The wonderful yellowish orange colours we associate with the Basant ritu and with Holi have paled because of vicious religious fundamentalism. Because of it our national artist is now a citizen of Qatar.

What are thinking Indians doing? We have lost our self-respect and integrity. India has lost one of her own.

As our nation’s chronicler he has been our jewel. He has portrayed the agony of famine; painted vignettes of Mother Ganga;responded to the lilting ragas of our musicians; captured the piety of Mother Teresa and the beauty of our Prima Donnas.

I feel angry and helpless. In livemint.com, writer Salil Tripathi has adapted a part of Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali so aptly:
“Where the mind is filled with fear and the head is kept low
Where vandals are free
Where the world is broken into fragments of narrow domestic walls
Where the clear stream of reason has lost its way in the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where tireless striving stretching its arms towards perfection faces obstruction
Into that hell of serfdom, my country lies: we hold the wake.”

Maqbool Fida Husain was Indian.
Have we made him a foreigner?

Sangita Jindal