When Syed Haider Raza's family moved to Pakistan after the 1947 Partition, the iconic painter chose to stay back, not just for the sake of his loyalty for his motherland, but for his admiration for Mahatma Gandhi.

The veteran artist, who passed away last month at the age of 94 revealed this to writer and poet Ashok Vajpeyi who recollected the tidbit about Raza last evening at a function organised at the Indian Women Press Corps here to remember the artist. Raza was merely eight, when he first saw the 'Father of the Nation' at a public meeting in Mandla in Madhya Pradesh.

"He used to say, 'This is my country. Where would I go from here?' But, I was never convinced with this argument. After lots of pestering, he once told me, 'When the Partition happened, my family left. But I used to feel that if even I leave, I would be betraying the man who I saw at the age of eight for the first time," Vajpeyi recalled.