A Date with MF Hussain

Not far from where I live, on Curzon Street, which is really a two minute walk, is a complex of apartments. In one of these M.F. Hussain, probably India's most well known artist is staying for the next few weeks. The apartment has almost no furniture. The walls of each room are covered with giant canvasses. No chair is available to sit because it is loaded with paints and brushes. The bedroom does have a bed, but nothing else. Hussain saheb could not be busier, or I suspect, happier. He paints the whole day. It is a new series on the theme of 'the lost continent'. When I went to see him we spent quite some time discussing its meaning. Then he invited me to for a cup of coffee at a nearby cafeteria. Expectedly, he strode out into the streets of Mayfair wearing only his socks, his trade mark long paint brush, which trebles as a staff and a walking stick, in his hands.

With me to see Hussain were Naresh and Sunita Kumar. Naresh Kumar, as many readers would remember, was India's tennis star who captained our participation in the Davis Cup for many years. He is today a successful businessman, having expanded upon his father's coal interests. Sunita is one of the most active supporters of Mother Teresa' Mission of Charity. A strikingly beautiful lady, she is also an accomplished painter. Naresh and Sunita live in Calcutta, where their home is a salon for the arts and a refuge for artists. Together, they make an exceptionally charming couple, gracious, refined, and sociable.

Naresh and Sunita have a host of the most amazing stories about their association with Hussain. When they first met him in the early 1960s, Hussain was not such a big name, although not less eccentric. The Kumars were going to Delhi to watch the Davis Cup, and Hussain who does not play tennis but greatly enjoys watching it, came along as their guest. During the finals, Hussain had a bet with Sunita about who would win. It was agreed that the loser would present a painting. Sunita won, but did not ask for her painting, nor did Hussain make any mention of it. Next morning when the Kumars were checking out of their hotel, they were told that someone had left a parcel for them. The parcel was a painting. The paint was still wet for Hussain had sat up the night to make it to honour the bet he lost.

Whenever he is in Calcutta Hussain stays with the Kumars. On one occasion, he left the Kumar home to catch a flight to Delhi, but changed his mind on the way to the airport and came back. The next day he left again, but again changed his mind and returned. The third day he did the same thing. On the fourth day when he left only to return, the house maid could not take it anymore. As she saw him come out of the car, she expostulated: 'Good God, he's back again!'

Any one who has come into contact with Hussain knows that he is a bit of a fakir. He goes where his muse takes him. His plans are forever susceptible to change. He lives for the moment, and lives a life incredibly untrammelled by the normal conventions of society. The Kumars told me that their driver and Hussain became very good friends. Hussain would often ask him to accompany him to eat food in the dhabas of Calcutta, sometimes on a whim at two in the morning. The driver did not go unrewarded for his companionship. Hussain presented him with two paintings. I understand the driver has now sold these and become quite a wealthy man.

There was a time when people could buy a Hussain painting for a couple of hundred rupees. Sir G.K. Noon, the badshah of Indian ready to eat food in the UK, told me once that his brother had bought a painting by Hussain in the 50s for a princely sum of Rs 15! Nowadays, of course, they cost a fortune. People are willing to pay huge amounts for any of his works. In the 1980s Hussain and Sunita had done a joint exhibition at the Old Bailey's in London. Hussain had then done a poster for the exhibition in the form of a sketch of Ganesha. After the exhibition the poster could not be traced. Obviously, someone had walked off with it. When I met him last week, Hussain showed me a catalogue for a forthcoming high profile auction of Indian paintings in London. The long lost poster was a proud exhibit in it.

(A Stephanian, Pavan Kumar Varma is a senior Indian diplomat and presently Minister of Culture and Director of the Nehru Centre in London. Author of several widely acclaimed books likeGhalib: the Man, the Times and the recently released Being Indian, he will be writing the column Hyde Park Corner, exclusively for HindustanTimes.com)