Q&A WITH MUZAFFAR ALI

Muzaffar Ali is many things—filmmaker, fashion designer, Sufi—but, he says, painting feels more intimate. With his Hyderabad exhibition cancelled due to the pandemic, Ali has taken his art online

Q. The Other Side is your first exhibition in 15 years. Why did it take so long?

Painting for me has always been a way of life. Showing art was never a compulsion, but I have continued to create in different ways. Sometimes you meet someone who inspires you, who drives you, who believes in you. Art is about all this.

Q. Is ‘art’ yet another form of storytelling, or do you see it as separate from your identity as a filmmaker?

I feel all art is one. One leads into another, and you can move in and out of one form and into another effortlessly. It becomes a way of life—an environment, an ambience, a way of seeing and showing, hearing and making something heard. It’s a way to make meaning out of the meaningless.

Q. As a man of many talents, where do you find yourself most at home?

I like working with my hands—’hands on’, as the expression goes [laughs]. I admire those who create beauty with their hands. Urdu, for instance, is only a state of the mind, and poetry is music for the soul. It helps describe all that one feels, but painting is more intimate. It prepares you for the next level of expression.

Q. Given the current migrant crisis, your film Gaman (1978) seems newly poignant.

What you feel deeply is always relevant. I remember seeing Gaman in the context of a larger sociocultural artistic reality. It first emerged as a question: why did people leave their villages for hybrid lives in a faceless metropolis? Gaman’s medium came from Calcutta, its inspiration from Aligarh, the soul from the heart of Awadh, and its palette from my paintings.