'Somebody who brought a smile to people's lips'

Renowned author, journalist Khushwant Singh dies at 99

There are so many appellations for Khushwant Singh, who passed away on Thursday at the age of 99, that only the word polymath is fitting. Editor and columnist, novelist, historian, translator and critic, he was also the ultimate bon vivant and entertainer. When I asked him at one of our encounters how he would best like to be remembered, the salty Singh cut in quickly with, "As somebody who brought a smile to people's lips." Blessed with a prodigious memory, words flowed from his lips as they did from his pen: poetry in multiple languages, anecdotes and aphorisms, doggerel and bawdy jokes. On cue, he quoted one of his favourite limericks from the English poet Hilaire Belloc: "When I am dead/ I hope it will be said/ His sins were scarlet/ But his books were read."

And they were - so many, from his classic first novel on Partition Train to Pakistan (1956) to his landmark two-volume A History of the Sikhs (1963), that even his own memory faltered on the precise number. There were translations of epic Urdu poetry, including Ghalib, whom he revered, to sacred hymns from Sikh scripture; short stories and more novels that often didn't make the cut critically, for example his last called The Sunset Club (2010), to his autobiography Truth, Love and a Little Malice (2002) over which he fought a long and costly legal battle against Maneka Gandhi; unorthodox collections of political essays such as Why I Supported the Emergency (2009) and a provocative compendium of obituaries titled Death at my Doorstep (2005). Betwixt and between came tastefully elegant ephemera on the flora and fauna of Delhi gardens to the cheaply-produced (and resoundingly tasteless) series of penny-dreadfuls known as "Khushwant Singh joke books" that travellers grabbed at railway stalls to bide lonely train journeys.

The staggeringly prolific output came from a highly disciplined daily regimen. He woke at 4 am, finished three to four crossword puzzles, worked steadily till lunch, again in the afternoon till 7 pm when the good Scotch came out - his sole bad habit he would confess, as he had no other. "Please do not ring the bell unless expected," read a neatly printed notice outside his ground floor Sujan Singh Park flat. "I don't see people without an appointment. I can be very rude to anyone who stays even a minute after 8 pm." (Through Khushwant’s pen)

Born the son of Sir Sobha Singh, the premier, wealthy builder of imperial Delhi, Khushwant Singh was educated in Lahore, Delhi and London, read for the Bar, and later practiced law unsuccessfully in Lahore before a stint as a diplomat in Western capitals. The legal and bureaucratic life bored him, and he became a writer accidentally. "I flopped at everything I did in my early years," he told me over a whisky-laced evening in November 2010. "I threw up job after job. I became a writer because my generous and remarkable father stood by me. I lived off his bounty for years."

Following the succes d'estime of Train to Pakistan and jobs at All India Radio and editing Yojana, a government journal, his rise to national prominence came as editor of The Illustrated Weekly of India (1969-78), the dowdy Bombay-based magazine he transformed into the sparky, controversial bestseller in The Times of India stable. "I had a three-pronged formula for its success - inform, amuse and provoke", he later said. "It worked, and a stagnating circulation of 80,000 rose to 4,00,000." It was in the weekly's pages that his long-running column With Malice Towards One and All made its debut, forever memorialised by Mario Miranda's caricature of Khushwant Singh encased in a light bulb, manuscripts and bottle of Scotch on hand.

Fired by the owners, he returned to Delhi as editor of the Hindustan Times and a tangled political relationship with the Gandhi family and the Congress party. He supported Indira Gandhi's Emergency, betraying a fascination for her son Sanjay and his ill-starred politics. He was nominated to the Rajya Sabha (1980-86) but returned the Padma Bhushan after the Indian army's siege of the Golden Temple in 1984. As the anti-Sikh killings engulfed the capital he reluctantly agreed to sanctuary in the Swedish embassy.

He was a man of simple but superb taste, endlessly generous to the stream of visitors, especially younger journalists and attractive literary-minded women, who passed through his book-lined homes in Delhi and Kasauli. Those he disliked, and there were possibly as many, were evicted with bailiff-like sharpness. He hated the changes sweeping Delhi, and the decline of its refined Muslim culture. "I now find living here a pain in the arse," he expostulated. "The frogs, sparrows and owls have all gone - even the joy of darkness has been robbed." We were meeting just after Diwali and he lamented the corruption and extravagance of the festival. But the passing melancholy soon dissolved into delighted chortles over the gifts of Scotch. "Oh I had a lovely haul, fourteen or fifteen bottles I think!"

He found old age and the ebbing of life a trial and quoted these poignant lines from Ghalib, whose given name was Asadullah Khan.

Woh badah-e-shabana ki sarmastiyan kahan
Uthiye, he bas ab lazzat-e-khwab-e-sehar gayi
Maara zamaaney ne Asadullah Khan tumhe
Who walwale kahan, who jawani kidhar gay?
(What happened to those nights of intoxicated ecstacy?
Arise, for the sweet dream of morning has fled.
Time and age have beaten you, Asadullah Khan,
Where has the effervescence of youth gone?)

  THE JOURNEY

* Born: February 2, 1915, in Hadali. Khushwant Singh prefers to mention his date of birth as August 15

* Schooling: Did his schooling from Modern School in Delhi; Later studied at St. Stephen's College, Delhi, before moving to Government College, Lahore. Also studied at King's College in Cambridge University

* Professional life: Practiced law at the Lahore High Court before joining the ministry of external affairs in 1947

* He began his dealings with media as information officer of the Indian government in Toronto and Canada and was Press attache and public officer for the High Commission in the UK and the Embassy in Ireland in 1948-50

* As a journalist, he edited the now defunct Illustrated Weekly of India and later the Hindustan Times. His weekly column 'With Malice Towards One and All' was very popular

* Awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1974 but returned it in 1984 in protest against the storming of the Golden Temple by the Army. In 2007, he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan