Sex, Scotch & Scholarship
Khushwant Singh
Compiled and Edited by
Rohini Singh
for
anita shourie
the fairest and bravest of women
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Introduction
Looking Back
On Myself
Facts of Life
Sex in Indian Life
Humour in Indian Life
Poverty in Indian Life
On People, With ‘Malice’
Giani Zail Singh
M. Hidayatullah
Balwant Gargi
The Man Who Has Seen God
K.L. Gauba
Politics
My Years in Parliament
Khalistan
A Traveller’s Diary
Australia: Lone Land of Magnificent Distances
Pakistan: Sweet and Sour
Southern Safari
Calcutta
Nature
The Month of May
Fiction
Karma
The Riot
Religion
The Magic Words
Life of Guru Nanak
Translations
Some Hymns of Guru Nanak
About The Author
Copyright
Introduction
This is the fifth anthology of Khushwant Singh’s writings that I have had the pleasure of compiling. I seem to be getting more efficient at the job. In all the earlier ones, it devolved upon me to preface the collection with a short biographical piece on the author, tracing his rise from being an academic failure to one of the most widely read and highest-selling authors in India today. This time I have deftly absolved myself of this task by inspiring Khushwant himself to write an expansive, autobiographical piece. It is the first in this book, written in his characteristically candid, forthright style, with the eye to detail that is his forte. It makes for satisfying reading, being as it is perhaps one of the most ‘complete’ and accurate self-portraits he has ever made. As he turns the telescope on himself, he tells you what his alarm clock says to wake him up, the kind of tea he drinks, the strictly regimented daily routine he follows as well as the lesser-known details of his early childhood and later years as he struggled to establish himself as a writer.
A few words about this anthology. The earlier selections of writings were usually confined to a limited number of topics. Unlike them, in this collection, an attempt has been made to not only bring out the quality of Khushwant Singh’s writing - in his own opinion, comparable to R.K. Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand, Manohar Mulgaonkar, Ruth Jhabvala, Nayantara Sahgal and Anita Desai - but also to highlight its depth and diversity which, as it happens, is closely interlinked to the author’s experiences and interests over the years.
Khushwant Singh started life by practising law, then switched to diplomacy which he gave up after a few years to turn to serious writing. Along the way, he taught comparative religion at Princeton, Swarthmore and Hawaii, translated the Sikhs’ prayer, Japji, as also researched and wrote a two-volume History of the Sikhs, considered one of the most authoritative works on the subject. His interest in religion was aroused early in life. Though born into a highly religious, God-fearing family, he began to question the value of rituals and the need to conform to Khalsa traditions while in college. In his own words, ‘I decided, however, to go along with them rather than create trouble for myself. I took pains to understand the prayers I had been reciting. . . Meanwhile, at St Stephen’s College, I attended Bible classes. Although the emphasis was on the New Testament, and the life of Jesus Christ, it was the language of the Old Testament, particularly the Psalms, the Song of Solomon and the Book of Job that I found myself drawn to. Later, while working on the Sikh scriptures, I found so many references to the Vedas, Upanishads and the epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata including the Gita, that I decided to study them to better understand the meaning of my own Gurubaani.’ Two translations, taken from the book Hymns of Guru Nanak, are included here. ‘Interest in religion,’ he continues, ‘also made me read whatever I could on Jainism, Buddhism and later developments in Hinduism. Islam was the last religion I turned to, largely to free myself of anti-Muslim prejudices which had been instilled into me as a child. By the time I was forty, no religion evoked much enthusiasm in my mind.’ Expectedly, Khushwant’s views on religion are unconventional. He is a self-professed agnostic, and has consistently lectured as well as pleaded in print for a rationalization of religions, shorn of unnecessary rituals and customs. You will find four short pieces here, mirroring his attitude.
Another of his pet passions has been a study of nature. As he explains in the preface to his book Nature Watch, it all began many summers ago while he was on holiday with his English friends, the Wints, in Oxford. Their three-year-old daughter, who was an avid collector of wild flowers, was his first teacher and the one who kindled an interest in natural phenomena, which has endured to this day. Over the years, Khushwant has given talks on the subject on All India Radio as well as done a highly rated television serial, The World of Nature, for Doordarshan. For this anthology, I have selected one chapter, ‘May’, from Nature Watch, a book patterned after the traditional Baramasi of the Indian poets and in Khushwant’s own words, ‘one of the most precious books’ he has written.
Khushwant Singh is a widely travelled man and insists that he has seen all that is worth seeing: cathedrals, temples, pagodas, mosques, palaces and picture galleries, deserted cities, pyramids, the Sphinx, sea-sized lakes, lofty mountain ranges, waterfalls, subterranean grottoes lit by myriads of glow-worms, ballets, theatres, music halls, striptease joints. He is quick to point out that he has rarely had to pay for his travel or hospitality. His hosts, however, I am sure, have felt amply compensated by accounts of his trips published in his syndicated columns and carried by over fifty newspapers in all the major regional languages of the country.
What makes Khushwant’s travelogues special is his total lack of inhibition. He tells it all as he saw it, missing out nothing, whether it was a rebuffed pass at a girl, a joke at his expense or a lecherous intention that came to nothing. He quotes the local poetry, describes the local cuisine, art, customs and culture. Perhaps more than in any facet of his writing, his travelogues highlight one of his unique gifts - the ability to laugh at himself. It comes through in the pieces selected for this book. Only one could be called an exception - the piece on Pakistan, the country of his birth and one to which he has always felt obsessively attached, to the point of being dubbed ‘a Pakistani agent’. The piece selected for this anthology in which he returns to Hadali, his birthplace, is unashamedly emotional.
Another two pieces about which you could say the same thing are the two speeches included here, made in Parliament: one a tribute to Mrs Indira Gandhi on her death and the other focusing on the situation in Punjab, a subject on which Khushwant was perhaps the most vocal Sikh, arguing for a more balanced and humane approach to a problem that had become a thorn in the body politic of the nation. Though he wrote extensively and regularly on the subject for Indian and foreign newspapers - a piece on Khalistan is included here - the time at which his voice was perhaps heard the loudest was during his years as a Member of Parliament. He documented his experiences in the Rajya Sabha in his typically acerbic style, lampooning many of his fellow Parliamentarians. The piece, written for Sunday, is included here.
Lampooning people, in any case, is Khushwant’s speciality. Not the tiniest quirk or mannerism escapes his attention and he is faithful in recording it to the minutest detail. I am sure many of his caricatures have irked and annoyed b
ut they have certainly had a ring of truth and, whether or not one admits it, they are certainly most enjoyable - the more malicious, the better. You will find a small variety here.
You will also enjoy reading three pithy commentaries on life in India - on sex, humour and poverty. On a different plane, are two brilliant short stories, taken from a collection comprising thirty-two. It was a difficult choice to make and I finally settled for one with an earthy, rural flavour while the other sketches, tongue-in-cheek, a Westernized Indian gentleman, his rustic wife and their totally alien attitudes. If you haven’t read them already, I will not ruin them for you by telling you more.
Over the years Khushwant has done a number of translations from Urdu and Punjabi to English. Though Allama Iqbal’s Shikwa and Jawab-e-Shikwa are perhaps better known, for this anthology I have selected a masterfully written extract from Umrao Jaan Ada by Mirza Mohammad Hadi Ruswa which Khushwant translated along with M.A. Husaini.
Khushwant is exceptionally easy to work with, quick to accept suggestions and take decisions. While sifting through the material for this collection, I came across this letter written to Mr Lewis Bergman, the editor of an American magazine, Across the Board. Khushwant writes: ‘I enclose my piece as required. It needed a hell of a lot of research and writing. Take any liberties with it you like.’ It is precisely this attitude that has made it such a pleasure to edit and compile this anthology of writings.
New Delhi, 1992
Rohini Singh
Looking Back
Looking into the depths of one’s own eyes can reveal the naked truth. The naked truth about oneself can be very ugly . . .
On Myself
‘Nana, are you really a womanizer?’ my sixteen-year-old granddaughter asked me one morning. My wife and daughter were present.
How does a seventy-seven-year-old grandfather answer so direct a question put to him by his teenaged grandchild? ‘Of course I am!’ I replied. ‘Don’t you see all the pretty women who come to see me: Sadia, Kamna, Jayalalitha, Syeda, Prema, Kum Kum, Mrinal, Masooma?’
‘That’s not the same thing,’ she replied, looking very knowledgeable.
What had provoked the question was an incident that took place in her English class at school. They had a new teacher who did not know much about her students’ parentage and my granddaughter had in any case never told anyone about me! Only her closest friend, who sat next to her in class, knew about our relationship. The lesson that morning was my short story, The Portrait of a Lady, about my grandmother. The teacher thought it best to tell her students something about its author before she dealt with his work. She told them that the writer of the story was the worst stereotype of a Sardarji’s image in the popular mind: loud-mouthed, aggressive, a philanderer, drunkard and womanizer. The girls took it down in their notebooks. My granddaughter and her friend giggled merrily. By the next morning, the teacher had discovered that one of her students was my granddaughter. She adopted a different tone. She lauded my virtues as a writer of great sensibility, concise in the use of words, and so on. My granddaughter and her friend had more reason to giggle as they sensed their teacher painfully trying to make up for the faux pas she had committed the day earlier.
I cannot blame the teacher too much because that is my popular image: of a drunkard and a womanizer. I can’t even blame people who visualize me inebriated, with my arms round well-stacked, bosomy women. I am chiefly responsible for painting myself in those lurid colours. Unfortunately, it is not a true portrayal. I am not a drunkard; I have never been drunk even once in the over fifty years I have been drinking. And though some women have come into my life as they do in the lives of most men, I have never made unwelcome passes at them, nor been snubbed or slapped for taking undue liberties with any. As a matter of fact, though I am nothing to look at, it is women who have sought my company more than I have sought theirs. I am a good listener and very liberal with my compliments. These two traits account for the limited popularity I enjoy with the opposite sex.
My daily routine which has varied over the years, with my whereabouts and my preoccupations at the time, has been much the same for the last ten years that I have been living in Delhi. I get up between 4 and 5 a.m. It is usually closer to 4 a.m. and never beyond 5 as two alarm clocks make sure I sleep no more. One is the conventional type which goes off with an ear-splitting explosion of metal striking metal. The second is a Japanese-speaking clock which starts with a short musical piece followed by a Jap speaking Ameringish, ‘Good morning! It is five o’ clock. Time to get up.’ Five minutes later, it comes on again to remind me: ‘It is five minutes after five. Time for you to get going.’ And five minutes after that yet another reminder: ‘It is now ten minutes after five. Please hurry!’
I do. I go into my study, switch on the kettle, get milk out of the fridge, a packet of Ginseng from a pewter box. I fill a platter with chilled milk and dilute it with hot water; I make two mugs of tea for my security guards (I’ve had them for over five years) and one with Ginseng for myself. As I open my front door, a dozen cats of different sizes and colours charge at me. I put the platter of milk on the floor - about six manage to get their heads in to sip; others stay at a respectful distance. I give the mugs of tea to my guards and am rewarded by a copy of The Hindustan Times which is delivered to me free of charge around 4 a.m. because I edited it for three years (1980-83). I scan the headlines while I sip my Ginseng. I look up Obituaries and In Memoriams on page 4 to find out which of my fellow citizens have left for their heavenly abode. I switch on my transistor and listen to ‘Asa di var’ from the Golden Temple or hymns on the national service while I change into my tennis clothes.
In summer, I am at the Gymkhana Club tennis courts at 6 a.m. (in winter it is 7 a.m.). My tennis has deteriorated with time. I no longer play it with the vigour I did some years ago; my sporting companions suffer me because I am their best supplier of imported tennis balls. I now rarely play more than one set. Back home, I have a quick shower -I believe in taking a cold shower on the coldest of days as a preventer of colds -and get down to reading other papers while I have my breakfast of two toasts and tea. About the only time I waste is solving crossword puzzles. Then I get down to my reading and writing. I have to fight off telephone calls and visitors. Sometimes I simply put the phone off the hook and tell my security guards to tell visitors I am not at home. I never see anyone who has not made a prior appointment. This is not snobbery but self-preservation. To me, time is sacred. And fleeting. There is so much to read, write, see and do. And so little time left to fit it all in.
I have a very light lunch - a bowl of soup or yoghurt, germinated cereals or thayeer saadam followed by half an hour of siesta. Then back to reading and writing and fighting off the telephone. I receive an average of between ten and twenty letters a day and make it a point to answer every one. Often, it is no more than a line or two on a postcard. I regard not answering letters a gross discourtesy. Dealing with correspondence wastes a lot of my time as there are quite a few people who write very long letters, and far too frequently. They write in English, Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi. I often receive abusive letters as well as love-letters from girls I have never met.
I take a couple of hours’ break to go for a swim in the Golf Club open-air pool. They let me in before others and I usually have it all to myself to do thirty to forty lengths. I do not enjoy it any more than I do my tennis but feel I must persist in taking exercise to keep myself fit for mental work: mens sana in corpore sono - a healthy mind needs a healthy body. I always take a book with me to read after I’ve had my swim. I have to dodge people who want to talk to me.
Come evening and I look forward to my Scotch. After all that exercise and frugal meals, I feel it warming its way down my entrails. Left to myself, I would like to drink alone while listening to music or watching TV. But I am rarely left alone, and usually have quite a mehfil to drink with me. I rarely go to cocktail receptions given by Delhi’s diplomatic community, except when my stock of Scotch is low and
then too, for just long enough to take my quota of three large Scotches and get back home.
Many stories of my rudeness have been circulated. They are true. I prescribe the time for my drink and dinner and walk out if my host does not observe it. In my own home, I have dinner parties at least twice a week. I make sure my guests arrive on time. And ask them to leave before 9 p.m. They do. And are quite happy to have an early evening. I watch the English news on Doordarshan and take a crossword puzzle to put me to sleep. I also have a collection of books on dirty jokes by my bedside which I dip into before my siesta and night’s sleep. By now I know almost all the jokes there are in the world. I enjoy dirty jokes.
Now consider how much time I have to indulge in drinking or womanizing! My drinking never lasts more than forty minutes. And as I have said before, not once in my life have I been drunk - high, yes; garrulous, yes; amorous, yes. But never out of control, staggering or talking bullshit. I have even less time to indulge in women. And when I have, as when I am in Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Hyderabad or abroad, I have a gunman with a bayonet fixed on his rifle outside my hotel door. That can dampen the ardour of any Casanova and turn any nymphomaniac frigid.
The picture of my present-day life would be incomplete if I did not tell you something about my wife. Most people who don’t know me or my family are under the impression that she doesn’t exist or is tucked away in some village like the wives of many of our netas. This is a grievous error as my wife is quite a formidable character who rules the home with as firm a hand as Indira Gandhi ruled India. Unlike the mod girls of today who bob their hair, wear T-shirts, jeans and speak chi-chi Hindish but when it comes to being married, tamely surrender their right to choose husbands to their parents, my wife made her own choice over fifty years ago.
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