Notes On the Great Indian Circus

by Khushwant Singh

  It was after the partition of India when we found ourselves in Delhi that we got to know each other better. His entry into my family came through my mother who only read Gurumukhi. He gave her his play Loha Kut (The Ironsmith) and took her to see it performed on the stage. She was charmed. Few of her husband’s or children’s friends took notice of her. Gargi became her friend and was welcomed at her coffee sessions. He was always an excellent raconteur and could hold everyone’s interest. That was perhaps the secret of his success with women, many of whom were young and beautiful. ‘What is it they find in Gargi?’ people asked. ‘He is short, ungainly, badly dressed, shakes his bottom when he walks; his gestures are effeminate, and is forever rubbing hands with invisible soap!’ The answer was that he was a sympathetic listener and when it came to women, he could lay on flattery with a shovel. Each one was made to feel like the Queen of Sheba to his King Solomon.

  At the time I got to know him better, he was said to be more than friendly with the wife of a Sikh friend. Gargi had a marked preference for Sikh women. In his tiny one-room and courtyard tucked away in a narrow lane behind Scindia House (Connaught Place) I met scores of pretty girls working on the stage and in the films. One was Parveen Babi whom he brought to my home for dinner. Also writers like Amrita Pritam, Ajeet Caur and Uma Vasudev.

  Gargi was often abroad, teaching drama at Seattle University, producing plays in Glasgow. I too was often abroad and away in Bombay for nine years.

  In Seattle, Gargi acquired an American wife, Jeannie. She was a few inches taller than him and a stunning beauty. I was totally captivated by her and often asked them over for meals. Jeannie was naïve beyond belief. She also had an enormous appetite for food. She could polish off dinner for three people without batting an eyelid. Gargi was embarrassed by her gargantuan appetite and grumbled, ‘People think she gets nothing to eat at home.’ He was more disappointed that Jeannie did not bother to pick up Punjabi to be able to understand the acclaim he was getting as a dramatist.

  Jeannie gave him a son and a daughter. Then the couple began to drift apart. They were living in Chandigarh where he had been appointed professor of dramatic art at the university. He fell for one of his students, a young and attractive divorcee—needless to say, a Sikh. He describes her seduction vividly in his autobiographical novel, The Naked Triangle. On a winter night he decided to drop the girl home in his car. In the garage lust overtook both of them. They got down to business on the garage floor. Through the window they could see Jeannie playing the piano to her children. Jeannie never forgave him for this act of betrayal and asked him for a divorce.

  Gargi brought his latest girlfriend to meet me in my office in Bombay. She seemed to be very enamoured of him. He was still uncertain whether or not he had done the right thing. I professed my loyalty to Jeannie.

  It did not take very long for the new infatuation to cool. The lady found other admirers. The publication of The Naked Triangle proved to be the last straw that ended their relationship. It was easy to identify her: she was mother of two children and was made out to be a scarlet woman which she was not. I reviewed his novel and wrote that it amounted to betrayal of trust of someone he had been close to. Gossip has it that the lady turned up in Delhi, stormed into Gargi’s courtyard and gave him a tongue-lashing among other things.

  Gargi survived the ordeal. He even organized a meeting of the cognoscenti at the India International Centre to discuss his novel. He asked me to preside over it. I could never say no to Gargi. He knew he would come in for a panning, almost certainly from women in the audience. He had his one-man cohort led by the sculptor-painter-architect Satish Gujral. On his summing up, Gargi displayed some of his self-esteem. ‘I don’t care what people say about my having written so openly about a woman whose intimacy I enjoyed. Who will know about these people 50 or 100 years from now? Future generations will gauge me and the literary merit of my work.’

  I take the credit for persauding Gargi to write in English. ‘You are like a frog croaking in a well,’ I told him. ‘How many people read your books in Gurumukhi? 500? 1000? No more. You write in English. Indians all over the country will read you. You will get an open window to the world.’

  He agreed. His book on Indian theatre was published in the States. Then, The Purple Moonlight, which are his memoirs based on his little home and courtyard. It shows how Gargi has mellowed over the years. His earlier profiles of his friends often had the scorpion’s sting in their tails which hurt the victims for the years to come. Now he finds it hard to say anything unkind about anybody. He wants to be loved and admired.

  Gargi’s fortunes were always on a roller-coaster ride. Whenever he came back from abroad he had dollars to spare. He would buy a car—one time a second-hand jalopy without a roof—entertain his friends, buy a new camera (he is an uncommonly good photographer) and indulge himself.

  The money would soon run out; the car had to be sold. His telephone would often be cut off for non-payment of bills. There were times he did not have a naya paisa in his bank account or in his pocket. His friends came to his aid.

  Ethnic compulsions made him clear all his debts. Being a Bania, balancing budgets was in his blood. Then he would make some serial for TV and get a whopping advance. He would buy a new car, get a new stereo system, a new camera—and entertain his friends with Scotch and a sumptuous meal. A new lady friend would appear on the scene—usually a Sardarni.

  Gargi is not the easiest person to get along with. Other creative artists often quarrel with him. He made a documentary on Yamini Krishnamurthy, who is another prickly personality. After much expense of time and money, Yamini was very critical of Gargi’s work. He was heartbroken. However, after their quarrel was over, it was Yamini who invited me over to her house to see the film.

  There are times when I don’t hear from Gargi for months on end. When he rings up and invites himself over for coffee, he usually has a purpose to fulfil: get me to review his latest book or film, promote some budding actor or actress. I know he is a bit of a matlabee but there is hardly anyone else whose visit I look forward to more than that of Balwant Gargi. He wastes half the mug of coffee I serve him, but he leaves me in a state of exhaltation.

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  Inder Sain Johar

  Inder Sain Johar was a couple of years younger than me. He was in Forman Christian College, Lahore, and was making some noise on the amateur stage as a comic actor. We had met, shaken hands, but did not get to know each other. One summer evening when I was a practising lawyer living in a small flat opposite the High Court, I heard a band playing raucous music coming down the road. I went to my balcony to see what was happening. It was a wedding procession. On a white horse sat I.S. Johar decked up as bridegroom. He was on his way to marry Rama Bans, a very pretty girl who also acted in college plays. The couple migrated to Bombay to try their fortune in the film industry. I lost track of them. They had two children, a son and a daughter.

  I saw some films in which Johar had acted, including a couple of Hollywood productions in English. I did not rate him a great actor. When he turned from acting to directing films in which he cast himself in the main role, I formed an even poorer opinion of his histrionic talents. When he ran out of ideas, he descended to shocking people. In one film (I think it was Five Rifles), he had his own daughter appear bare-breasted on the screen. I don’t recall how he got round the censors. His wife Rama was disillusioned and divorced him to marry a cousin named Harbans and opened a health-cum-beauty parlour in Delhi. She was even more disillusioned with her second husband, sold her business and returned to Bombay. Her son had by then become a dope addict. Her daughter made a disastrous marriage with an Englishman who abducted their only child and smuggled him away to England. Johar had by then had many liaisons.

  Rama took on the job of manager of the health club at the Taj. She regained her youthful vitality and good looks. Since I went to the club every day for exercise and a sauna bath, I became very friendly with her. She even persuaded me to take facial
massages which I found deliciously sensuous. Rama had by then resumed some kind of undefined relationship with her first husband.

  Johar had a keen eye for publicity. Rama used to visit him once every week. When Johar discovered that she had befriended me, he asked her to bring me over to his apartment in Lotus Court. I was then editing The Illustrated Weekly of India. For many months I was a weekly dinner guest at this set-up.

  After my sauna bath, Rama and I would proceed to Lotus Court. Rama then rang up Johar who was at the Cricket Club of India playing bridge. She told him to bring some Chinese food from the club restaurant. I played with his miniature Pekingese bitch named Pheeno, the snub-nosed. Snub-nosed she certainly was, and very cuddlesome. Rama would sometimes open drawers of Johar’s bedside table (he always slept on the floor) and pull out stacks of pictures of young girls in bikinis—or less. They were of girls looking for jobs in films. Johar would arrive carrying cartons of Chinese dishes and get out a bottle of premium Scotch for me. Neither he nor Rama touched alcohol. I had my quota of three before we ate dinner. Then Rama dropped me at my apartment and went home. I never got to know where she lived. All I was able to gather was that she had ditched her second husband but I was not sure whether or not she had patched up with Johar. I often pulled her leg about being the only Indian woman I knew who could claim to have two husbands at one time.

  Johar sent me the manuscript of his autobiography for serialization in The Illustrated Weekly. It was difficult to tell how much of it was factual, how much the creation of his sick fantasies. In any case, there was more sex in it than was permissible for journals at the time. If Johar was to be believed, he started his sexcapades at the age of twelve. He was spending his vacation with his uncle and aunt who had no children of their own. One night he had (or pretended to have) nightmares and started whimpering in his sleep. His aunt brought him to her bed. He snuggled into her bosom and soon had an erection. He tried to push it into her. She slapped him and told him to behave himself. The next morning he was afraid he would be scolded and sent back home. However, his aunt was sweetness itself. After her husband had left for his office, she offered to bathe him. While she was soaping him, he again got sexually aroused. This time his aunt taught him what to do with it. It became his daily morning routine. Nevertheless, Johar confessed that in the years of his adolescence, what he enjoyed most was being buggered by older boys.

  The autobiography did not mention Rama but in the years after their separation he wrote of a starlet (now a star I won’t name) whom he set up in a flat in Malabar Hill. Whenever he felt like it, he would drop in on her, have a drink or two and then bed her. One evening he was in a particularly horny mood. When he got to the lady’s flat, he was informed by her young Goan maidservant, ‘Memsahib bahar gaya. (Madam has gone out.)’ ‘Kab ayega? (When will she return?)’ ‘Kya maloom? Bahut late hoga, (I don’t know, she will be late,)’ replied the maid. So Johar simply pushed the girl on the bed and mounted her. The girl protested. ‘Memsahib ayega to hum boleyga, (When madam returns, I will tell her,)’ and at the same time opened her legs to her mistress’ paramour.

  Even more bizarre was his story of how he bedded two sisters and their mother. One sister had been his mistress for some years before she left him to get married. She introduced her younger sister to Johar and asked him to help her get into films. He not only got her a few minor roles but also asked her to stay in his flat. One evening she came back from the studios looking very tired. Johar asked her if she would like a hot cup of tea or something stronger to cheer her up. She replied, ‘If you really want to know what I would like best, I’d like a nice fuck.’ The girl left Johar to become a star. Her mother wrote to Johar to thank him for what he had done for her daughters and asked him if she could stay with him for a couple of days when visiting Bombay. One night she came to his bed, stark naked. ‘I did not want to hurt the old lady’s feelings,’ wrote Johar, and ‘obliged her the same way I had obliged her daughters.’

  How could I have published these memoirs without inviting the wrath of the proprietors of the journal on my head?

  Johar accused me of cowardice. I accused him of making up stories. The less work he got, the more stories he made up. One day he rang up and asked me to come to his flat with my cameraman. ‘I am getting engaged to be married later,’ he told me. ‘To whom?’ I asked. ‘To Protima Bedi,’ he replied. Protima had two grown-up children by Kabir Bedi. She had not yet made a name as an Odissi dancer but gained wide publicity by streaking on the sands of Juhu beach. The pictures of her running across without a stitch on her had appeared in many papers. She had a most fetching figure. Johar was at least 30 years older than her, a grandfather in daily communication with his ex-wife, Rama. However, I went along with my photographer. There were dozens of photographers and press people present. Johar was dressed in a beige silk kurta-pajama with his hair freshly dyed jet black. Protima was decked up in a bridal sari with a lot of gold jewellery on her. With one eye you could see that this was a publicity lark for both of them. The next morning’s papers had them on their front pages.

  They were back in the news. No marriage followed. Johar talked no more about Protima Bedi.

  I had a farewell dinner of sorts before I left Bombay for good. It was like old times. Rama, Pheeno and me with Johar joining us later with Chinese food. By now Pheeno had taken to snuggling in my lap and grunting with contentment. ‘She seems to be fonder of you than me,’ remarked Johar. ‘Would you like to take her?’ I agreed to accept Pheeno. I would take her with me to Delhi to my family, every one of whom was passionately fond of animals. When the time came, Johar reneged on the promise. ‘It is like having to give my daughter away, I can’t do it,’ he said by way of explanation. I understood his feelings.

  I continued to communicate with Rama long after Johar went out of my life. All said and done, I was fonder of her than her ex-husband.

  However, I felt a pang of anguish when I read of Johar’s death in Bombay. And wondered what became of Pheeno.

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  Prem Kirpal

  My friendship with Prem Kirpal has lasted longer than any other—over sixty years. Circumstances threw us together in Lahore, Delhi, London, Paris and back again in Delhi. We happened to be in England at the same time as students: he was in Oxford, I in London. We heard of each other from common friends but had never met. It was in Lahore where I settled down to practise law and he got a job as a lecturer in Dayal Singh College, that we got to know each other. His father, Ishwar Das, was then Deputy Registrar, and later Registrar, of the Punjab University. They were Sahajdhati Sikhs. Prem’s mother came from a family of orthodox Khalsas. Ishwar Das was much influenced by leaders of the Singh Sabha movement, the poet Bhai Veer Singh, Dr Jodh Singh and the Attatiwala family. This was a common link between his family and my wife’s parents who were ardent followers of Bhai Veer Singh. It did not take us long to start visiting each other’s homes.

  Prem was very conscious of having been a student of Balliol College, Oxford, and always wore his college tie. In his scheme of things, Oxford was the best university in the world, Balliol the best college in Oxford, and he, privileged to be the product of the best institution. An anecdote told about him was that when leaving Oxford to catch his boat to return to India, he happened to be having his breakfast in the dining car of the Oxford-London train. Sitting across the table was an Englishman also having breakfast. Over the din and rattle of the train he asked Prem, ‘Would you mind passing me the salt?’ Prem promptly held up his college tie and replied, ‘Yes, this is a Balliol tie.’

  Soon I found out other connections with the Kirpal family. All the sons had been to government College: Amar Nath, Prem, Pritam and Prakash. Amar Nath was a lawyer and edited a law journal. His one-year-old son Bhupinder (Cuckoo) also became a lawyer, and later, judge of the Delhi High Court and Chief Justice of the Gujarat High Court. Pritam who played hockey for the college retired from the army as a general. Prakash became a draftsman in the Survey of India
in Dehra Dun. There were also three or four sisters of whom two, Sita and Leela, were then unmarried. Ishwar Das often used to boast of the virility of the Kirpals when he rued that Prem had not found a wife and kept up the family tradition of fecundity.

  Actually Prem was very eager to find a mate. His first choice was his closest friend Mangat Rai’s elder sister. Priobala was then teaching in Kinnaird College. Prem started calling on her. He was not a man of many words, and when it came to women, even less vocal. He was not getting anywhere because in Kinnaird College there were always some women about. At my suggestion he persuaded Priobala to come out with him for a drive. He did not have a car and could not afford a taxi. So he hired a tonga and the two went around Lawrence Gardens and other beauty spots of Lahore. He was still not getting anywhere. I told him that some women responded to action and that he should simply grab her in his arms and kiss her. He decided to give it a try. The next time he took Priobala for a tonga ride he told her, ‘Prio, you know what Khushwant asked me to do? He said I should take you in my arms and kiss you.’ Priobala was incensed. ‘He is an absolute rascal. You can tell him that for me,’ she added. And that was to remain the pattern of Prem’s many romances.