That Search For A Muse: M.F. Husain’s Lifelong Quest for Inspiration: Khalid Mohamed writes on the little-known facts about the master artist M.F. Husain’s constant search for a muse, right from the actor-singer Miss Gulab to Madhuri Dixit.

Often, artists are drawn towards muses like classic moths to a flame. Our prime example of such an artist is none other than the late M.F. Husain (1915–2011)—whose public display of affection for Madhuri Dixit in Hum Aapke Hain..Koun! had become a butt of derision among his peers.

However, his story of muses neither began nor ended there. Having lost his ammi when he was an infant, he would admit that he was always in search of a surrogate mother whom he could worship. Of course, it wasn’t as simplistic as that. Yet it would be downright presumptuous and fortuitous, if not prurient, to decode motivations in his incessant search for a muse who represented his mother.

Neither would Husain ever disclose a whit of any other kind of attraction to the women who had inspired his canvases. By and large, the search, sourced mostly in popular Bombay films, was a constant ever since he was a six-year-old, terrified of his father and his newly arrived stepmother.

Miss Gulab and Early Cinematic Fascinations

Perhaps this endless ‘talaash’ was sparked by his fascination for the Kashmir-born Miss Rosy of the silent and early talkies cinema. As a six-year-old, he had walked with his parents for 20 minutes from their modest home in Indore’s Chhawani mohalla to a ramshackle cinema to watch a woman whom he described, in his quirky sense of humour, as “a Gulab is a Rose is a Gulab.”

I recapitulate Husain’s little ode to actor-singer Miss Gulab (born 1908; her date of death remains unconfirmed) from notes stored during a conversation meant for an authorized autobiography (couldn’t be completed) of the artist, whose oeuvre still commands the highest prices at international auctions.

At home, his artworks continue to be mired in controversy. One of his canvases even had to be removed some years ago, after protests by a gang of miscreants, from an exhibition at the Marriott Hotel’s lobby in Juhu.

“Miss Gulab was in a storm-tossed boat,” Husain had recalled, not forgetting a moment though he was in his 90s during our chat. “The boat’s planks were collapsing; the furious winds were ripping the sails apart. And she was very daintily trying to hold on to her sari. That was probably the first wet scene of Indian cinema. I was crying hysterically only to be ordered to shut up by my father. Anyway, that scene has always tormented me. I didn’t care at all if Raj Kapoor raised a storm for Zeenat Aman in Satyam Shivam Sundaram, dunked Mandakini under a waterfall in Ram Teri Ganga Maili. Before that, there was his wet-wet scene with Nargis in Barsaat. Dimple Kapadia had to bare her body and soul for Bobby. Perhaps no one remembers the legend of Sohni Mahiwal, but whoever drowned themselves for love without getting wet?” he had concluded quixotically.

He would periodically rave about a young woman whom he had chanced upon bathing in the Gomti river. Actor-singer Noor Jehan, who migrated to Pakistan, Sulochana (Ruby Myers), and, towards the 1960s, Mumtaz (“a human bomb,” he called her) were his other transient fixations.

From Indifference to Devotion: The Madhuri Dixit Chapter

My notes are more detailed about his obsession, if that’s the right word, vis-à-vis Madhuri Dixit. Circa 1994, he had attended the Filmfare Awards ceremony at the Juhu Centaur Hotel, with Parmeshwar Godrej and Jaya Bachchan for company. Called on stage to present the Best Actress trophy, he had paused before announcing the name of Madhuri Dixit as the winner for Beta. He was disappointed that Sridevi wasn’t the winner, and it showed on his face. “I would close my ears whenever Madhuri’s Ek Do Teen would blare from the loudspeakers on the streets. Moreover, I had always avoided seeing her films, finding her too bland for my taste.”

After Hum Aapke Hain…Koun!.., which he claimed to have seen 100 times for its Didi Tera Deewana dance set piece—there was a U-turn. The artist was smitten and persuaded me to introduce him to the actor.

Accompanied by photographer Jayesh Sheth, we taxied to Chinchpokli studio where she was shooting for the Rajiv Kapoor-directed Prem Rog. La Dixit was shy and whispered to me, “But what do I say to him?” She didn’t have to utter a word; he gifted her his paintbrush and an ink sketch on paper which he had made on the spot. She gasped, “But aren’t these too expensive?” Husain mumbled something inaudible. We left as suddenly as we arrived.

Art, Cinema, and the Making of Gaja Gamini

A week or so later, he recalled that there was a ‘phone call from the Juhu home of Madhuri, inviting him over for tea. “That meeting,” he had laughed, “could have gone on till breakfast and extended till lunch since her shoot for Raja had been delayed.” She had told him that his gift of paintbrush could prompt her to start painting. Quick on the uptake, he had riposted, “Whether you paint or not, I won’t lag behind, I might just make a film with you.”

Husain had said this on May 7, 1995. On July 10, 1998, Madhuri faced the camera, the cinematographer being the legendary Ashok Mehta, for his Gaja Gamini at Mehboob Studio. “This is my homage to the various facets of the Indian woman,” he remarked. “She can be Premchand’s Nirmala, Tagore’s Abhisarika, Manto’s Sandhu or Kalidas’ Shakuntala. She can also be Sangeeta of Dal Mandi, (my mother) Zainab Bibi of Pandharpur or Monica of the 21st century.”

Somehow, Gaja Gamini—with a guest appearance by Shah Rukh Khan—was wrapped up in a year despite the stress and strain of the Bollywood style of functioning. There were days when he felt suicidal or just stone-cold dead. “But the pain was worth the pleasure,” he noted, adding, “Yash Chopra was the first one to call and congratulate me, not for the film’s completion but for coming out of the Bollywood system, alive and breathing.”

Exile, Longing, and an Unfinished Journey

When Madhuri Dixit married Dr Sriram Nene in 1999 and relocated to Denver, Colorado, I wondered if he would look for another muse. He didn’t, frequently jetting to Denver to paint large canvases for her new home. When she had her first son, Husain almost conspiratorially showed me a pencil sketch of a woman with a newborn child, which he would carry in his wallet. “My fascination for Madhuri will never diminish, not during my lifetime at least,” he emphasized and never spoke of her again.

He made his second feature film, Meenaxi: A Tale of Three Cities, photographed by Santosh Sivan, with Tabu enacting a playful muse who keeps appearing and reappearing from a writer grappling with a mental block. And he wanted to make his next feature, Do Qadam Aur Aage, set in a totalitarian women’s hostel with Shilpa Shirodkar as the Führer-like warden, and Urmila Matondkar as one of the victimised inmates.

That was not to be. Following protests against some of his early canvases of Hindu deities, FIRs were suddenly lodged against him. In the dark of the night, he fled from Mumbai, eventually to accept Qatari citizenship in 2010.

Habituated to Hindi cinema, he would watch the screenings there and was impressed by the performances of Amrita Rao in Vivah, Vidya Balan in The Dirty Picture and Anushka Sharma in Band Baaja Baraat. Except for Amrita Rao, none of them accepted his invitation to Qatar (all expenses paid) along with their families. The other two didn’t respond at all. He wasn’t surprised.

A Final Possession, A Personal Memory

The last time I met the artist in Qatar, he was suffering from an aching homesickness, stating that no one in the central government had answered his pleas for intervening in his predicament.

Before I left his compact little villa, he gave me a black-and-white sketch of Madhuri Dixit posing for him before a canvas. Bidding me Allah haafiz, he smiled, “You can keep it if you want… or give it to her.”

Greedily, I’ve kept it.

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