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June 30, 2002
REVIEWS: Not so malicious after all
When writers feel compelled to live up to their reputations, the result often appears forced. Khushwant Singh’s claim to fame as a sexist and a voyeur has influenced Truth, love and malice, his autobiography. Singh, undoubtedly, is a superb raconteur and he would have done best to settle for a narrative of his life and thoughts without the need to resort to voyeurism. His frequent descriptions of women exposing their nudity to him, unknowingly, hardly add any substance to his life story that is quite remarkable on its own.
Born in 1915 in Hadali, a small village which he describes as being situated “some thirty kilometres west of the river Jhelum and somewhat the same distance southward of the Khewra Salt Range”, Khushwant Singh has retained a certain affinity for Pakistan and the Punjabis. In fact, even when tensions rise between the two neighbours, Khushwant Singh is still considered by many as a friend of Pakistan. Not that he is uncritical of his birthplace or the way the country has gone. However, through all the highs and lows (mostly) of Indo-Pak relations, he managed to maintain his closeness with Pakistani friends, foremost among whom was the late Manzur Qadir.
Even as a member of the Rajya Sabha, he spoke up for Pakistan on several occasions, particularly when the Indian government reneged on its promise of handing over the Jinnah House in Bombay to Pakistan for its consulate. He also supported the early repatriation of the Pakistani prisoners of war.
Khushwant Singh’s career has not been without controversies. In fact, he offers little by way of explanation for his questionable stand on several issues. His friendship with Sanjay and Maneka Gandhi, at the height of Sanjay’s unpopularity, remains inexplicable. So does his support of Mrs Gandhi’s proclamation of Emergency. Singh, however, did get his rewards: a seat in the Rajya Sabha and the Padma Bhushan.
He returned the award after the Indian army under Mrs Gandhi’s orders attacked the Golden Temple in Amritsar in 1984. Though not religious, or even a believer, Khushwant Singh is acutely aware of his identity as a Sikh. His two-volume History of the Sikhs, that took years of research and travel to write, is considered a classic.
To many readers in India and Pakistan, Khushwant Singh is best known for being editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India in its heydays. But journalism was not a career he was educated or trained for. Studying law and then struggling to become a lawyer in Lahore, Singh was distracted by literature — Urdu and English. At Government College, Lahore, he came across many personalities who were later to be among the literary luminaries of Pakistan.
He describes A. S. Bokhari (Patras) as “an excellent after-dinner speaker, a writer of light prose in Urdu (Patras kay mazaameen) and a celebrated connoisseur of women.” Throughout Truth, love and a little malice there are revealing little vignettes of famous people from the subcontinent. But Khushwant Singh is clearly not one to be in awe of the rich and the famous. His opinion of them is frankly expressed. Whether it is Krishna Menon, India’s first High Commissioner to Britain, or Jawaharlal Nehru, Singh has no time for the arrogant.
Menon, particularly, comes in for sharp criticism as Khushwant Singh got to know him closely, working as the press attache in the Indian High Commission in London: “Menon’s bad temper and discourtesy had to be experienced to be believed. As with many men, he was at his worst in the mornings before his gastric juices started flowing. I saw him hurling a file in the face of Jagannath Khosla and yell ...” He also accuses Menon of preferring sycophancy to merit. Singh’s stint at the High Commission was the beginning of a career that took him to several European countries.
Khushwant Singh has lived a privileged life. His father had the biggest building business in Delhi and Singh, though often remorseful for being dependent on his father, never had to worry about working for a living. This left him relatively free to pursue his interests and writing finally leading to editorship of several publications, including of The Hindustan Times, which he describes as:
“It was the first and perhaps the only paper for announcements of uthalas, antim ardasas, bhog ceremonies and keertans for the departed. It was generally admitted that The Hindustan Times was the worst paper in the capital with the largest circulation.”
When under political pressure, K. K. Birla asked Singh to leave, his widely read weekly column ‘With Malice Towards One & All’ continued to be published by The Hindustan Times. Khushwant Singh seems to enjoy projecting an image of maliciousness. However, his autobiography is far from that. He expresses his opinion about people frankly and without mincing words — but the ‘malice’ in the title is of a mild variety.
Perhaps the most fascinating chapter of Singh’s autobiography is ‘On writing and writers’ in which he recalls interesting encounters with several of India’s most well known writers. Among them are Anita Desai, Anees Jung, Nirad Chaudhri, Ruth Jhabvala and V.S Naipaul. However, he views Indian writers —including those writing in English — a bit disdainfully, finding them rather vain:
“Modesty is little known in the writing field. Indian writers, perhaps because many are less sophisticated than Europeans, do not consider self-praise to be a form of vulgarity. Writers in the regional languages can be blatantly eulogistic about their achievements. Ghalib, the greatest poet of the Urdu language, boasted that while dozens of others wrote poetry, his style and thought marked him out as someone unique.”
In his eighties, Khushwant Singh dwells on the issue of aging, death and after-life in the last chapter. This is a philosophical exploration, though Singh is quite down to earth about such questions. The postscript reveals, perhaps for the first time in the book, his feelings for his wife and his helplessness at seeing her suffer from Alzheimer’s disease. However, in the end Khushwant Singh emerges as a fighter — willing to take on the battles of life even in old age. “The publication of my books on Sikh religion and history had made me acceptable to the Sikh community. They did not take my protestations that I was an agnostic seriously. Wherever I went, I was invited to address congregations at gurdwaras and presented with saropas: a small, saffron-coloured under-turban and a kirpan. I was grateful for this recognition and came to the conclusion that as long as I kept up the appearance of a Khalsa, the Khalsa would acknowledge me as one of themselves and give me the applause they felt was due to me.”
Truth, love and a little malice: an autobiography
By Khushwant Singh
Viking, Penguin Books, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110 017, India.
Website: www.penguinbooksindia.com
ISBN 067004916-6
423pp. Indian Rs450
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