Author: Shaikh Ayaz
Publication: Open The Magazine
Date: January 1, 2011
URL: http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/arts/raza-returns-to-pay-a-debt
After staying in France for nearly 60 years,
one of the world's greatest modern artists, Syed Haider Raza, has decided
to "spend the rest of my days" in India
Lives and works in Paris and Gorbio, France.
That's a standard line, frequently used at the bottom of most of Syed Haider
Raza's profiles published across the world. However, that address is soon
to change. For, the 88-year-old master, celebrated in the latter part of his
artistic life for the quiet contemplation on cosmology and meditation on Nature
in his signature bindus (dots), has decided to come back to Delhi. Like a
delirious kid who wants to return home after a long holiday, Raza, who has
spent about 60 years-some don't even live that long-in France, is flying to
India on 29 December. To stay on permanently.
"The only thing I'm excited about is
to touch down, to feel India… mujhe bas jeeena hai aur jeena hai mere
watan mein (I just want to live and live in my country)," says Raza,
warm-voiced, over telephone from France. A two-floor apartment, bought in
Safdarjung Development Area, Delhi, as part of the Raza Foundation, is where
he will live. But that's the least of Raza's-who stayed as far as Mumbai's
suburb Kalyan during his struggling years-concern. "I'd be happy to live
wherever they put me up," he chortles, before he coughs and whispers,
"Usmein mera kya (How does it matter)? I don't keep too well these days.
I think I'll be good in Delhi. I'll continue to work-that's what I've done
all my life. For so many years, you know."
Although Raza had moved to France with fellow
artist Akbar Padamsee in the 1950s, he never severed ties with India. Proof
of that is his artistic output. Raza often joked with his Parisian pals that
though he lives there, his inspiration comes straight from India. Matter-of-factly,
he says he knew he'd return to his roots some day. "My attachment with
India is too deep for me to forget it, to forget what the country has done
for me," he volunteers. "There's everything about India that attracts
me. The whole sentiment. The culture, which is so unique, the sort you cannot
find anywhere. I'm fond of the Hindu dharma (religion), I like the idea of
so many religions co-existing… In Europe and America I've seen people
running after money-money-money-money," he pronounces with sardonic disgust,
and just when you try to slip in a query on his own artworks, which fetch
crores at auctions, his voice chokes. "In India, I haven't seen that.
There's more love, there's a culture of which I was talking about earlier.
That is why I want to spend the rest of my days in my country. I don't know
how many days of that are left."
If Raza's departure from the land of his birth
was guided by artistic liberation, his return could be attributed to a sense
of compulsion. Moreover, he wishes to mobilise talent in art through the Raza
Foundation and feels his presence in India would help achieve that. It's evident
that the painter has carried his country in his heart, evoking a deep sense
of homesickness to which he has capitulated-and risen- repeatedly. Sometimes
with success, sometimes not. "I never gave up on my Indian passport.
You know, my siblings crossed over to Pakistan during Partition. I decided
I won't go. I remained an Indian. That's what I loved the most and I think
it was a right decision," he reflects.
Raza's decision to return, as his long-standing
friend and fellow artist Krishen Khanna points out, could also have arisen
out of loneliness. Ever since his wife, Janine Mongillat, passed away in 2002,
Raza's life had been reduced to his home and atelier. It was because of her
that he'd stayed on in Paris. Some years later, he adopted a young girl who
has been his caretaker for a while now.
"He's alone. There's nobody to care for
him. At this age of your life, you'd want to be amongst your friends and people,
isn't it? We are very excited to have him here. It's a great thing that he's
going to stay in Delhi. I feel like those days are back when we'd spend so
much time," says Khanna, referring to the days Raza and he spent during
the Bombay Progressive Artists' Movement-of which Raza, incidentally, was
the founding member. Raza too is keen to catch up with old friends. "Everybody
in India is my friend," he laughs, adopting a more serious demeanour,
"I've a lot of friends. I'm blessed in that sense. I'm very excited to
meet Krishen, Ram Kumar… It goes without saying that these are painters
of my generation and those I love the most. I wish we can do get-togethers
of artists, writers and intellectuals as in the days gone by."
Born in Mandla, Madhya Pradesh, Raza's love
affair with art began quite early, as he moved from Mandla to Damoh and later
studied painting in Nagpur, Bombay and Paris. He unfailingly cites Paris as
the land where he learnt how to paint. "You know, it's very difficult
for me to leave France. I can never forget my debt to France because it is
here that I developed my art," says Raza, adding that some of his closest
buddies hosted a farewell do for him recently. "I was teary-eyed. I was
touched. But I have to move on."
Ashok Vajpeyi, chairman, Lalit Kala Akademi,
and an intimate friend, was present at the party and observed that Raza was
indeed heartbroken. "There was a bit of France in him when he'd visit
India, and now there'll a bit of India when he goes to France," says
Vajpeyi, who's been instrumental in persuading Raza to return.
Indeed, Paris is where Raza mastered his art.
During the early Paris period, he was, like most artists of the time, taken
in by Cézanne (whom he refers to as "immortal"), Gauguin,
Van Gogh and other European masters. Raza's working style has changed dramatically
over the years. He's also been influenced, amongst others, by the American
Abstract Expressionists. By the late 1970s, the iconic bindus, of geometric
proportions, a source of life with their profound symbolism, emerged as a
concentration point. Raza modestly credits his schoolteacher, Nandlal Jharia,
for the origination of the bindu. Jharia would draw a point on the board so
that Raza could concentrate, and it was this, followed by a visit to Madhya
Pradesh, that transformed Raza's palette.
However, Khanna calls Raza a "great colourist"
and his bindus, "very sophisticated studies of Nature." But the
Gurgaon-based Khanna doesn't quite know whether Raza's art will mature and
deepen further, perhaps heralding another chapter in his oeuvre, after moving
to India. "Well, he has already achieved so much. He's a great painter.
I hope India does much good to him. As for maturity, an artist always matures
with time," says Khanna. Padamsee, on the other hand, characterises him
as a "brave artist". Says Padamsee, "Brave because he left
whatever he was doing to follow a very different style of painting."
Vajpeyi, who has written a book on Raza titled A Life in Art, expects his
work to intensify. "I do believe he'll be rejuvenated here and that his
art will find new energies."
For Raza, reactions from one's peers are pivotal
to an artist's development. "It's important to receive feedback in any
form. But frankly, all my life I've only tried to work as best as I can. That's
all I know. For now the priority is to see India again, to visit Madhya Pradesh
and travel to other parts of the country if possible. These days, I often
find myself very tired and mostly lying down. Let's admit it, my energies
are limited. But I want to work till my last breath. I'm just dying to get
back. Wait, wait," and a few seconds later his voice booms, as if with
renewed passion, "I'll tell you this line-it's from a folk song from
my childhood-'Tera tujhko saunp de, kya laagat hai mor. Mera mujhmein kuchh
naheen jo hovat so tor (I give you only what is yours, nothing of my own.
I have nothing of myself in me, whatever there is, belongs to you). Everything
I got is from India."
