Strokes of Fortune: Gujral and Husain

for the art scene, 2000 was the year of satish gujral. not because the painter-architect turned 75 on christmas day. but because of a birthday bash that began one sunday - with a toast at the belgian embassy, which he has designed - and continued till the next sunday - at his own house, also self-designed. what do you say about a party that brings together the ambassadors of britain and germany, america and argentina, turkey and cyprus, portugal and pakistan, denmark and sweden, france and - of course! - belgium? only this: ``peace on earth,'' which is what the vice president of india quipped.what did the fractious art world say to that? two of its major institutions - the national gallery of modern art and the lalit kala akademi - joined hands to bring out a volume commemorating selected works of gujral. but the crowning glory? santiniketan came to distant delhi to confer upon him the coveted desikottama. the year of the lord could have been synonymous with one nubile beauty named gajagamini. so named by her creator, painter-turned-filmmaker, m-for-madhuri f-for-fida husain. but all the dhak-dhaks of the gorgeous madhuri went unanswered by the seetiwallahs on the front benches of indian cinema. clearly something had gone wrong. if the pictorial experience created by the man with a brush, was lauded by an arty filmmaker like mrinal sen, it could not survive in pvr for more than two days? but here too, the film failed to create the record of shortest run. the man whose palette raked in 3 crores in one-and-half hours at sotheby's this month, had clearly failed in his secret desire to create a film that would be hated even by berlin, where his first film was awarded. sigh. by ratnottama sengupta