Sour grapes, an old fart, and who gives a hoot?

The things some people will do to get some attention, unbelievable.

For some reason some of our country's people are having regrets over MF Hussain seeking refuge in Qatar.  The country itself is looking rather sheepish after what is now widely viewed as its less than remarkable treatment of one of its artists.  Our media is clueless as always, and is simply parroting the upper middle class wannabe world citizen viewpoint that is rarely wrong in essence but never useful in application or viable in context.

Forget the corruption, the filth, the terribly maintained public services, the noise, the pollution, the unremovable stench of urine and excreta, dirty rivers, disease, poverty, terrible road manners, a legal system that takes years to prosecute the clearest violators of the law, religious fanatics, an apathetic public to all issues that affect us on a daily basis, and the sheer exhaustion of life in India - but let us worry about how much "freedom" a lousy artist should be getting?  People, what the fuck is wrong with us?

In what way is MF Hussain any more valuable to India than the millions who have left it over the years for so many reasons? Fighting all the other wrongs may not be so much fun for for a whole lot of people, and they will all leave this country just like they have for many, many years, just to live a "decent" life in some foreign country.  They are the doctors, engineers, nurses, teachers, and a lot of highly qualified inherently hard working people who will put in their sincere effort in any job they are given.  We lose them a dime to the dozen, and we don't give a fuck.

The Indian Institute of Technology may produce the occasional murderer and rapist, but for most part it produces fairly brilliant engineers, who all study and get their degrees, and mostly go abroad and never come back, well after the Indian taxpayer paid for every rupee of his education at this exalted institution.  We don't reap any benefits out of this, except for the prestige of India being able to produce such minds.  We don't give a fuck.

So, let's take a look at someone like Hussain.  He is an artist or that is what he calls himself.  Whatever he has produced has created no measurable value to the country, and in some cases has indeed created a lot of nuisance.  Fine, we are a democratic country and we have budgeted all our efforts for a fair percentage of nuisance.  So, we put up with that.  He creates ruckus through his art.  Fine, artists are free to do whatever they want just like anybody else who has a "freedom of expression" under the Constitution.  We never persecuted him, as a nation.  There were people who came up with negative reactions to his work performed under his "freedom of expression", but why can't their reactions be their freedom of expression too?

A true artist doesn't do anything just to get reactions.  Hussain has a track record of creating work that clearly attracts reactions and controversies, and at 95 years of age, if he doesn't understand that, he is a moron and clearly not an artist.  If he wrongly estimated what reactions he would get from Hindus by offending them with nudes of goddesses they hold in reverence, that is his fault, and simply a price he has to pay for stupidity.  End of story.

Now, what is all this fuss about us having to be embarrassed by Hussain migrating to Qatar?  Purely out of curiosity, I'd like to see what kind of a reaction people of Qatar will have if he drew Allah nude for their benefit.  How about a dick hanging from a wall and all muslims bowing to it?  He won't choose to express himself thus, because the Islamic faith has rather direct ways of letting people know of their displeasure.  There are enough fatwas and killings to make a clear line even clearer.  Not even a hare brain like Hussain will mistake that line to be a dotted one.

Truth is, MF Hussain is no Sachin Tendulkar.  His achievements aren't measurably superior within all the work coming out of an  international peer group.  We respect Sachin without reservations because he stands tall on an absolute scale.  True, artists do not have such a scale, and that is fine the way it is, but MF Hussain is a mediocre pretender to a throne of any sort of excellence, relative or absolute.  He has been clever rather than brilliant, and most of us can see through it, much like a great deal in modern art.  He has needed the controversies to stay in the news, and that alone is enough reason for us to not accord that sort of national hero respect.

If he needs to sit in another country and wail, that is precisely the end result of many years of pretending to be something he is not.  All the crap he talks about his love for India, well, who cares?  There are a lot many of us who love this country but hate things about it.

I for one, simply hate the fact that some asshole is trying to hump me each time I stand in any queue, at the bank, at the theatres, or simply to get a railway ticket.  What is so hard for Indians to understand - that it is completely rude and dirty to try and shove one's pelvis on the person in front of us in a line?  There's no point to this either - nobody is going to give up his/her hard fought position in a line just because he or she got humped.  But we do it, nevertheless.  It is the sheer habit of being Indian.  This alone is enough reason for me to want to leave this country and hopefully never come back!

Now, I can hear the distant screams - "So why don't you leave?".  I'll leave when I damn well please, thank you.  And until then, I will turn around and ask every asshole who tries to hump me if he has any sexual leanings towards me, embarrass the crap out of that pig, and enjoy it each time it happens.  That's just me.

For an entire nation to be embarrassed, there should be a reason big enough for us to be concerned.  We're not a nation of excellence seekers to be worried about the slightest insult to our attitude towards someone's "freedom of expression".  We're hardly a progressive, liberal society that stands as an example to the world.  We're a dogmatic, backward, indisciplined, filthy, selfish country that has no clue how to behave as a nation.  In this context, we should be happy we have one less shenanigan to deal with.

MF Hussain is a great product of India, fit for us in every way.  India is one big con job.  MF Hussain fits perfectly within this.  India is one confused mess of amoral, shady, pretentious, incompetent, and mediocre foolishness.  MF Hussain fits perfectly with this.  We deserve each other thoroughly.  But let us not think we have lost something precious by this prick leaving our country.  If the media didn't report it, we'd not even know he was away.  We shouldn't give a shit about this fool, because there are other things truly worth giving a shit about, that affect us a whole lot more than this crook does.

All the above said, at some level, those of us who want to truly respect everything in our Constitution, respect those of us who live for our highest aspirations, and refuse to be guided by our lowest fears, shouldn't make life hard for anyone to live here.  That said, MF Hussain is hardly a dead jawan's widowed wife who has to bribe the Panchayat Head to get her survival pension every month.  He's hardly the politically persecuted death row inmate who defended his cause through violence, with or without wisdom.  He's hardly important.  But none of that matters.

India doesn't stand for anything excellent. One way of ensuring we can improve the average quality of anything in this country could be by getting rid of rubbish.  There won't be much left if we throw out all our rubbish, but we won't lose anything by doing that.  MF Hussain is that sort of rubbish.  Let's send a message through the diplomatic mission in Qatar that we are happy to permanently export this paragon of art, liberty, freedom and expression to their welcoming bosom.  Oh, yes, we're still curious about that Allah nude he is thinking about creating.

- BSK