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He always strikes the write note
If you believe that the pair of
eyes relay all, then do look at Khushwant Singh’s eyes and you will know what
I’m trying to convey. Even at 92, his eyes are that of a schoolboy’s. There
seems to be no contradiction between what he says and what he thinks. A few
years back when I was convinced that the hackneyed wine-and-women image did not
tally with Khushwant’s conservative way of living I had asked him why that
image when he is not only rather conservative but so involved with reading and
writing. To that he’d said "That’s because I’m outspoken. I talk
very openly and praise the quality of wine or the looks of a woman. I have been
candid in my writings and speech." He is open about the routine he keeps
and about his philosophy of life. "I follow a slavish routine. You have to
train yourself to be alone for writing is a solitary profession. You cannot
write in the midst of people. On an average, I read and write the entire day—right
from 5 am onwards. It is only from 7 pm to 8 pm that I meet friends.
Emotionally I am very strong. I have never cultivated a close friend or lover,
for relationships and love affairs consume too much of time and I have never
wasted a single minute in the so-called affairs. Even the prettiest woman doesn’t
stay here for more than 15 minutes, for, by then, she can read the impatience
in my eyes. And I could be dropped by friends but I am least
bothered." During the course of an interview, he said in the same strain,
"Yes I do have women friends. I do keep in touch with women whom I’d
earlier made love to. I do fantasise about women. But I cannot stand women who
are not animated. She could be the most beautiful woman but if she is not
animated then it is wholly finished for me. I also feel that most marriages
continue because most spouses don’t have the energy to fight a divorce
battle." When I’d asked him that how does he deal with those low phases
that each of us faces at some point, he said, "I used to go to the
cremation ground. It had a cleansing effect and was almost a therapy. I rarely
get angry or hassled. No matter what happens, I try to keep my routine and see
that whatever I have planned for the day is met with. In the morning, I jot
down the list of deadlines to be met and I don’t retire till I have finished
the day’s work. One has to slog, there is no other way ." Though he
took to writing after practising as a lawyer for seven long years at the Lahore
High Court, till date he has written more than any Indian writer. He has been a
witness to the Partition, Emergency and Operation Blue Star. Even though he had
been awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1974, he returned it in 1984 "in protest
against the Union Government’s siege of the Golden Temple." In the two
volumes of A History of the Sikhs (which are going to hold out for
generations to come), he has detailed each and every aspect related to the
Sikhs. In keeping with Sikh philosophy, he leads a simple life. None of the
meals have more than two dishes and there are no frills. There’s this
incident tucked in his book Death At My Doorstep "In my third year
as Editor of Hindustan Times, when my contract was due for renewal my
(provider) K.K. Birla asked me ‘Sardar sahib aap ka retire honay kaa kya
vichar hai? (aren’t you thinking of retiring ?). I was then 69. I replied
‘Birlaji, retire to main Nigambodh ghaat mein honga (I will retire
when I’m taken to the cremation grounds." He quotes poet Asadullah
Khan Ghalib’s particular verse which re-stresses that death is inevitable, Rau
mein hai raksh-e-umar kahaan deykheeye thammey? / Nai haath baag par hai nah pa
hai rakaab mein (age travels at a galloping pace /who knows where will it
stop/ we do not have the reins in our hands/ we do not have our feet in the
stirrups) He quotes Allama Iqbal’s Persian couplet to put across that when
comes the time to depart a man should go without any bitterness or regret or
carry grievances. "You ask me about the signs of a man of faith? When
death comes to him he has a smile on his lips." Though Khushwant Singh has
bared the different aspects of his life and times in his autobiography, Truth,
Love and A Little Malice, its title holds out what lies in those pages. In
another book, The End of India, he writes about his concern about what’s
been happening in the country in the last few years. In an interview given to
me shortly after the book was published, he sounded anguished at the build-up
of communal forces and the religious divide. He strongly feels that as citizens
of this country we should not sit like mute spectators and "if we love our
country we have to save it from communal forces .And though the liberal class
is shrinking, I do hope that the present generation totally rejects the
communal and fascist policies." He speaks out and not in a bitter way but
with logic and passion. Even today he looks emotional at the mention of his
birthplace—village Hadali (in Pakistan’s Sargodha district). About two
years back, Minoo Bhandara—the well-known Parliamentarian of Pakistan, writer
Bapsi Sidhwa’s brother, had brought photographs of Khushwant’s ancestral
home. Seeing them, Khushwant spoke nostalgically, "Last I had visited the
village was several years back when I was visiting Pakistan. It was an
emotional experience, with a reception held for me and people coming to meet
me. Ours was a large haveli. It is occupied by three refugee families
who had gone from Rohtak. It was touching to see the gurdwara in the village
still intact. Even during the Partition nobody touched the gurdwara though the
village population was 90 per cent of Muslims. There were few Sikh and Hindu
families." Khushwant did not let the bitterness of the Partition affect
him. He has done his bit to better Sikh Muslim ties. "I always wanted to
bridge the gap between Sikhs and Muslims." When he was awarded the
Rockefeller Fellowship, he decided to write the two volumes on the history of
the Sikhs under the auspices of the Aligarh Muslim University. He says,
"No, never did I develop any anti-Muslim feeling. Two persons have left a
deep impact on me, one was my Urdu teacher Maulvi Shafiuddin Nayar at the
Modern School and the other was Manzoor Qadir, my lawyer friend in Lahore, one
of the finest human beings ever. They both left a deep impression on me."
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