“I have known Baba (MF Hussain) for almost 20 years, much before my niece Reema got married to Owais (son of MF Hussain). While I called him Baba, he called me Mamujan (Reema addressed me so). He loved talking mad, not calculated intellectual talk. That was what brought us together.
WHENEVER he conceived a film, he’d come home to share the idea. He narrated the subject of Meenaxi- A Tale Of Three Cities in his style, ‘A nawab meets a girl in Hyderabad, falls in love with her. Here I see a lot of cycles, wheels and kites. The girl then goes to Jaisalmer where the nawab meets her again. Here, I see a lot of matkas, birds and women in colourful clothes. The nawab then meets her in Prague. Here, I see a ballet of horses. How’s the story?’ I replied, ‘Excellent! Don’t worry about logic Baba, make the film the way you see it. When you try to make it logical, you spoil it (as in Gaja Gamini)’. When he had conceived Gaja Gamini he had sketched a woman, a temple, a lantern and a cow to convey his idea. The song Yeh rishta kya kehlata hai (Meenaxi....) was written by him while he was convalescing in hospital.
Baba took to painting after 1947. ‘After India became free, I became an artist. When I saw the lights on the eve of Independence, I felt azad (free)’, he once confided. Before that he used to paint posters and toys. He used to paint film posters near Taj Talkies at Grant Road. Across the road was a dhaba where a middle-aged aged lady sold meals. Baba could barely afford that. The lady then suggested that he make her paintings, which she’d send to her relatives. In return she fed him khichdi. After a while Baba went to Kolkata. When he returned he found she was dead and all the paintings were lying in her house. She didn’t have any relatives. It was her way of helping him without hurting his self-esteem.
I don’t know the reason why he didn’t wear shoes. But the story goes that once one of his sons had asked him to get a pair. Baba couldn’t afford nice ones so he got him tennis shoes. But on reaching home, he was shocked to find the child had fallen off the building and died. It’s believed that’s why he didn’t fancy wearing shoes. I don’t know how true this is though. He never talked about it.
He loved writing and more so on streets where he could observe people. Once while we were in Kolkata, he took me to an Irani restaurant in the city’s crowded area. The restaurant owner knew him. He had painted on the hotel’s wall behind the counter. Even in London, he took me to areas, which were dilapidated. He showed me corners where he had spent 10 hours at a stretch writing. They didn’t know who he was. He’d keep having tea, coffee and write as people passed by. He once sat on a railway station in Paris and wrote part of his memoir there. He loved poetry and preserved tattered books because he had some thought or verse scribbled there.
He left India because he was disillusioned. He’d say, ‘Hindustan meri ragon mein hai (Hindustan flows in my veins)! He missed India very much. He’d talk of butter toast, cutting chaai, bun maska, kheema, paya... He loved rich food but ate very little. He’d invite the Bori community for a breakfast of kheema and sheer korma on Eid while he was in India. Even in Dubai, he’d call people from the Indian community.
Last year on the eve of December 31, he ended up creating a 30 feet tall painting of the Ramayana. He said, ‘Mujh mein Valmiki aagaye (I was possessed by Valmiki)!’ He claimed, ‘No one has painted the Ramayana as much as me’. He had spent eight years in Benares, sat on the banks of the Ganges and heard Valmiki’s katha. The last time I saw him sketch was in a restaurant in Dubai. But when we wanted to see it, he hid it by covering it with his hands. He didn’t want us to see it till he had completed it. He was such a child!
He was a natty dresser and had a personality to match his tastes. But within two minutes he’d dirty his sherwani. His hands would always have colour and so his legs. He used to be a coloured man! He was a nomad. He had tickets in his pocket for Delhi, Kolkata, France, Dubai... he’d leave his house for something and reach somewhere else. He was a nomad even in Dubai. Baba didn’t require a bed to sleep. He could sleep anywhere, even in his driver’s house. Sometimes, he’d take a nap in the car in the afternoon for 15 minutes. He enjoyed sleeping in a moving car. He had a Bugatti, Ferrari and Mercedes. But he hardly used them. But he loved hanging around in his Jaguar. He was happy sitting on a bench as he was in five star hotel. He was rich and yet not rich.
He loved films. He’d like some moments and then keep seeing the film again and again. Band Baaja Baarat was showing in Sharjah. He’d take people from Dubai to Sharjah to watch it. He liked Gary Cooper and said anyone who could come close to him would be Sanjay Dutt. He also liked Dilip Kumar. He liked the faces of Meena Kumari, Madhubala, Naseem Banu, Gayatri Devi, Mother Teresa and Sarojini Naidu. He’d say, ‘I’ve a weakness for women. I’ve a very halka image of my mother (she died when he was a child) and my search for her is on’. Since he was from Pandharpur, he spoke fluent Marathi and his mother used to wear a Navvari saree.
He was a romantic and said he carried his heart on his sleeve. He once shared, ‘I used to sit near a pond in Indore and paint. There was this tribal girl who’d come there. I used to speak to her and even painted her. But when I returned after a few months she was married. She was my first love.”
He had three projects in hand – 100 years of Indian cinema from Dadasaheb Phalke to present times, Indian civilisation from Mohenjo Daro to Mahatma Gandhi and Islamic civilsation from the Babylonian days. Once he remarked, ‘There was a time when I used to earn so that I could eat. But today, people earn so that they can afford my paintings’. He also said, ‘Joh din aise waise guzare wohi aaj kaam aaye (days spent in doing nothing, just wandering have proved valuable)’.
Few days before he passed away, he had invited me to Dubai. He said, ‘If I come to your house in Mumbai, there will be hungama, aapke ghar police aajayegi’. He was at the airport to receive me. We reached home around midnight. Then he wanted to read out an essay to me. That was his energy. The essay was titled Kya Sau Saal Kya Ek Baras. He had written it on the occasion of completing his 100th birthday according to the Muslim calendar. He started off by saying that people ask God, ‘Yeh sau saal ka putla ab tak toota nahin (this 100-year-old clay idol, hasn’t broken yet)?’ He then wrote of his mind, which was ruled by his heart, about how his mouth said less but his ears listened more. Finally, he wrote about his feet, ‘Yeh bahut chalein hai, bahut daude hain, magar kabhi bhaage nahin (they walked a lot, ran as much, but never fled)’.
When he was around 88, I remember asking him, if he’d like to relive certain portions of his life. He replied, ‘If I go back I’ll get a chance to meet people who were once close to me. But the adventure of tomorrow is so great that I don’t want to go back. I want to go forward... another 20 years’. MF Hussain seemed a permanent fixture, someone who’d be there even after me, after my kids... Óh God he’s not dead!”