The passing away of Syed Haider Raza leaves behind only a few of those magnificent men with their splendid art and grand ways. In the early nineties when I first encountered him he had an aristocratic, dashing air of a man, with grey locks falling over his forehead, who had achieved and seen enough to be at ease with the idiosyncracies of the world. Raza had come to my apartment in Mumbai, where I was living then, for coffee and conversation about the Progressive Artists’ Group and his own journey. If his suave appearance put one in a daze it was his account which was even more mesmerising.
26 July 2016
