THE UNUSUAL LOVE STORY OF "MACBULL"AND MADHURI Dixit

Ali Peter John

The amazing grace, beauty ,marvel, miracle and the divine mystery of true love is that it can happen to anyone at anytime and any place and without any distinction of age, caste, colour,creed, community or nationality.....

I first experience the power of true love when it happened to me when I was only five and the way my heart beat then is the way it still beats sixty-five years later and I have still not been able to understand why it happened and I have not been able to explain how it happens even though I have written two books about it and try my best to keep the flame of that love alive under the most trying circumstances and even after facing two wars ,several storms, a tsunami and the calamitous times the world has gone through like, it is going through in these times of the invasion of a worm called COVID-19....

I had seen an American Consul General falling in love with the beautiful daughter of a sweeper who worked in the building he lived in and even married the girl and took her away to America. I had seen a sixty year old man who had played Jesus Christ in a play and whose wife had died in an accident and how he had jumped into her grave saying that he couldn't live without her and how he six months later fell in love and married a girl who was thirty years younger called Rose . I had seen a gangster who was also the son of a police officer who had fallen in love with a beautiful Muslim girl called Karima and had abducted her and lived with her in a old bungalow in which no one lived in and defied the whole village to try and catch him or harm him or Karima because he kept saying, "hum ek doosre se pyaar karte hai aur tum log toh kya, bhagwan bhi humko alag nahi kar sakta.The gangster whose name was Wilfred, a Christian ultimately married Karima and left the village only after he had proved how much he loved his Karima.Dev Saahab(Dev Anand)
once told me, "the only feeling that will live forever is love and no power in the world can even try to wish it away ". I have known about love stories, read about them and have always had the greatest love and respect for the lovers, but if there is one man and his unusual love story ,
I can take with me till the end of my time,it will always be the man who gave me the honour of being his friend, Maqbool Fida Husain.....

Maqbool was born in Indore and had to move to Pandharpur in Maharashtra from where he and his family moved to Bombay. He started his life as a painter, painting the posters of Hindi films under the Mahalaxmi Bridge. He had started taking an interest in stars of the time like master Vitthal who was a "pahalwan "who had taken to acting, K.L.Saigal, Durga Khote, Prithviraj Kapoor, a popular vamp called Azurie and other stars of the silent and Talkie era .He also had a stint with the renowned painter Raja Ravi Verma who was the first to paint goddesses for calendars of the time.

It took him very little time to discover the painter in him and was a name in himself and his painting became popular not only in India, but in different parts of the world .The name,M.F.Husain had become a synonym for a new wave of painting and he was competing with other big names in the world of painting like Tyeb Mehta and S.H.Ara and soon became a major force as one of the leading painters of India.

He had developed a fascinating for films and made his first autobiographical film, "Portrait of a painter "which was shown in different festivals and had won critical acclaim. He kept his interest in Hindi films alive by making friends with some leading stars and filmmakers. The last time he took interest in a Hindi film was when he requested the Kapoor brothers to allow him to paint the backdrop for the titles of the R.K.film ,"Henna".He was then lost in a world of his own....

Till he saw the film, "Hum Aapke Hai Koun "directed by Sooraj Barjatya. He saw the film for the first time at the Liberty cinema and then never stopped seeing the film till he had seen it for a record ninety- five times ,sitting at the same Liberty cinema and also in the same seat which was ultimately reserved only for him. He had fallen in love with the heroine, Madhuri Dixit when he was only eighty years old !

He had fallen in love many times before this beautiful and unexplainable "accident"as he called it .His next step was to find the real Madhuri some how and he was willing to go to any extent and meet anyone who could take him to Madhuri and once he landed in Iris Park, the place where Madhuri lived with her parents, Anandrao and Snehlata who was also a beautiful woman once and a very good singer in Marathi and a classical dancer. It was the beginning of a long pilgrimage of an unusual lover to have one look, one "darshan"of the vision he had so madly fallen in love with .This pilgrimage of the lover continued for more than two years...

The one way in which Husain Saahab, the lover found to express his love was to prepare best kind of biryani, the preparation of which was personally supervised by him .
Once the "biryani "
was ready after hours, he had a taste of it and only then packed it in a huge "degchi"(a especially designed utensil only for preparing or packing "biryani ").He would then carry the "degchi"of" biryani "in his black Mercedes all the way to Iris Park and then take great pleasure in watching Madhuri and her family and relishing the "biryani" and would be very happy when the "degchi" was wiped clean and went back carrying the empty "degchi" only to fill it with biryani again and go back to Iris Park the next day where he knew he would find his Madhuri.

He was now determined to make a film which he would direct and Madhuri would star in it. The result was his coming back to films with his film "Gaj Gamini".It was his ambition to show the audience and all those who had made films with her what she was really all about. He wanted to make her look more beautiful than she had ever looked and took on Santosh Sivan who he considered the best cinematographer in the country to work on "Gaj Gamini".He paid Santosh Sivan the kind of money he had never received and his only instructions to him used to be to make Madhuri beautiful and even divine. The film was not a success at the box office,but he said he had fulfilled his dream of making Madhuri look ethereal.

He had reached a stage of madness in his love for Madhuri and could do anything for her. Mahuris secretary, Rikku's wife Reema Rakesh Nath was making her debut as a director with a film called "Mohabbat "with Madhuri in the main role. Husain kept visiting the sets of the film almost every evening and it was during one of these visits that Reema thought of asking him to play himself in a guest appearance in the film and he agreed only when he knew that Madhuri would be a part of the scene shot with him. He never charged the makers a rupee and the only thing he kept asking for was his favorite glasses of tea made according to his requirements.

Rikku once asked him to cast a certain girl in his second film, "Menaxi-a tale of four cities ".Husain Saahab did not have a role for any other girl and when he said no to the request made by Rikku, Rikku is said to have abused him. He was devastated and later told me, "I have never been abused like this in my whole life ".He couldn't forget what Rikku has done to him .

It was very interesting to know that Husain Saahab had not only changed his name from Maqbool to "Macbull "all the time he was in love with his dream and had even changed the way he dressed and from his usual all white outfits, he had started wearing very colorful clothes. The only thing he didn't change was his walking around bare feet .

But his love had one day led him to change his way of dressing completely. There was an exhibition of his paintings organized by the India Today magazine in Delhi and he had taken Madhuri, her family, Rikku and me to Delhi .

It was one of the most prestigious exhibitions in the Capital with the cream of people attending. Husain Saahab was around for a few minutes and then told me, "main hotel jaa raha hoon, tum waha milo raat ko Khaana sath mein khaate hai,waha ka Khaana bahut lajaabab hota hai "

The exhibition was over. Madhuri and her family had gone into their own suite at the Mughal Sheraton and so had the guests from Bombay. Husain Saahab had asked me to meet him in the lobby of the hotel and when I came down I couldn't find him,till a tall man dressed in black leather trouser,a matching black silk shirt, a leather jacket and cowboy boots with a cowboy hat was standing before me. My head went into a twirl .That man was "Macbull ",also known as the great Maqbool Fida Husain. He had once again proved how he could do anything for the love of Madhuri.

There was a wild rumour about his being critically ill and being admitted to the Breach Candy Hospital. I was worrying about him in my office, when I received a call and was shocked when he was on the line and I instantly asked him how his health was. Without answering my question, he said, "tum abhi hospital aa jao aur kisi ko kuch batana nahi, mere room mein aa jao ".When I reached the room of the critically ill patient, M.F.Husain, I saw him dressed in a white kurta and payjama, sitting on the floor and busy painting. I asked him why he had to let people know that he was ill and he said, "log chhain se jeene bhi nahi dete aur marne bhi nahi dete Bambai mein "He wanted to be alone to paint a series of paintings for Madhuri. He proved how very active and alive he was when he called up the house- keeping department of the hospital and asked for a large kettle of "meri waali chai "and we sat talking for more than three hours at the end of which he realized and I was surprised to know that we were related .

He had the greatest respect for all the people who worked for him and one of them was the man who made the frames for his paintings.He was supposed to meet his frame maker in Lokhandwala. We met at Yashraj Studios and he said, "chalo ".It was very hot and I was sweating and panting for breath and forgot all about my problems when I saw him walking barefeet through some dry fields which were very uneven and on which even a young and strong man would find it difficult to walk. I asked him why he was taking so much trouble and in all most a whisper, he said, "maine
kuch khaas paintings banaayi hai Madhuri ke liye,woh frame mein daalkar dena hai usko aaj sham ko ". We reached the shop of the frame maker and a crowd collected around him and one man from the crowd said, " dekho ,Madhuri ka aashiq aya hai "and the answer he gave the man took me by complete surprise, he said, "haa main Madhuri ka aashiq hoon, tumko koi aitraaz hai kya ?"and the crowd dispersed and a very relaxed Husain Saahab sat on a "baankdaa "(wooden bench)and sipped his tea which his friend the frame maker, had ordered. Husain Saahab was so fond of his frame maker that he even gave him a royal holiday in Dubai when he had to leave the country under disturbing circumstances .....

I don't know whether Madhuri really knew how much Husain Saahab loved and cared for her, I wish she had known. He was so concerned about her that he once told me, "Madhuri ko kabhi achhey role aur acchey advisor nahi mile ,nahi toh woh Hindustan ki sabse badi actress ho sakti thee"....

I have not met Madhuri who was my neighbours when she was in school and in college for a very long time, but I have heard of her office which is now being looked after by her husband Dr Shriram Nene lined up with paintings presented to her during those glorious days when Macbull was in love with her and went mad to prove to the world what true love could do and take the beloved of the lover through heights even angels only dream of reaching....

If this outstanding love story can not make a subject for a story on which a great film can be made, I don't know what will. I have a strong feeling and also an ambition to see some brave writer and director think of doing justice to an unusual story first written and directed by the greatest writer and director,God himself.