Maqbool Fida Hussain (MF Hussain)’s New Home

Well, what I am writing is not politically correct. It does not matter when one confronts with truth. Let me confess that I am not an ardent lover of paintings. Rather my knowledge on paintings is miserably restricted. MF Hussain is supposed to be a celebrity painter: so I read in the news papers. Somehow his name, as far as I can remember, is linked with some controversy or another; whether he was painting Maduri Dixit with passion or his painting of Goddess Saraswati nude

Mr. Hussain has been living outside India since the year 2006 after a series of disruption and threat that he faced while exhibiting his paintings in India. And dozens of lawsuits filed against him across the country for his supposedly ``blasphemical’’ paintings. He ended his run finally by accepting the honorary citizenship that was ‘generously’ offered by the Qatar government. And his film maker son said to the media that “having a sense of belonging was important at this stage of his life (Hussain is 95 now) and that his father missed home in India terribly”. A genuine feeling!

Newspapers reported that in Qatar he was warmly received by a large welcoming committee. Well and good! If I ask a question to Hussain as to whether he will be painting the Prophet with the same fervour with which he painted Goddess Saraswathi in his new found home, I will be treated like an extreme right winger. I do not want to ask that question; I am not a right winger. Instead, I will ask a secular question. Will the Qatar government receive Salman Rushdie or Taslima Nasreen with the same warmth as they received Hussain. They are also well known in their field and also on run since they had written the controversial books Satanic Verses (1988) and Lajja (Shame 1993) respectively. Well, I have already asked the politically incorrect question. Its ok, I don’t have to be pretentious; I am not an intellectual!