Living in Exile - Set MF Husain Free

Let the mother pine for her son. Let her feel the pain of loss, of yearning, of constant need to feel the child.


Let the mother miss the presence of her son playing with watercolours in the back yard of her house.


Let the mother know that the child is safe in the confines of his home, and no danger can befall him.


Let the mother feel the tension tingle in her belly, ever so once in awhile, to suppress her subconscious mind of the danger that can befall her beloved.


Let people who greed for his blood, get NOT the joy of their gluttony.


Let people who curb the body, know they CANNOT curb the intellectual flights.


Let people who throw stones on the body, know that blood oozes, but NOT the calm and serene mind.


Let the mother know that she has the strength to take on the RUDRA Kali avatar to protect her son – to stop the hundred-headed serpent from spiting venom of saffron.


Let the mother know that she can strike hard when the child is in danger.


Let the people of this land know that such fate can befall all who are un-saffron, un-red, un-black, un-white.


Let India pine for the loss of a son. A son who has shown the world how large-hearted his mother is in her generosity, love and giving. Let the mother pine in pain and joy to know that her son is after all safe and sound in a land he is forced to make his own.


Let India grant Maqbool Fida Husain freedom.
Freedom to breath. Freedom to walk bare-foot anywhere. Anyhow.
Allow ‘’India’s son” to be safe in a land like Qatar- A foreign land that has made an orphaned child her own. He is safe where he is. Living in exile is the saddest fate that befalls on the most harmless.


India should set free of Maqbool Fida Husain, for if she brings him back, she will bring back a man who was betrayed by his own.


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A Deluge of Misery

When you see a sparrow’s nest in the house, you know it is an abandoned house. Ironical that these endangered sparrows have made the rain-gushed houses of Badami their nesting homes. Walking by fallen houses, for miles on end, you hear the little sparrows tweeting. You wonder of what joy they sing.


It is numbing to see such a sight of colossal destruction due to flooding and simultaneously see the mindless joys that these little birds are engrossed in. This is the other world of a ravaged place, where the feisty act of god forced people into homelessness, despair, agony, and helplessness. They have made the sky their home.

The Malaprabha River , a tributary of the Krishna River, inundated villages that came her way. An agrarian society that lives on the banks of the river, are aware that when she invades, she leaves a lot of silt and makes the land fertile. But, she also destroys the entire path before her, taking everything with her- livelihood, shelter, people, cattle, crops, and the devotion that people have of her as a life giver.

No land is alien to natural catastrophe, and seldom is the government in a “preparedness” mode, when it ought to be, given the history of flooding that North Karnataka has been experiencing for over a decade now. Flash floods, due to heavy, incessant downpour in a “short duration”. The effects are often devastating, where water levels rise several hundred times more than the normal flow, in the span of a few hours.

In these four months since the floods, there has been an outpouring of help from all quarters. A number of NGOs are seen mushrooming in villages addressing human needs and providing mediums of intervention. But with several NGOs working out of one village alone, you can clearly see the conflicts that arise in the community where each NGO has a self-help group created. More help the better, you would think. But what matters most in these times is the sustained manner in which the NGOs work with people for an extended period and not as if it is a short-term project of just a couple of months. There are instances where NGOs prefer to abandon a village that has complex undercurrents of caste demarcations- where the upper caste community overpowers the decision-making.

I have been working with the displaced people in the remote villages of Badami: Beernur, Taminala, S.K Aloor, Manneri, and Khyda. I realize that India is very different when looked at through the eyes of a landless labourer who tills an upper caste landlord’s holding for as low as 70- 80 rupees, a child torn to nothingness, living in a cramped space, a bonded woman who earns merely twenty rupees a day and a girl child married away the year she attains puberty. Caste discrimination is just one of the few mammoth concerns that plague this land.

The conditions of human lives and their livelihoods do not necessarily improve when the water recedes. People are left to pick up from where they were, before the floods, which is humanly impossible. The initial outpouring of relief comes just like a torrential rain. It comes with a gush and stops when the sun shines. Rescue operations, and immediate relief is but one part of disaster management.

Permanent settlement areas needs to be allocated as soon as possible, with housing, sanitation, clean drinking water, health care systems, educational institutions for children and alternative employment methods must be introduced. From what one sees so far, this process is exasperatingly slow. The victims of 2002 and 2007 floods continue to live in shanty-tin houses. One clearly does not allow people to live in “temporary shelter” for a decade.

The Association of India’s Development (AID) has been working with several partner NGOs like Headstream and Janaarogya Andolana Karnataka. The common goal that binds the group together is assistance in providing a sustained long-term rehabilitation program that begins with the repair and renovation of the damage to critical infrastructure; to helping the village come up with sustained employment opportunities; and training people in leadership skills to fight for their rights. The process of empowering the villages to be less vulnerable to political lethargy and providing them the tools to fight for their rights are making a systematic long-term impact.

I shudder to think what would happen to the world if not for volunteer organizations who silently toil in areas where the government fails rather sordidly. AID has been at the forefront of relief and rehabilitation, and is re-building lives. The simple message we volunteers carry with us is: COMPASSION wherever there is suffering. CONVICTION that the compassion is strong enough to eliminate suffering and the COURAGE to make this conviction a REALITY.

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The article was published in The Alternative: http://thealternative.in/articles/a-deluge-of-misery

Love Loss

I try to erase the touch of your caress

That has lingered through my veins
My skin. My memory

Of molecular significance

I try to erase the memory

The happy ones

The grumpy ones

The not so chubby ones

I try to brush the pictures stored

In a single stroke of tar

The perfect picture postcards

Etched. Framed. Walled

I try not to smile at myself

And catch myself instantly. A halfhearted promise

As the smile slowly breaks into a grin

Then a hushed sob, that is seen in the slat-lake eyes

I drift. Unconsciously
Seeing seagulls swoop in mindless games

She lives with her mate.
The café at the beach my hideout. The sanative tumult of ocean effusion

The winds of December blow
The pine tree fiery-lit to festivity
Baubles hang in magic wonder
Like the memory of that whisper. Of ago

The sails beached

Still in frozen water. Ruffle her mast to the Atlantic wind

I walk to the frozen railings.

Look beyond the blue horizon. To erase

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