A particular interest of Ila Pal's new novel, Portrait of an Artist, lies in the long sections in Husain's voice.
Based on extensive conversations between M.F. Husain and Ila Pal, who first met him in 1961 as a young artist, this biography's value lies in the material that the author has access to, as well as her detailed first person narrative of her interactions with her subject.
Of particular interest are the long sections in Husain's voice. He remembers details of the people he met: 
Meena Kumari, Rossellini, Octavio Paz, Jean Riboud, Francois Truffaut and Henri Langlois- who acquired two of his films for Cinematheque. He recounts anecdotes of his peers: all stalwarts of modernism in Indian art. He recalls the music he heard and his opinions about art - both historical and contemporary - as well as his perceptions about different communities. And he explains his relationship to religion and his thoughts on the political events unfolding over the decades before and after independence.
His years in Indore are the most revelatory. We learn of his experiments with cinema with a scroll of paper and a peephole box, working outdoors with live models and copying works of English masters like Constable, Hogarth and Turner. We read of his father's gift in the early 1930s of six boxes of Windsor and Newton oil paints with a selection of hog and sable-hair brushes. His move to Bombay in 1936 saw a sea change in his lifestyle and the beginning of his work as a billboard painter-a time that's now part of the Husain mythology.
Husain's erotic life receives too much attention, and a hagiographic tone runs through the book, particularly the early sections. But the wealth of detail and welcome absence of the convoluted jargon that crops up so much in "art writing" makes this an enjoyable read and a valuable resource for anyone interested in the life and times of this iconic artist.
It is also a cautionary tale for the art community - which failed Husain in his last years, eventual exile and lonely demise in London. Despite his enduring fame, once again, an exhibition of his work in Pune was recently shut down due to threats from far-right Hindutva groups.