. But why are we silent about Kalidasa, who used a word that meant voluptuous to describe Saraswati Devi or about Jayadeva, who had written similar lines in Geeta Govindam? Why weren’t they forbidden? But when Husain did that, he was banished, which was strange,’’ he said. Former Minister M A Baby and former bureaucrat D Babu Paul were also present on the occasion.
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