[Reader-list] The Bliss of Madhuri: Husain and His Muse - a public lecture

[Rajendra Bhat Uppinangadi]

Yousuf, there is nothing special about the fact that mindset of "muse", it
is quite obivious mindset of few followers of a faith, as conquerers, to
have woman of different faith in the present time, as if to live with past
glories, as exhibited by the likes of a Mahesh Bhatt, shahrukh khan Amir
Khan, in bollywood as well as that of Rizvis and many and many thousands who
still make all out efforts to have faithful "harmony" and the fate of those
wives with triple talaqs is well known in "secular India. !
Atleast, individuals like a Harish Salve, Vayalar ravi who have married
outside the faith, have been more sensitive unlike the My name is khan
clan.!

Regards,
rajen.

On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 11:59 AM, Yousuf <ysaeed7 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> JAMES BEVERIDGE MEDIA RESOURCE CENTRE
> AJK MCRC, Jamia Millia Islamia
>
> invites you to a Public Lecture on
> THE BLISS OF MADHURI: HUSAIN AND HIS MUSE
> By
> Patricia Uberoi
>
> JB MRC Room, MCRC New Building, 2nd Floor
> Thursday, March 25, 2010, 2PM
>
> By all accounts, including his own, M.F. Husain has found artistic
> inspiration in several ‘muses’, but none so publicly acknowledged and
> well-publicized as his relationship with Bollywood screen goddess, Madhuri
> Dixit. Husain committed her image to canvas in a series of featureless
> portraits, and on celluloid through his five-million dollar film, Gaja
> Gamini, which he scripted and directed.  ‘It took me 60 years to realize
> this dream’, Husain wrote, ‘of which 30 years were spent in allowing Madhuri
> to arrive.’
> Following his trajectory from art to cinema, this illustrated presentation
> critically reflects upon Husain’s project of rendering in cinema the
> timeless attributes of Indian womanhood in relation to a universal ideal of
> the feminine. In particular it seeks to address two interconnected issues
> raised by Husain’s Gaja Gamini project and the public discourse that has
> surrounded it: (i) the problematics of the female ‘muse’; or, should one say
> bluntly, the gender politics of male artistic production; and (ii) Husain’s
> spectacularisation of the female body of Madhuri Dixit.  Admittedly, linking
> these two themes is no straightforward matter, located as they are in very
> different discursive universes. However, addressing these questions might
> lead us to understand how Husain’s infatuation with his muse is actually
> pertinent to an understanding of the public controversies in which he has
> become so conspicuously embroiled in recent years.
>
> Patricia UBEROI was formerly Professor of Social Change and Development at
> the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi, and Honorary Director of the
> Institute of Chinese Studies, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies,
> Delhi. She has published widely in the fields of family, kinship, gender,
> sexuality and popular culture with reference to both India and China. In
> addition to her book Freedom and Destiny: Gender, Family and Popular Culture
> in India (2006), she has edited Family, Kinship and Marriage in India
> (1993), Social Reform, Sexuality and the State (1996), Tradition, Pluralism
> and Identity (co-ed., 1999), Anthropology in the East:  Founders of Indian
> Sociology and Anthropology (co-ed., 2007), Marriage, Migration and Gender
> (co-ed, 2008) and Rise of the Asian Giants:  Dragon-Elephant Tango (2008).
>
> (The JB MRC is supported by funds from the SRTT.)
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Rajen.