He begins every morning with a regimented cycle of liquids. A glass of fresh orange juice to start with, followed by a mug of Korean ginseng tea, a mug of regular tea with milk and a teaspoon of sugar, a mug of plain hot water, another mug of tea and finally a mug of hot water with Marmite. That brings him to 11 am. ?Love it or hate it?, goes one Marmite slogan. You could as well apply it to Khushwant Singh, an iconic Indian man of letters who has been writing newspaper columns for over 60 years and is now aged 95.
What he writes gets published in both the English and the regional language press, which is just one reflection of the man’s popular appeal. It’s this wide appeal that makes us interested in Singh’s dietary preferences. The man has been at it for decades. About to hit a century and constrained to his Delhi home, he still seems to have his finger on India’s pulse?religion, politics, romance, et al. So when he publishes Absolute Khushwant, seductively subtitled as ?the low-down on life, death and most things in-between?, it attracts an immediate readership. Here’s a man who has known the nation’s power corridors intimately through Independence, Partition and liberalisation. He is looking at ?the complete full stop?, but still gets up at 4 am and works through the day: ?It is my work, my writing that keep me going.? His mental faculties remain liberal, dynamic and unregulated. There are lessons here for longevity, for remaining professional in the face of great popularity or for remaining relevant in the face of age.
A famous Hellen Keller quote goes, ?Many persons have the wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.? A reputation in certain sensationalist quarters aside, his dietary and writing regimen suggests that Singh shares Keller’s thinking. What, then, may be the worthy purpose he has been pursing? As far as international audiences are concerned, the 1956 novel Train to Pakistan remains the seminal text in his oeuvre, bearing witness to bloody internecine wounds: ?The fact is, both sides killed.? More than half a century later, it seems to him that it’s in the battle ?against fundoos from all communities? that he should have played a more active role. Threading together his efforts to inform, amuse and provoke is this central theme?denouncing fundamentalism.
But Singh’s interventions derive their unique strength from his unique voice. He characterises this uniqueness in terms of honesty. Indeed, the frankness with which he admits personal foibles and tragedies lends credibility to his commentary on political players. Because he admits that his wife had, from the very beginning of their marriage, got close to another man, so the reader becomes willing to admit that Singh is opining straightforwardly when he claims, ?I think Rahul is much more talented than his father….Even if much of what he does amounts to gestures, the thinking behind them is right.?
There are plenty of similarly titillating nuggets in the book, with perhaps the most timely one relating to PM Manmohan Singh. To put this notation in context, Absolute Khushwant is ingeniously straightforward about its Sikh investment. How could an agnostic take pride in a Harbhajan Singh doing well and winning matches for India? It’s childish! How could an agnostic become upset when his son became a Mona? It was overreaction! Well, this is someone who is willing to match his instincts against reason, someone who thought it was suicidal for Sikhs to demand Khalistan. Someone who is thankful that those days of massive Hindu-Sikh disaffection are now history even as he regrets that ?we never seem to punish the culprits who are fouling the atmosphere?. He regrets, ?We let the fanatics get away with every step they took without raising a howl of protest. They burnt books they did not like; they beat up journalists who wrote against them; they openly butchered people for believing in a different God.? No wonder, he celebrates the PM, calling him the best PM India has ever had. It all goes back to valuing honesty as a primary quality; the author who practices honesty respects the PM who does the same. ?Manmohan has a free and extremely good mind. He can’t be accused of nepotism. Nehru could, Indira could. No one would say that of Manmohan Singh…When people talk of integrity, I say the best example is the man who occupies the country’s highest office.? The Sonia-Manmohan combination, says the authoritative sardar, has put India on the right course. Because the ?fundoos have been put down?.
Whether one agrees or disagrees with Khushwant Singh, there is no gainsaying the fact that he is an extraordinarily ‘honest’ writer. At 95, he admits that his most precious moments remain those in which he fantasises. For details of these fantasies, we await the next book. For now, we pay obeisance to the man who notes, ?nobody has invented a condom for the pen. My pen is still sexy.?
