He even let me take a couple of pictures without making a fuss. And then his fidgetiness gave away his restlessness. Needless to say, the next sentence was ‘Okay now get going and let me get on with my work.’
After all the conversation we indulged in, this final sentence always made me feel like a child he humoured till it suited him. He did ask me to come again though, which was an honour considering that he had stopped caring much for visitors.
49
11.1.04
Dear Khushwant Singhji
I was shocked and saddened at the change that has come over you since we last met. You have aged more in a short span of six months than in the 18 years I have known you; shrunk so to say within the shell of your former being. Your trademark untidiness now borders on shabbiness and your saliva sometimes dribbles down your beard to vanish into the wool of your cardigan. I am mentioning the unmentionable because I care and cannot bear to see you hurtle downhill in this manner. Do not shut yourself from life whatever the falls and pitfalls that befall you. Perhaps the fall has shaken your confidence and you have let go. Now that tennis, swimming or even a walk is not possible what do you do by way of exercise? If it is not feasible to go outdoors, a physiotherapist could come over and help your muscles regain their strength and ability.
This is the first time in so many years that I visited your home in winter and half expected to see a blaze in your fireplace, but the cosy warmth of the bedroom (it is the first time I entered the exalted premises), your wit and our togetherness will always remain a cherished memory. I hope the letter does not get into the wrong hands, lest the worst is construed.
Here are a few jokes to humour you.
A cardiologist husband and his gynaecologist wife had twin daughters. Guess what they named them?
Angina and Vagina!
Teacher: The size of the penis should be six inches for successful penetration, right?
Girl: I think it should be nine inches.
Teacher: I am talking of necessity, not luxury.
Love
Amrinder
***
16 Jan. 2004
Dear Amrinder
How brutal, unkind but true. I am fully aware of my decline into dotage. I have become slothful, slovenly and unacceptable. That is why I have taken sanyas. I recall my trying to see Nargis in hospital in New York. I knew her well but she refused to let me see her with all her hair gone and shrunk into a skeleton. I do not answer the phone except for one hour; do not go out and do not welcome visitors. I like to wallow in the misery of old age. It is more peaceful.
I had a picture book come out yesterday (Penguin), have a novel due to be released in March and a coffee-tabler done on me by my son sometime next month. Thereafter I will be relieved of all my worldly duties.
I wish you the best for 2004 and the years to come.
Love
Khushwant
***
24.1.2004
My dear Khushwant Singhji
For the first time in so many years your letter has made me cry. You have wished me the best for 2004 and ‘all the years to come’ as if you won’t be around to do the same in person. I cannot bear to think of a world in which you do not exist.
I am sorry to have hurt you with my observations. I meant no offence; I was saddened not disgusted by the ravages of age. My heart contracted with pain when I read the sentence ‘I have become slothful, slovenly and unacceptable.’ You may have become slothful, even slovenly but you will never become unacceptable to me. Why, even now, every joke I hear I horde it for you; after every interesting titbit I come across, I think I must write to you about it. So much so that the jokes on the medical profession that I have been compiling named:
DOCTOR JOKES BY
A DOCTOR
FOR THE DOCTORED
will be dedicated to:
THE MASTER RACONTEUR OF OUR TIMES
KHUSHWANT SINGH
I do not know if and when the novel I had written will ever be published but this compilation has been accepted by a publisher. I have yet to organize it specialty-wise and redraft it but it will definitely see the light of the day; you’d better be around to receive the first copy.
I am sending you the photographs I had taken on my digital camera when I came to see you last. If you compare these with the ones taken 6 months back you will understand what I mean.
I have finished reading the book Waiting for the Barbarians and reaffirmed the fact that the Empire had more barbaric propensities than the natives they called barbarians.
Now for some earthy home-grown humour.
A man passing a bull on the road asked its owner: ‘Yeh sand maarta hai kya?’
‘Gai ki to maarta hai, pata nahin teri marega ke nahin.’
I end with love and a warm hug.
Amrinder
***
29 Jan. 2004
Dear Amrinder
Just caught a heavy cold – sore throat, rasping cough, running nose, sneezing – the works. I’ll be laid out for a week or more.
The pix are good. I did not mind your describing me in negative terms. Ghalib used the same expressions for himself when he was 69–70, three years before he ‘went to his heavenly abode’.
Love
Khushwant
***
23.02.2004
Dear Khushwant Singhji
Though Low Price Publications is more than willing to publish my compilation of ‘doctor jokes’, do you think I should approach OP Publishers first if theirs is a better publication house? It may be my only chance to climb higher up the ladder.
Love
Amrinder
***
26th Feb. 2004
Dear Amrinder
A good publisher is one who pays his author his royalty honestly and regularly. My joke books have been published by VB, owned by KM, who does send me cheques regularly.
Love
Khushwant
50
In his Saturday column in the Hindustan Times, Khushwant Singh had written that there were not many poets in India who wrote about nature. To this, I vehemently replied:
6.3.04
Dear Khushwant Singhji
Don’t blame me, you have asked for it. I am going to deluge you with poetry on nature for I am one poet, albeit obscure, who is totally enamoured by nature. If Bacchus is your god, nature is mine and I venerate her by extolling her virtues in verse, as the pious eulogize their patron deities. I am enclosing a couple of them. Forgive me for rhyming an occasional poem but that was the genre I was brought up with, and love best of all.
Coming back to your love for the bottle, I have long wanted to send you an amusing quote by W.C. Field. He says: ‘A man has got to believe in something. I believe I’ll have another drink.’
Another quote that amused me was a modification of what Isaac Newton had once said, ‘I have seen further than others because I was standing on the shoulders of giants.’
Referring to the above, Hal Abelson quipped, ‘I have not seen further than others because giants were standing on my shoulders.’
As for our brand of earthy humour:
Q: Why do women make better truck drivers than men?
A: Because it is easier to sit for long hours, on fur rather than balls.
***
10 March 2004
Dear Amrinder
Forgive this paan masala smudge. I loved your poems but can only use them in a profile of yourself. The poems I take are usually with political overtones and tinged with malice. Yours are on love and nature and can only go with your profile. I will be happy to write one if you so wish and send me a detailed biodata.
My novel, Burial At Sea, will be launched on March 17 at the Meridien 7–8 p.m. by the Rajmata of Jaipur. Treat this as an invitation.
Love
Khushwant
***
12.03.2004
Dear Khushwant Singhji
I’d love to have my profile written by you.
I had seen the beautiful Rajmata during the Emergency. I was doing my postgraduation and all the high-profile politicians that were jailed by Indira Gandhi had got themselves admitted in AIIMS. Being a lady, the Rajmata needed a gynae check-up and I was with my professor during her internal examination, so you can say that I know her inside out!
Coming back to my profile – if I were to give a brief sketch of my life in rather flowery terms (hard facts, if you need them, are given in the biodata attached), it would be as follows:
Being a child of the air force I never struck roots, but when does the wind crave constancy? Like the winds, I blew from city to city imbibing the cultures of various states. Though born in a Sikh household, this nomadic life was instrumental in transporting me to spaces beyond the narrow confines of religion. Writing was a passion that ended up being a much-loved mistress after an arranged marriage with medicine.
After my postgraduation in Obstetrics and Gynaecology from AIIMS and residency from Lady Hardinge Hospital I set up practice at Pitampura, where I have a nursing home of my own and an attachment to a reputed hospital. I continued my affair with the written word and my articles, short stories, poems and columns are being published by magazines. I have also written a book The Adolescent Girl to educate this vulnerable section of society about reproductive health. At present I am working on a joke book Doctor Jokes, Compiled by a Doctor for the Doctored that will be published soon.
Love
Amrinder
On 17 March, dressed in a charcoal-grey crepe sari with cream embroidery, I went with my father for the book launch at Le Meridien. In a maroon turban and salwar–kameez, the neatly turned out, public Khushwant Singh was someone I could not relate to. Though he tried not to show it, Daddy was pretty excited, for he admired the man. Though Khushwant Singh was surrounded by the usual bunch, he was cordial to my father and said nice things about me and my ‘talent’. Then he took me aside to tell me that he had misplaced the poems and wanted me to send a few of my favourites to choose from.
Soon after my father and I merged into the crowd, Rani Gayatri Devi – dressed in a green chiffon sari, with diamonds in her ears and pearls around her neck – arrived an hour late. Her fading loveliness and Khushwant Singh’s ageing charm still attracted a crowd.
Khushwant Singh gallantly escorted the rani to the dais. Ravi Singh, a surprisingly young and fair top gun with Penguin, talked of the grand old man of Indian literature and recounted the innumerable evenings he had spent by the fireside of this amazing raconteur, who was liberal with his Scotch, contrary to what he let people believe.
Khushwant Singh’s speech at this book launch was not as witty as his previous ones; in fact it was boringly didactic. He talked of religious bigotry and Iqbal’s famous lines – ‘Mazhab nahin sikhata aapas main bair karna/ Hindi hai hum, vatan hai Hindustan hamara’ (Religion doesn’t teach you to turn into a bigot/ We are Indians and Hindustan is our country) – that need amending in the current scenario of religious discord.
He believed the first line should read: ‘Mazhab hee sikhata hai aapas main bair karna’ (Religion teaches you to fight amongst yourselves.)
He then proceeded to more serious topics: ‘Places of worship are being vandalized. M.F. Hussein’s paintings destroyed, shops selling Valentine’s Day cards are smashed and the government does nothing about it. More nauseating than the resurgence of religious bigotry is the upsurge of its illegitimate offspring – astrology, horoscopes, palmistry, vaastu, numerology, lucky charms and that kind of hocus-pocus.
‘They call me a dirty old man because I write about sex. Do they call Vatsyayan or Pandit Koka dirty? They wrote the silliest and the most explicit books on sex. Do you call them dirty men? No, because one added the word ‘sutra’ to his kama, the other called his work ‘shastra’ and they acquired religious sanctity. If I titled my books ‘granths’ of some sort, they would not call me a dirty old man. I seek solace in this memorable pun: “When I am dead/ I hope it is said/ His sins were scarlet,/ But his books were read.”
‘About the novel, I would rather that you read it and make your own inferences. Some have alluded to the fact that it has certain resemblance to Nehru’s life. One magazine has already alluded to it, but it is not so.’
When the rani’s turn came, she apologized for her delay on account of the delay in her flight. She wondered how politicians became billionaires ‘serving’ their constituencies while she had become poorer; but this was not the time to discuss all that. She confessed to not having read the book but knew that it would be good.
Perhaps it was the first time she was launching a book, for she did not know what to do with it. She thought it was a present till Ravi Singh asked her to tear open the wrapping and hold the book in a manner that the front was visible to the audience.
18.3.04
Dear Khushwant Singhji
Though you looked spruced and smart yesterday, somehow you weren’t the Khushwant Singh I know and adore – the bedraggled, lovable Khushwant whose attention I have all to myself, albeit for half an hour.
The launch of your new book but reiterated the name you have made for yourself in the history of Indian literature. I cannot but be filled with pride at knowing you, and humility at your acknowledging such an acquaintance in public. I am beginning to sound like a sycophant and therefore will shift to other topics – the Rajmata for instance. She has aged considerably since I saw her last but in a beautiful way, like matured wine, like a tree that can only grow better with time. I was sad to see her shuffling gait but amused to see you support her like a young gallant when most of the times you pretend to need the support of pretty young things.
Though publicly the Rajmata was the epitome of graciousness, I was surprised by the vehemence of the private remarks she made to her lady companion that I unwittingly heard. While getting down from the dais, she said, ‘I hate this, I hate this crowd.’ And when a stout lady brushed past her, she remarked incredulously: ‘That fatso pushed me!’ and ‘Where is Khushwant? Don’t tell me that he has left?’ as if you would be so impolite to leave before a chief guest, no matter how tired you were.
I am sending the poems and profile that you asked for. As for my jokes they are getting from bad to worse like this one:
Penis number 1 and Penis no. 2 went to watch a movie. Said P1 to P2, ‘If this is a triple X movie, we will have to watch it standing throughout.’
Love
Amrinder
51
20.4.04
Dear Khushwant Singhji
These days I have adopted a sparrow family that has nested in my bathroom window and photographed their mating, nest building and the four chicks that incessantly proclaim their hunger in no uncertain terms. They have opened their eyes now and have grown downy feathers. While I was taking their snap, a parent came along and uttered sounds of warning at which the entire brood shut up, withdrew their bare necks and huddled in utter quiet. When such a phenomenon occurred again and again I realized that even at this tender age they were taught to understand danger signals and go into this remarkable defence mode! I have recorded their progress with a digital camera making my very own, albeit mundane, national geographical film.
This particular pair would nest in the same window year after year, raising 2–3 sets of offspring in a given season. I hadn’t seen them for the last 2 years, which made me wonder where all the sparrows have gone. I had read an article once on their dwindling numbers that alarmed me. It would not do to have the commonest bird in India become uncommon or extinct.
I read your book Burial at Sea and except for the
fact that I learnt how to ‘milk’ you know what from the sanyasin, I did not find it as interesting as the rest of your prolific stock.
I had sent the MSS of my joke book to OP Publishers but when I contacted Mr SM, he wasn’t aware of its existence!
Now for the standard denouement:
A Punjabi woman living in Britain picked up an accent that irked the local Punjabi shopkeeper. One day as she was browsing in his shop, she casually asked him the time. He looked at his watch and said, ‘Bra panty.’
‘What are you saying?’ she said, outraged.
‘I am telling you that it is barah paintee (12.35) in English.’
Love
Amrinder
Khushwant Singh replied from Kasauli on 29 April 2004.
Dear Amrinder
The profile should appear this coming Saturday – otherwise three weeks later as I am taking two weeks’ break.
I am not surprised you did not think much of my novella. Neither do I. Nor did most of the critics. But it made the bestsellers’ list, a whole page in Time magazine of the US and Tehelka. I have become so blasé about the rubbish I churn out that I no longer care.
The weather is very dreary. When I came it was cool. This morning (29th) an icy wind blew and I had to get into my woollens and stay indoors. I have been inundated with visitors. I got away from Delhi to escape them and dislike their barging into my seclusion. The day before I had eleven for dinner. Since I do not have a proper cook I had to send for food from the club. Two bottles of premium Scotch went down the drain. Four of my guests were titled (Lord and Lady); Gonberg from England I had known in my younger days. There was no escape.
The Afternoon Girl Page 19