LONDON: Burdened by increasing needs and obligations, tempted by endless wants and desires, do you sometimes wish you had your own money-printing press minting as much money for you as you need? While printing India's legal tender illegally can put you behind bars for decades, there are a few privileged people who are adept at the art of printing...err painting money and minting crores without the fear of law catching up with them.
Legendary painter MF Hussain is one of those privileged few who can get away painting their own money legitimately and lawfully. In last few decades of his painting career, Hussain has painted money on canvas worth several crores of rupees. Announcing his latest money-painting venture from his residence in London, the exiled painter MF Hussain (exiled from India for reasons that have nothing to do with the currency painting racket he runs) today disclosed that he will be painting a new series of currency notes varying from denomination of Rs.75 lacs to Rs.1.50 crore. Each note will at the center of its canvas carry a very rough sketch of Bollywood actress Amrita Rao, his latest inspiration and muse.
Almost a decade back, Hussain had painted currency notes worth several crores featuring bollywood queen Madhuri Dixit. Although most of her fans were not able to recognize the rough sketches painted on the notes as that of Ms Dixit, Hussain's word carried enough weight to put all doubts to rest and everyone accepted without much objection, that the abstract outline of a female sketched on Hussain's currency notes was none other than the reigning diva of Bollywood.
One peculiar feature about the Madhuri currency notes was that in almost all the sketches the actresses face (see below) was completely blank without facial organs like eyes, nose, nostrils, mouth, cheeks - organs that are regularly and without any exception found on faces of all humans. But even more peculiarly, this amazing absence of facial features, including eyebrows raised no eyebrows considering that only a few centuries back, Leonardo Da Vinci had painted a female face that was lacking only eyebrows, yet it raised a million eyebrows and to date continues to raise millions of eyebrows.
Series of currency notes painted by MF Hussain featuring outlines of a female specified as Madhuri Dixit
While people, even after all these centuries, are still wondering why Mona Lisa, the lady without eyebrows and eyelashes, had no eyebrow and eyelashes on her face, it is a surprise why art affectionados are not missing Maduri Dixit's eyes, eyebrows, cheeks, nose or mouth despite their very visible absence. It is not known why Hussain chooses to not paint facial parts and very surprisingly there have been no attempts to discover the reason for his disinclination to paint them, though there are rumors and speculations galore.
According to one such rumor, MF Hussain never managed to learn painting the complexities of human facial features and his art teachers at JJ School of Art, Mumbai lost patience with him and threw him out of the institution after just one year of the course. (How Hussain from being almost a dyslexic painter went on to become India's foremost artist is another story that would need another article) Another rumor says that Hussain being a big fan of the maestro, the legendary renaissance genius, Learnado Da Vinci and his famous eyebrow-less Mona Lisa painting, reasoned that if painting a face without eyebrows can result in the painting reaching dizzying heights of fame and occupying the most unique position in art history, than painting faces without any facial features should similarly raise his stature and the stature of his paintings to such dizzying heights.
Whatever might be the truth of these rumors, the fact is that today, MF Hussain occupies a unique position in art & currency market, where the merits or demerits of his art do not matter much. All Hussain has to do is to draw a few lines on his canvas, announce to the world what those lines represent and immediately his canvas gets converted into currency notes worth crores of rupees.
It is rumored that the sketches of Amrita Rao on his latest currency notes too would be devoid of facial features. Art lovers all over the world are expected to accept that the abstract outline of the female that will be sketched on the notes will be that of Amrita Rao. The actress is not expected to raise any objection at her facial disfigurement, nor is the lack of facial features expected to reduce the value of his notes from their quoted value.
