After six decades as a writer, editor and journalist, Khushwant Singh is known as an agnostic who is well-versed in the holy scriptures, a vocal champion of free speech who supported the Emergency, and one who sees the world in a grain of sand and beauty in a wild flower. But the most abiding public image of his is of a dirty old man.
This image has been reinforced by the several joke books published in his name which can easily be found on the pavements of Paharganj near the New Delhi Railway Station. And then there are the statements he makes from time to time, one of them being, “If you don’t smoke, drink and womanise, you are a dangerous man”.
Recently, on the show On the Couch with Koel on Headlines Today, Singh said he did not mind being called a dirty old man because he bathed no more than three times a week. Though this elicited girlie titters from Mrs Manmohan Singh, who was there in the audience, few would be fooled by it; personal hygiene is not the reason he has got that image.
Infinitely more, however, will feel compelled to review their perception of the 95-year-old man after his latest book. Casting somber reflections on the life gone by and the inevitable death that lies ahead, Singh comes across as a man who enjoyed infrequent sex but perhaps never really found love, except a brief period in which he romanced the girl who was to become his wife.
Many of today’s modern girls who dress fashionably and speak in SMS lingo forfeit their right to choose a husband and go by their parents’ decision. Kaval Malik made her own choice 70 years ago. Unfortunately, according to Singh, her boldness did not stop there.
They were together at Modern School in Delhi — she was a couple of years junior to him — but hardly noticed each other. By the time he ran into her in England, she had blossomed enough to make Singh fall desperately in love with her. He had little chance of winning her. Her father was senior engineer with the Public Works Department while his was a builder who had to get contracts from that department. Besides, he was studying to be a lawyer and lawyers were given poor billing by parents of prospective brides.
Singh decided to bypass the parents. He suggested that she spend the Christmas vacation with him. She wrote to her parents, who, to Singh’s astonishment, gave her permission. Towards the end of that vacation, he asked her if he could ask his parents to approach her’s with a proposal and she nodded her consent.
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They got married in October 1939. It was a big wedding with over 1,500 guests, including Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Their relationship peaked somewhere around that time. They were married for 60 years, but it was not a happy marriage. Things got so bad when they were both in their fifties that they contemplated divorce, but decided to stay together and keep up the appearance of a couple for the sake of the family.
With hindsight, Singh feels he never really matched up to his wife’s previous suitors. She was possessive and aggressive and resented it when he, even casually, met a woman friend. She would sulk. This in spite of the fact that she had, according to Singh, got close to one man in particular from the very beginning of their marriage, probably from the very first year. “Their relationship carried on for about 20 years and this was something that affected me deeply, snapping something inside me, changing something within me forever,” he says.
Singh did not react to the wife’s relationship with this other man. Even though it made him very unhappy, he did not want to interfere. He says he never thought of having affairs himself. He found that he could no longer respond emotionally and had nothing left to give. He was emotionally bankrupt.
By the end of his account of his relationship with the wife, Singh begins to sound more and more like a tired, broken old man. He admits to dalliances with women, but looked at those sorties as source material for his writing. They contributed to the love-making scenes and passages in his stories and novels. They were good while they lasted but invariably he moved on. In the instances where the women persisted, he withdrew after a point. He cherished his space and never wanted anyone to get too close to him emotionally. He never had any close friends. Writing is a solitary task and he was more comfortable being alone.
While holding forth on sex, Singh says he never really had the time, nor the inclination, for romance. In his view, romantic interludes take up a lot of time and are a sheer waste of energy, for the end result isn’t much. Sex is definitely more important, though with the same person it can get boring after a while. A partner, however good-looking, becomes a bore once bedded. Coming from a man who spent much of his life without love, that is understandable.
ABSOLUTE KHUSHWANT
Khushwant Singh with Humra Quraishi
Penguin
189 pages; Rs 250