A Brush With Fame: Nasreen Haque remembers her encounter with India's most well-known artist...many years ago

Kolkata bylanes are a beehive of activity. The rhythmic clanging of the car mechanic tinkering with his tools synchronises well with the beats of the popular Hindi number blaring from the loudspeaker. Business runs and manages to thrive even in the tiniest and murkiest of lanes and you could come up with a “steal of a bargain”. But a few years ago, in one such lane, this was hardly what I had bargained for.

Scouting for rare trees on Kolkata streets for an article for my dad, who had a passion for the herbal world, little brother and I were backseat driving for him, when all of a sudden my eyes took a double take. A very familiar face, with a shock of white beard and hair flummoxed me. All of 14 years, I was no art connoisseur but being a Kolkattan by nativity, the denizens of the art fraternity were well- known to us. We Bengalis take immense pride in calling ourselves the cultural czars of the country.

I asked dad to stop, pointing out to him the man of importance. There wasn’t even a crowd gathered at the obscure ‘dhaba’ where he was seated. He was barefooted, and dressed in his trademark denims. He was nonchalantly discussing his paintings (which incidentally had been published in that very day’s Sunday Telegraph) with the dhaba’s owner. I think the casualness of the atmosphere prompted me to go up and speak to him. Speak to us he did, grinning and making us two kids feel at ease. I didn’t have pen and paper, but what I did have was a camera. And Maqbool Fida Hussain obliged us with a photograph of us with him. Soon he bid us goodbye, a warm 'Khuda Hafiz', whizzed away in his car, leaving us with our mouths agape.

M.F. Hussain will always be a man with down-to-earth humility and vitality for life. His ubiquitous presence in the Indian Art scene for a commanding 60 years, painting film hoardings even in his heydays on Mumbai streets, and subsequently rising to the higher echelons of Modern Indian Art, baffle me. His affability rings out true even years after his numerous creations occupy seats of honour in Art houses all over the world.

However what could surprise a discernible reader at this juncture would be the memory of this episode after all these years. You see, the anticlimax happened only yesterday, when a middle-aged lady dropped in at our place. Seeing the framed photograph of the artist, resting on my mantelpiece, she smiled at me and said, “Oh I recognise you and your brother well, but that senior gentleman, he must be your granddad, is he not?" To answer the lady in question would only have resulted into a very embarrassing situation so I didn't say a word. But I can only hazard a guess as to who would have laughed more, my grandfather or M.F. Hussain!