Whom temples and mosques antagonise, the wine-shop unites; whom temples and mosques keep away from each other, the wine-shop draws close; whom temples, mosques and churches divide, the wine-shop ties together.
The artist, when rendering this painting, had in his mind a different verse from Madhushala, a great long poem of the well known Hindi poet of the 20th century Shri Harivansha Rai Bachchan, the father of as great Hindi cine-star Amitabh Bachchan. The verse the artist inscribed on its reverse reads:
ahati hala dekhi, dekho lapata uthati ab hala, Dekho pyala ab chhute hi hoth jala denewala, Hoth nahin, sab deha jale, par pine ko do bunda mile, Yaise madhu ke diwanon ko aj bulati Madhushala.
The wine beheld flowing, or rather blowing wind-Iike cool, erstbefore, stimulates now parching winds. Look, the lips would blaze the moment the goblet reaches them. But who cares, why lips alone, let the entire being parch, provided there are two drops to drink. These are such mad ones whom the wine-shop calls today.
The wine defines in Madhushala the soul's yearnings for the ultimate bliss attained only in its union with the Supreme. Love for Him blows initially cool, but its very perception begins putting ablaze the lips, that is senses, and all that had been so far the instrument of worldly delight. And, it is only by allowing all that is worldly to perish in the fire of love for the Supreme that the soul attains a couple of moments of the supreme bliss.
Bachchan's Madhushala is a treatise on soul's mad yearnings sublimating the material existence into the supreme spiritual bliss and at the same time a treatise of unique religious harmony. For him temples, mosques, churches, gurudwaras and all other means of mere worldly rituals only divided the mankind. It was only soul's spiritual yearnings and the bonds of love that united all. And, whatever the artist had in his mind, he only represented this gist, the high sense of religious harmony, which Madhushala propagates.
The structures of mosque, church and temple in the background and the figures styled as Hindu, Muslim and Christian pursuing the lady with the goblet represent how the worldly conventions and forms divide and the mad infatuation leads them united. Love's frenzy has been personified as a woman and all infatuation as the wine contained in the goblet that she carries in her hand. With master strokes the artist has created most lively figures pulsating with the rhythm from within. Characteristically, he has laid a row of flowers under her feet, for wherever treads the feet of love, the earth thereon gives forth flowers, beauty and fragrance.
This description by Prof. P.C. Jain and Dr Daljeet. Prof. Jain specializes on the aesthetics of ancient Indian literature. Dr Daljeet is the chief curator of the Visual Arts Gallery at the National Museum of India, New Delhi. They have both collaborated on numerous books on Indian art and culture.
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