Her Daughter Tulsi

This painting belongs to a series of twenty paintings begun in the early 1960s that relate to the "initiation of a young woman into sexual experience." (E. Alkazi, M. F. Husain, New Delhi, Art Heritage, p. 10.) This particular work shows two women: the older mother with a look of solemnity and quiet wisdom in her eyes, and the young expectant daughter, bright-eyed and eager. It probably dates to the first half of the series, as the later paintings become increasingly abstract. They have a more complex pictorial structure, and a gradual build-up of layers of paint on the canvas.

The link between the works is the presence of a letter in the hands of the older woman that stands as a talisman or a 'rite of passage' from mother to daughter. "The rectangular letter is an enlarged form of the sacred taweez... and establishes a subtle suggestion of the paradoxical, profane and sacred ingredients of love." (E. Alkazi, op. cit., p. 11.)