Barefoot Husain


Book Description

In Barefoot Husain, the artist has lost his shoes. Jai offers to help him find them and the two take off on a crazy journey, zooming in and out of paintings, through milestones in M. F. Husain's life. What happens when the always barefoot Husain finally finds and wears his pair of shoes? The fun story takes off from some of the painter's famous works, including his distinctive horses, and ends with an interesting comment on his celebrated free spirit!




Barefoot Across the Nation


Book Description

This book is the first inter-disciplinary engagement with the work of Maqbool Fida Husain, arguably India's most iconic contemporary artist today, whose life and work are intimately entangled with the career of independent India as a democratic, secular and multi-ethnic nation. For more than half a century, and across thousands of canvases, Husain has painted individuals and objects, events and incidents that offer an astonishing visual chronicle of India through the ages. The 13 articles in this volume - written by distinguished artists, curators, anthropologists, historians, art historians and critics, sociologists and scholars of post-colonial literature and religion - critically examine the artistic statement that Husain has presented on the self, community and nation through his oeuvre. It engages with the controversies that have erupted around and about Husain's work, and situates them in debates around the freedom of the artist versus the sentiments of the community, between 'virtue' and 'obscenity', between an 'elite' of intellectuals and the 'common man', and between a 'work of art' and a 'religious icon'. Correspondingly it considers how India has responded to Husain: with affection, admiration and adulation on the one hand, and hostility and rejection on the other. This book is more relevant than ever before in light of the debates that have arisen over Husain's self-imposed exile for the last few years following a spate of violent attacks on his home and exhibitions in India, and his recent decision to forfeit his Indian citizenship. It will be of interest to those studying art history, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, and politics, as well as to a wide spectrum of readers interested in contemporary issues of identity and nationhood.




The Barefoot Book of Stories from the Opera


Book Description

The author's rewriting of opera stories from seven different composers combined with illustrations and a select discography, introduces to children some of the great operatic themes of the last 200 years.




Outlook


Book Description




The Wise Fool


Book Description

Meet Mulla Nasruddin, a legendary character whose adventures and misadventures are enjoyed across the Islamic world. This witty collection of stories portrays his eccentric, engaging and irreverent character. Nasruddin always has a twinkle in his eye, a sliver of wisdom in his ramblings and a few good surprises up his sleeve! AGES: 6 and up AUTHOR: Shahrukh Husain writes for both adults and children and is the author of THE BAREFOOT BOOK OF STORIES FROM THE OPERA. When she is not writing, Shahrukh practices as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, specialising in transcultural work. Micha Archer has always loved the way words and pictures go together. Her illustrations are created using gouache, watercolour, pen and ink, and collage. She is influenced by her travels in West Africa, Mexico and Central America and the folk arts and crafts she saw there. She has also illustrated LOLA'S FANDANGO. REVIEWS: ". . . Husain's accessible and lively prose delivers satisfying morals that are rarely predictable; for example, when the Mulla concocts an inventive story to keep his pupils from eating his baklava and returns to find the plate empty, he praises a pupil who tells a tall tale of his own. Rendered in vibrant golds, greens, and blues, Archer's collages, created from a variety of papers and homemade stamps, seamlessly intermesh with the spirited vignettes" -- Publishers Weekly




Husain


Book Description

M.F. Husain was many things: curious boy from Pandharpur, painter of billboards, maker of toys, aesthete, the inveterate progressive artist he soon became, and later film-maker and style icon who walked about barefoot with a long brush in hand. A legend, in short. Six years after first seeing him on a rainy day outside the Jehangir Art Gallery in Mumbai, Ila Pal met the star painter for the first time in 1961. It was the beginning of a long and enriching association between an eager student of art and M.F. Husain - a journey that lasted fifty years. This book is a product of that intimate relationship. Filled with anecdotes about his charisma, his sharp wit, his sense of wonder about the world at large and his insatiable hunger for love, this warm and personalised biography traces his evolution through his many avatars. It attempts to unravel the enigma of M.F., who is considered the master of contemporary Indian art, and the auctions of whose works at Christie's and Sotheby's changed the Indian art market forever. It also delves into the artist's exile from his homeland at the fag end of his life, exploring the question of creative licence in a climate where people's sentiments are easily hurt and where censorship rules the roost like never before. Husain: Portrait of an Artist gives us an up close and personal look at the life of a great painter who was hated and admired by millions alike - the one and only Maqbool Fida Husain.




M.F. Husain


Book Description

A master painter, a colourful persona, a filmmaker with a difference, a lover of the most expensive cars on earth, a painter who preferred to walk barefoot - Maqbool Fida Husain was an enigma even to those who knew him best. M F Husain's was an inspiring story of rags-to-riches. This book pays tribute to M F Husain the artist. A master painter, a colourful persona, a filmmaker with a difference, a lover of the most expensive cars on earth, a painter who preferred to walk barefoot - Maqbool Fida Husain was an enigma even to those who knew him best. M.F. Husain's was an inspiring




Chef


Book Description

Kirpal Singh is riding the slow train to Kashmir. With India passing by his window, he reflects on his destination, which is also his past: a military camp to which he has not returned for fourteen years. Kirpal, called Kip, is shy and not yet twenty when he arrives for the first time at General Kumar's camp, nestled in the shadow of the Siachen Glacier. At twenty thousand feet, the glacier makes a forbidding battlefield; its crevasses claimed the body of Kip's father. Kip becomes an apprentice under the camp's chef, Kishen, a fiery mentor who guides him toward the heady spheres of food and women. In this place of contradictions, erratic violence, and extreme temperatures, Kip learns to prepare local dishes and delicacies from around the globe. Even as months pass, Kip, a Sikh, feels secure in his allegiance to India, firmly on the right side of this interminable conflict. Then, one muggy day, a Pakistani "terrorist" with long, flowing hair is swept up on the banks of the river and changes everything. Mesmeric, mournful, and intensely lyrical, Chef is a brave and compassionate debut about hope, love, and memory set against the devastatingly beautiful, war-scarred backdrop of occupied Kashmir.




Lin Yi's Lantern


Book Description

Meet Lin Yi — a little boy with a big heart and a talent for bargaining. Tonight is the moon festival and he wants nothing more than a red rabbit lantern; but first he must buy the things his mother needs at the market. This heartwarming story shows the rewards of putting others first, and includes educational notes at the end about the Chinese moon festival, life in rural China, and the legend of the moon fairy.




The Veena Player


Book Description

A damaged painting is like a body without a soul, Aunty Prima tells Valsa, when they set about restoring an old painting by Ravi Varma. As they remove the layers of dust, Valsa hears a delicate cough. Does it come from the painting? The Veena Player is about a charming friendship between young Valsa and the veena player, which weaves in nuances of Ravi Varma's art style, and pays tribute to his skill in painting lifelike portraits.




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