Projects Category: Journey of life

Hey Friends, this is the most exclusive poetic interview with Padma Vibhushan Maqbool Fida Husain better known as M. F. Husain (17 September 1915 – 9 June 2011) with me, telecast on Doordarshan’s programme “The Capital Scene,” that I used to devise and present. “Shadows of Lovers” is published in my poetry book, Ocean of Love. Husain was India’s most prolific, controversial, and world-renowned artist. He was a modern painter of international acclaim, and a founding member of Bombay Progressive Artists’ Group. Nothing could stop the controversies surrounding his life! Husain died very lonely in London. Enjoy this conversation in poetry:-

“Shadows of Lovers”
A Dialogue with M.F. Husain. A poetic interview by Neelam M. Singh : Ocean of Love

The tall, lean M.F. Husain
Deep ocean like eyes
Has made a long journey
Through different ages and epochs
By the medium
Of beautiful creation.

Neelam: Does your love see you alone, naked and in the desert?
Husain: it is this innocence
Which has been
The open eyed wonder in my eyes
Looking at everything
As if
For the first time in my life
Space was colour
Colour was Space
That space was unlimited
And
That space within the space
Where I wanted to put an image
To be invented at will
Alone, I wander…

Neelam: Who according to you is the original Superman…a metaphor?
Husain: Hanuman, the Bajrangbali !
As a child I watched
Ramayana enacted in the streets of Indore
The heroic acts of Bajrangbali
Came alive before my mind
New York, a city that represents
Contemporary world in diversity
I conceived of Hanuman as the
Orginal Superman
I recreated him in sketches water and colour
Hanuman contemplates
The garden of Ravana
Like a page of calligraphy
Like the Shadow of Lovers
Projected by fire on a wall
Like the stains of monsoon rains
On a ruined palace
Of the abandoned towns
Like a metaphor of the path
And the convergence of all
Of the embraces of bodies

Neelam: Has your lover, ever been dwarfed by poverty?
Husain: I was a boy from a rural town
Became a sophisticated urbanite
When you see poor people braving
You’ll get the strength to act
I remember my aunt Anwar Bibi
Selling vegetables around the temple of Pundharpur
With me tucked in her arms
How can I be away
From the rural
And the poor?

Neelam: Have you made a permanent niche in the gallery of the greats?
Husain: If you know
I am Mc Bull in certain works
Why should one go for names?
Let the work be appreciated
What can really be done of exploiters?
Ignore them
Let there be something new
After I am gone
I don’t want to be remembered!

Neelam: After I have gone…
Husain: …………..

Neelam: Is religion necessary? Can one not live without formalities of religion?
Husain: To believe in one religion
Is to restrict the scope of understanding
I’ve drawn figures, events
Of the Bible, Bhagwad Gita,
Mahabharata, Quran.
Humanist’s passionate search
For a human faith
Which I seek to find
In life
In numerous religions.

Neelam: Do you feel age knocking at your door?
Husain: I wish I would stay in
My youth but
When my yellow eyes,
In grey head
Could never be closed
Under the bad sheet of nights
I wish
But the roaming echo
Does knock
The closed window
Let the History
Cut across me
Without me…
(Neelam M. Singh)

Interview of M. F. Husain by Neelam M. Singh