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My own favourite is The Bottom-Pincher, which is vintage
Khushwant Singh. The protagonist, a self- confessed
bottom-watcher observes an elderly Parsi gentleman who after
visiting the fire temple hands out alms with his right hand
while caressing bottoms with his left hand. Motivated, perhaps
by envy, the protagonist obtains the Parsi gentleman’s
telephone number and hounds him by ringing him up repeatedly and
telling him that he has been observed. In a brilliant surprising
denouncement the Parsi gentleman gets even with the protagonist.
The book is
peopled with a host of colourful and memorable characters. Namu,
the dhobi in Deshpande’s story, makes himself an
integral part of the Marathi film world in Sholapur. Because he
does the laundry for all the major film personalities, he knows
everything about everyone and has no compunction in exploiting
this knowledge to further his own ends and yet he remains an
extremely lovable person: so lovable that we forgive him his
roguishness. He is cast in the same mould, as Ramsay in Somerset
Maugham’s The Ant and the Grasshopper. Equally
distinctive is Mozelle, the character created by Manto in his
story with the same name. She is a "bindas" Jewish
girl who lives by herself in Bombay. In spite of her
waywardness, her non-conformity and seeming selfishness, she
takes on in the end a heroic halo by sacrificing her life to
save an unknown woman.
The greatest
strength of the book is the contemporary flavour that most of
the stories provide. Manohar Malgonkar Hush describes the
nexus between smugglers and the police. A Slice of the Melon
by the same author deals with the corruption rampant in the
collection and use of party funds for elections. Bhisham Sahni’s
The Accident reveals the cynicism that has crept into the
modern society, where the death of an old, loyal servant becomes
nothing more than a story to entertain a bored guest.
Khushwant Singh’s
well-known puckish humour is reflected in this selection. Which
other editor would laugh at himself by including Palace
Orders, where Manohar Malgonkar says: "Now he could
rattle off the full Twenty and Five, recount the wonderful
benefits of the Emergency, and he had made a close study of
Khuswant Singh’s weekly hymns in praise of Mrs Gandhi and, her
son."
My one and only
reservation about the book is the nagging question. Why did the
editor include Inder Malhotra’s The Landlady?
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KHUSHWANT
SINGH has done it again—given us an eminently readable book, this
one in the role of an editor. As I read each story I did so with a
growing sense of wonder and joy, wonder at the richness that lay
between the covers of this book and joy that I had been provided
with the opportunity to share this.
