The story of Maqbool Fida Husain’s death made instant headlines on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Twitter, the micro-blogging site, had friends and well-wishers of Hussain tweeting over their loss.
Actor Amitabh Bachchan tweeted about his friendship with Husain.
“Husain’s best painting gift to me, a Hanuman with ‘Sanjeevani booti’, was given to me in Breach Candy Hospital, during the Coolie episode.” Also, “Many of his works and gifts adorn my home.”
Vijaya Mallya, chairman, UB Group, tweeted, “Deeply saddened by the passing away of artist genius M F Husain. The more famous he became, the more his humility.”
Husain and news about his demise also became a popular wall post on Facebook. The social networking site, with close to 25 million users in India, had hundreds of status updates and news links talking about him. Even YouTube, video streaming site, drew hundreds of visitors to its news videos reporting his demise.
Other than ‘MF Husain’, keywords such as ‘Madhuri Dixit’, ‘Qatari’, ‘Ramdev’ and ‘Google Doodle’ too were used extensively by Twitter users. While ‘MF Husain’ was trending (number of times quoted in tweets) at the rate of over 3,000 tweets per minute according to web analytic tools like Twirus. ‘Google Doodle,’ which was most discussed topic on Twitter India earlier in the day – with more than 2,500 tweets per minute – fell behind ‘MF Husain’ towards the end of the day. Actor Madhuri Dixit did not respond to tweets that fans directed to her page about Husain.
Twitter emerged as the favourite for celebrities to share their opinions. Film director Shekhar Kapur declared in his tweet, “MF Husain, who seemed ageless, painted till his last days and leaves us with one of India’s greatest legacy of art.”
In another tweet, tennis player Mahesh Bhupathi shared, “Spoke a lot about him (Husain) at dinner last night and paintings he gifted Leander and me in ’99.” While Bollywood singer Shweta Pandit wrote about her meeting with MF Husain, “An artist lives on forever. I have a book, Timeless Madhubala signed by him (Hussain), that’s been my only chance meeting.”
| HUSAIN’S TOP AUCTION WORKS |
BATTLE OF GANGA AND JAMUNA: MAHABHARATA 12
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UNTITLED (1955)
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RITUAL
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SITA HANUMAN
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UNTITLED (ARJUNA AND KRISHNA)
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