By TwoCircles.net staff reporter

New Delhi: His first work was sold for Rs. 50 in 1968. Now it sells for lakhs. It took painter Shamshad Husain almost forty years to reach this position and also to get out of his father M. F. Husain's shadow.

His painting sold for Rs. 4,80,000 lakh at the Triveda art auction in New Delhi. Speaking on the sidelines of the auction, junior Husain, recalled his struggle to become an artist.

He left home in 1963 and never went back home. Though he visited home for a day or two, as he was very close to his mother, but he would never stay there permanently. He enrolled for a formal profes¬sional art course at the Baroda Fine Arts College in 1963 because he wanted to come out from his father's shadow. Fresh out of college in 1963 he stayed in a rented apartment. His first exhibition was held in Hyderabad in 1968 but he did not have money to go there. His landlady gave him Rs.100. His first sketch was sold for Rs. 50.