Then in the ’50s, I left for Paris. We parted ways and he stayed back in India where he was completing his degree.

However in 1954, Tyeb got an opportunity to visit London and then he came to Paris for four months, but we missed each other as I had to go to America for a fellowship. In that sense, we were not always together and kept playing tag around the globe. When I came to Mumbai, he had left for Delhi, and so on. But we always kept in touch.

When Tyeb returned from America, he had been exposed to writers like Clement Greenburg, and there was a big change in his paintings. He had adopted abstract elements into his canvas and began to approach figures in a new and exciting manner. He worked with ideas of abstracting the human form and twisted and crafted bodies imbuing them with a sense of energy. Even if later in his life Tyeb’s body was sapped of energy and he conserved each little spurt to paint, his paintings were always filled with motion and vigour.

Tyeb was a very talented painter and because he began his career as a filmmaker, like

Husain who had also dabbled in films, he had a different sensibility and approach. He had an analytical mind, and many painters do not have emotion and intellect. He was a fine man and he had a fine mind. He would think about his canvases for days on end before even picking up the brush and he was never emotional in his approach while painting.

... contd.