How does one cobble together an article for a conglomerate like Maqbool Fida Husain: The Almighty of Indian art; marketing whiz; lucky struggler; controversy pimp; performance artist; a living legend?
The task can prove excessively tedious and substantially futile for a man who literally has become his art (his signature being of primary importance on the canvas).
He has no qualms about being who he is, and loves declaring: “However hard people might try, they will never forget me!” Talk about being pompous! And his brush strokes, what can we say? How easily he brushed aside Madhuri and replaced her with the gorgeous Tabu. He might like to deny it.
Hear him talk:
* "Someone told me that I’m not a genius, so I agreed with him".
* "Becoming bigger than my art is not a liability. A lesser human being will not be able to contain it and he won’t last long: He’ll be finished".
* "Cinema is inspiring. Not commercial cinema, though. It is dynamic and complete. Even painting is incomplete because you can’t go beyond certain things".
* "Art is not like making a toothpaste or Coca Cola, the formula for which should be kept a secret. It is constantly changing and that is the whole crux of life too. The moment you become stagnant, you’re dead".
* "My icon is the modern woman - the woman of global interest, especially the Indian woman. In Gaja Gamini , I portrayed a classical woman from 5,000 years before, while in Meenaxi: A Tale of Three Cities , I’ve portrayed the contemporary woman of today but again with the same power, the same shakti. There it was the classical shakti , here it is the shakti of today".



* "M F Husain has three characters. First, the boy. My mother died when I was only one-and-a-half. Then there’s Maqbool the person, the painter. And finally M F Husain, the brand name, which is a platform that society has given me: They want M F! "
* "Controversy exists because I keep doing something new. I don’t do it for the sake of controversy - I do it because I’m very restless."
* "I’ve done so many things, so however hard people might try, they’ll never be able to forget me. Somewhere, I’m there in their life."