Tribute to a legend 'Khushwant Singh'

But the description he would have liked most was “the dirty old man with a devil-may- care attitude and a wicked sense of humour to match.” Khushwant Singh remains perhaps the most spontaneous commentator of current events and revered raconteur, who has provided Indian journalism with some of its most hilarious and tongue-in-cheek writing. Above all, he was a good human being.

Starting his career as a lawyer and a short stint in Indian foreign service in London, Toronto and Ireland, he became one of the finest writers in English with 45 books, several short stories, articles in newspapers and his magnum opus, a syndicated weekly column, “With Malice Towards One and All,” for more than three decades until he breathed his last. To cartoonist Mario Miranda goes the credit of the illustration that goes with Malice –The Sardar sitting in a bulb and writing the column surrounded by books, girlie magazines and a bottle of liquor. His first book, A Train to Pakistan, vividly narrates the trauma of partition. His two volumes on Sikh history made him an outstanding historian.

Despite the lavish praise heaped on him by his admirers, he is humility personified. He says on himself: “I am not a learned man. I am as removed from being a scholar as anyone can be. I was a poor student, a brief-less barrister, a tactless diplomat and ended up as an ill-informed journalist. So I was amazed when some person in Bangalore once introduced me as the Dronacharya of Indian journalism.”

Khushwant Singh has to his credit a couple of joke books. In a humourless nation he wanted to pass on a sense of humour. According to him a good joke is a tonic for appetites jaded by an unending and unsavoury diet of politics, corruption, religious and social problems. The people who do not have the capacity to laugh at themselves cannot cultivate a genuine sense of humour. He had a knack of telling jokes on Banias, Marwaris and Sardarjis without hurting anyone. But he always warned--If you dare to crack caste jokes in the presence of members of the caste concerned, you may well end up with a cracked skull. Sardarjis may tell Sardarji jokes but it would be hazardous for a non-Sardarji to repeat them in the company of Sardarjis he does not know.

He was a misunderstood man for his unscrupulous support to Emergency and his admiration for Sanjay Gandhi. Though he tried to defend his stand later, he was never forgiven and had to pay the price for it. A few months after the Emergency was lifted he was unceremoniously removed from the editorship of The Illustrated Weekly of India. During his tenure, The Weekly had touched a phenomenal circulation of more than 4 lakh from around 60,000 copies. He made it very popular by introducing light articles, photo features, community-based features and human interest stories. He also had one of the best editorial teams, with M J Akbar, Bikram Vohra, Ramesh Chandran and Bachi Karkaria.

Paying his tributes Akbar writes: “Singh’s genius lay in his brilliance at seeing the unusual. He had a strong contrarian streak—if he saw a contrary position, he would rush to take it…” After Singh left, The Weekly did not last long and was eventually closed down. His admiration for Indira Gandhi also ended during the Operation Bluestar at Golden Temple when Singh returned to the government the Padma Bhushan award presented to him in 1974 by her government.

The scholar Khushwant Singh is synonymous with Scotch and sex. He had fantasized sex through his writings. Interestingly, he had a large following of enormously influential women writers and journalists.

His one of the most popular short stories, Bottom Pincher, is considered as his own weakness for the art of bottom pinching. During his days with The Illustrated Weekly in Mumbai it was a talk of the town that the Sardarji used to indulge in bottom pinching. Every day he took a walk from his office at Boribunder (Victoria Terminus) to his flat at Colaba. The more than a kilometre stretch used to be a shoppers’ paradise and beautiful women thronged this place. For Singh, pinching is not the right word, “If the bottom is nicely rounded, I would like the freedom to caress it in the cup of my palm.” The boldness with which Singh has admitted that every old man has some kind of passion which manifests itself in myriad ways is a treat to read.

My association with Khushwant Singh was just to say ‘Hello’ during some of our rare chance meetings at Colaba Causeway where I used to stay, just a few buildings away from his flat. I was too junior in the profession to develop a personal rapport with him. But I worked with his son Rahul Singh at Indian Post, where he was Deputy Editor while I was News Editor. Rahul, unlike his father, was a happy-go-lucky guy and did not make much of an impact in the profession. When I came to Hyderabad and joined Deccan Chronicle as Editor, I wrote to Khushwant Singh for his Malice column. He sent me a prompt reply on a postcard, the contents of which just said, “My column goes wherever you go.” I was flattered. I preserve the postcard as a souvenir even today. I was happy the paper was publishing the column till last week. Now there will be an irreplaceable void.

Singh had written his own epitaph, “Here lies one who spared neither man nor God Waste not your tears on him, he was a sod Writing nasty things he regarded as great fun Thank the Lord he is dead, this son of a gun.”