Caricature/Cartoon of a Musician – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart!

Mozart, they say, was a musical prodigy. Even before he was five, he could play the keyboard and the violin, and he performed in front of the Royalty. Obviously such performances today will lead to protests by various organizations that safeguard the interest of children…so it was good that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in 1756 and not in 2006. With that little detail out of my way…
I present the caricature of the wigged musical genius, Mozart.

Mozart’s Biographical Sketch by the Caricaturist (Obviously exaggerated):

Mozart was born on a cold wintry morning in the January of 1756, in a place called Salzburg. Mozart was born with the musical gene riding his y chromosome, which he got from his dad. Incidentally his dad also had the right connections (he himself was in the court orchestra,) and a teacher of music. With the right genes, the right guidance, and the right push, it wasn’t long before Mozart and his sister made their first court appearance as child-prodigies.

It wasn’t that Mozart’s childhood was a bed of roses. I can imagine a three-year old being tutored by his dad, and a six-year-old being made to perform in front of the royalty – it sends a shiver down my spine! I am glad I wasn’t his sister, who went through a similar ordeal.

In 1773, when Mozart was 17, he got the job of the court musician at Salzburg. Unfortunately, job-satisfaction evaded him. He also thought that he wasn’t paid well. Obviously then, he did what anyone would do in his position, he floated his resume in the market. In 1777, Mozart had enough of Salzburg. He resigned and moved to Paris. Unfortunately, nothing worked out for him and he fell into debt. His dad however was one of the sweetest dads ever (quite like the Bollywood Star Amitabh Bachhan, who did everything to establish his son in Bollywood,) and he found a job for his son,…once again in Salzburg – the place Mozart didn’t want to come back to. But he did – and then gradually the wheel of fortune began to turn for him.

Mozart’s Love Life:

1. Mozart’s first love was a singer called Aloysia, who lost interest in him while he was struggling all over Europe. (Women – bah!)
2. After Mozart had established himself in Vienna (1781), he took up accommodation with a certain Weber family. One thing led to another and it wasn’t long before Mozart and Constanze (one of the daughters of the Weber family) became an item.

As it happens with most artists, Mozart too suffered a lot many ups and downs in his career.

Other Stuff about Mozart:

• There’ve been rumors that Mozart suffered from Tourette Syndrome.
• Mozart loved to play practical jokes on people. As Mozart preferred off-color humor (called scatological humor – be careful while clicking the link…it’s got some off-color stuff), people who were the butt of his jokes weren’t too pleased with him.
• He also played Billiards and kept pets.
• Mozart did become a Freemason sometime in the 1780s.
• Mozart loved to dress-up (check out the frill in front of his coat, and that neat little bow on his wig.)

If you are the musical kind, you may want to check out Mozart’s Music here

 

MF Husain Dies – Leaves the World Five Short of a Century.

MF Husain or Maqbool Fida Husain, who was born on September 17, 1915. died in London sometime last night. He was 95 going on 25 – and so despite his age, his death came as a surprise to a lot of people in India.

Here are the things that made MF Husain, who was called the Picasso of India by the Forbes magazine, the only Indian artist who acquired the status that Indians reserve for cine-stars and politicians.

The Cake:

• He became the highest paid Indian Artist ever! His single canvases have fetched up to $2 million at a recent Christie’s auction.
• He was possibly the first Indian artist to get international recognition. In 1952, his solo exhibition was held in Zurich. Remember that in those days, the world wasn’t as small as it is today.
• In 1955, he received Padma shri from the Indian Government. This was followed by a Padma Bhushan (1971), and then a Padma Vibhushan (1991.)
• The vibrancy of his works and the way they changed the course of Indian Art that was dominated by the Bengali Art until the 1950s, made many Indian artists go modernist.

The Icing:

• Husain’s personality was as vibrant as his work. He did stuff that no other Indian painter dared to do. He changed his muses every 3 years, and his muses were almost always the prettiest Bollywood actresses. For the actresses as well as for Husain – the muse-making was a win-win situation. Everyone got the lime-light.
• Hussain was an extravagant spender. When he first came into money, he made “Gaja Gamini” with Madhuri Dixit, his current muse from Bollywood (who is now the matron of a US-based Rich Doctor’s Household.) Then he made “Meenaxi” with Tabu, his second muse.
• He got caught into the web of controversies by drawing Indian goddesses in the nude, and even representing India (Bharat Mata) as a nude. Some Hindu organizations felt that this was stretching the artistic license too far, especially with his painting, the Rape of India, and so they petitioned in the court against him. With the public sentiment having turned against him – it became safer for him to stay away from India. For this reason, he became known as the “exiled artist”. Recently (2010) Qatar granted him their citizenship. This controversy further improved his x-factor with the Indian media and public.

Husain, the man behind the painter was so full of life that it makes you sad to see him go. But he had a good life and he was a happy man most of his life (except possibly the last decade when he had to remove himself from India) – and this is what we should remember him by. We should also remember him for repainting the image of the Indian Artist from the Bata Hawai Chappal shod (Husain went barefoot) no-gooder to a celebrity whose work could fetch millions.

I think I’ll miss him…and I hope that when he is reincarnated he does everything the same way, but refrains from painting the nudes of Hindu Goddesses and of the country that he is born in.  On the other side, I should acknowledge that it’s impossible to really figure out Husain’s work – so I personally am not sure about whether he really drew that stuff – it looks like it, and then it doesn’t.

We’ve had more realistic (and some times more suggestive) nudes by Amrita Shergill whose princess status gave a her an immunity from societal persecution when she photographed and then painted herself in nude (imagine a bourgeois artist engaging in that sort of behavior) and Anjolie Ila Menon, whose work becomes more graphic with each passing year. But oh…we never had anything against nudity…did we?

Thinking of Husain and of the tug-of-war that always went on inside my head when I looked at his work – May the universal God who doesn’t belong to any religion, rest his soul in peace.

 

Caricature/Cartoon – The Angry Young Man of the Indian Film Industry – The Great Amitabh Bachchan!

I had been thinking of drawing the caricature of Amitabh Bachchan ever since I began this blog some ten months ago, but I didn’t because I couldn’t decide which version of Amitabh should grace this space. The young Amitabh who I grew up with, or the older and the currently popular Big B! I vacillated. I got my references in order for both – and waited.

For reasons unknown to me – I can’t connect with Big B. He isn’t the Amitabh who we talked about when I was a child – Big B is a father and an exemplary one too, who sits with his son on his lap so that his halo blinds us into believing that his son too has got one; he is a patriarch trying to put together an inheritance for his next twenty generations; he is an anchor of a very serious show built around the middle-class dream of becoming a millionaire – Big B is different from the Amitabh of my childhood.  I loved his image of the angry young man, the young and emotional persona that swept the entire country off its feet in the 70s and 80s! If that young Amitabh wasn’t there, Big B, Abhishek Bachchan…and all the rest of them wouldn’t be!

I present, with my respect, regard, and love, the caricature of the legendary Bollywood hero, the Great Actor  of the Indian Film Industry – Amitabh Bachchan, in his young Avatar!

Amitabh Bachchan - During his "Angry Young Man" Days!

Here’s a short biography of Amitabh Bachhan.

Amitabh Bachchan’s Shortest Biography on the Web (which still is long enough!)

Amitabh Bachchan, was born on 11 October 1942, in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India. His father Harivansh Rai Bachchan was a Hindi Poet, who was as modern in his ideology as he was in his poems. Long back when the caste system still ruled the roost in India, he got married to a beautiful Sikh girl called Teji, and their union resulted in Amitabh and Ajitabh! Harivansh Rai Bachchan was a Shrivastav, who used Bachchan as his pen name, which became extremely popular, and so the family decided to adopt Bachchan as their surname.

Amitabh, unlike the scions of the affluent and the influential didn’t study at Oxford or Harvard, because he probably was born before Harivansh Rai Bachchan had reached the pinnacle of his success. Thus, the Kirorimal College of Delhi University can boast of being his Alma Mater! Three Cheers for KMC at DU.

Now young Amitabh tried to work for a shipping company run by birds – but his Mom Teji Bachchan possibly told him that he was made for bigger and better things. Young Amitabh decided to give acting a shot in 1969 and debuted in Saat Hindustani (7 Indians! Wow…and all of them in the same movie! No wonder that the movie didn’t do great at the box office. If you are reading between the lines…there’s nothing…honestly.) However Amitabh ended up with an award!

Then onwards, there was no stopping the tall young man with those smoldering eyes and with that deep baritone voice. In 1973, came his biggest success – Sholay (The Violent Sparks of Fire)! By this time, Amitabh had established his Angry Young Man image completely. His fans were beginning to copy his hairstyle, his dance moves, his dialogs, even the angry look in his eyes! Amitabh was fast becoming a phenomenon in Bollywood.

Sometime around the late eighties, when Amitabh was shooting for Coolie, he was injured. With that almost fatal injury, he turned somewhat pessimistic. One thing led to another (as it always does in my posts,) and Amitabh disappeared from the scene for almost a decade. However, the new century brought about a change in the Bacchhan family’s fortunes. It began with Mohabattein in which he worked with Shahrukh Khan. In the same year, he also appeared as the host of the TV Show “Kaun Banega Crorepati” (the Indian version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”).

His most recent success was Paa, in which his son Abhishek played his father, and for which he won the National Award for Best Actor.

Amitabh Bachchan – Interesting Infobytes:

• Amitabh could’ve been called Inquilab (Revolution) had his name not been changed to Amitabh. I wonder whether his name would’ve changed his fortune.
• Amitabh and Jaya (his wife) worked together in a movie called Guddi, before they got married. There’s about a 14 inch difference in their heights.
• Amitabh has been romantically linked with the beautiful Bollywood actress Rekha (his co-star in Silsila.)
• He is the first Asian actor to have his wax model at Madame Tussaud’s
• His most common screen mom was Nirupa Roy.
• His most common screen name used to be Vijay.
• He was awarded the Hottest Male Vegetarian Award by PETA.
• Amitabh Bachchan’s family has not one but two legends – Amitabh and Aishwarya, his daughter-in-law!

A List of Amitabh Bachchan’s Films:

1. Saat Hindustani
2. Anand
3. Reshma aur Shera
4. Guddi
5. Zanjeer
6. Abhimaan
7. Namak Haraam
8. Roti, Kapda, aur Makaan
9. Chupke Chupke
10. Deewaar
11. Sholay
12. Kabhi Kabhi
13. Amar Akbar Anthony
14. Trishul
15. Don
16. Muquaddar Ka Sikandar
17. Mr. Natwarlal
18. Do aur Do Paanch
19. Lawaaris
20. Silsila
21. Yaraana
22. Kalia
23. Satte pe Satta
24. Namakhalal
25. Khuddaar
26. Coolie
27. Sharabi
28. Shahenshah
29. Mohabbatein
30. Baghban
31. Black
32. Sarkar
33. Nishabd
34. Cheeni Kum
35. Paa

(This, of course, is a partial list of his movies, but I guess it covers the collectibles!)

• You can find the Complete List of Amitabh Bachchan’s Films here.
• Find the List of Amitabh Bachchan’s awards and nominations here.
• Find Amitabh Bachchan/Big B’s Blog here.