lahore: according to a bollywood director

‘Lahore is Paris of the East’

By Shoaib Ahmed

LAHORE: Maqbool Fida Husian, a painter, film maker and intellectual, said that he would not discuss anti-Pakistani films produced by Bollywood because as an artist he had nothing to do with such issues. Mr Husain was talking to Daily Times at the National College of Arts on Monday.

Mr Husain said that he was an artist and an artist had no boundaries. He added that one out of 75 Indian films were usually good and the rest were trash. He said that Iran was presently producing good films.

“I have a strange attachment with certain cities, for example I love Lahore and Paris and consider them great centres of cultural activity”, said Mr Husain, adding that Lahore was the Paris of the East and Paris was the Lahore of the West.

Talking about his passion for filmmaking and his interest in Madhuri Dixit, an Indian film actress, Mr Husain said that Ms Dixit’s personality was fascinating and charismatic. He said that the actress was immensely inspiring, adding that he had first met Ms Dixit on May 7, 1995 and found her to be a highly intelligent person, which was why he had cast her in his film ‘Gajagamini’.

Mr Husain said that he had cast Tabu, another acclaimed Indian actress, in another film ‘A Tale of Three Cities’. He added he would also produce a comedy titled ‘Comedy.Com’.

Mr Husain said that filmmaking was a powerful but expensive medium. He said he had wanted to become a filmmaker from an early age and his father had bought him an Agfa camera in 1930 on Eid. He said he produced his first film in 1967 and called it ‘Two Guys were Painters’. Talking about co-productions with Pakistan, Mr Husain said he would co-produce films with any country including Pakistan.

He said that he had last visited Lahore 12 years ago and he had paintings of parts of Lahore which were at his museum in Hyderabad. He said that during his present trip he was painting images of the Mian Mir area. He added that his first painting sold for Rs 10 in 1930.

Mr Hussian later inaugurated a painting exhibition at the NCA. He toured the college barefoot and said that since most nerves are in one’s feet it was healthy to walk barefoot. The miniature department of the college displayed over 100 art works. The works were by the Bashir Ahmed, the head of the Miniature Department and fourth and final year students. Sajida Vandal, the principal of NCA, Jimmy Engineer, a social worker, Dr Ijaz Anwar and Zohra Nighat, a poet, also attended the exhibition.

Mr Hussian appreciated the exhibition. He praised Sara Javed’s work titled ‘Sexual Abuse’ and Shoaib Mehmood’s work titled ‘Gup Shup’. He said that the exhibition could not be called a revival of miniature art works, as the students had prepared the work in the environment prevalent now.

Mr Husain was born on September 17, 1915 in Pandharpur, Madhya Pradesh in India. His mother, Zunaib, died when he was still a child and his father, Fida, remarried and moved to Indore, where Mr Husain got his early schooling.

Mr Husain moved to Mumbai at the age of 20 and was admitted to the JJ School of Arts. He married in 1941. During his early days in Mumbai he earned money painting cinema signs. Given the bad pay, Mr Husain tried other jobs as well including working at a toy factory, where he designed and built fretwork toys.

Mr Husain’s painting Sunhera Sansaar was exhibited at the 1947 annual exhibition of the Bombay Art Society. In 1951 Mr Husain travelled to China and the following year had his first solo exhibition in Zurich. Some of his best-known works are called Sufi paintings and were first exhibited at the Pundole Gallery in 1978.