While he can evade taunts and abusive language in person, painter M.F. Hussain can't escape it on the Internet. A recently posted blog brands him a pervert and a hypocrite. It claims that in an interview eight years ago, Hussain had said: "I have depicted Hitler naked in my painting to humiliate him as he deserves it." Then how come in a later statement the painter held that nudity in art depicts purity and is, in fact, an honour?

The blog read: "If a person dresses like a Sikh Guru, thousands of Sikhs gather and destroy his establishment, threaten to kill him and announce a bounty on his head -- Sikhs are not criticized for being communal and intolerant. If a Danish cartoonist depicts Prophet Mohammed in a wrong way, Muslims all over the world rise in anger, there is violence and again a booty is announced on his head - Muslims are not criticized for being communal and intolerant. If M.F. Hussain draws paintings depicting Hindu gods and goddesses in erotic postures (which are not in the ancient texts at all) and Hindus merely protest, they are called communal, intolerant and given lessons on secularism by one and all."

In one of his paintings, Hussain has depicted four leaders, out of which Mahatma Gandhi and Hitler are naked. In none of his paintings has he depicted prophets or his daughter Fatima or his mother in the nude. The blog questions whether it is Hussain's hatred that he paints Hindu goddesses naked or is it their purity that he wishes to portray. Guess, questions like these can be best answered by the artist himself.