- An Obituary

Khushwant Singh, a prominant journalist and a noted novelist, breathed his last silently at noon on Thursday, March 20, 2014.  He lived his life perfectly well to his satisfaction almost nearing a century (99) which was a rare achievement keeping all his vitals intact up to the end.  On the eve of his departure, he had his last Patiala peg of single malt whisky with golden fried prawns on Wednesday at 7pm sharp.  The next day he got up at 5 am and as usual along with daily papers, he had his mental exercise with crosswords puzzle – almost a type of hobby he had developed – and when tired got to sleep, this time for an everlasting sleep, not to wake up again.  The end was supposed to have set in between 12.05-12.55 pm in his sleep.

He had been for the last few years in dialogue with death.  The idea had obsessed him; he talked much about it; played with the nuances of its philosophical approach; wrote a lot on it sportingly,and never was afraid of it.  He took it as a peripheral aspect of life.  In fact, life to him was more important   which reflected in varieties of work and various form of actions.  He believed in work culture and discarded worship.  He never wasted his time in religious rituals, prayers, meditation, and gup-shup.  He was least concerned with the word God and was quite vocal about it.  In this respect he surpassed Einstein who only at the fag end of his life tried to express his idea about God – the word - which he did not believe.  Khuswant Singh, even when he was young, had a clear cut outlook about non-existence of God.  Religion to him was acceptable with its non-fundamentalist profoundness, but God for him was far away from reality.  It might sound contradictory to many, but he was quite clear in his approach to life – a self proclaimed agnostic, a non-worshipper and a blasphemer.

He was the man who knew his strengths and weaknesses.  He had a positive approach to life making most of it through work and pursuit of fruitful activities.  Though born almost like a prince in a well to do family and ‘walked with kings (and higher ups) yet (he) had a common touch' as his son Rahul Singh has very aptly put it quoting Kipling.  He had a bit of grudge against his writing career.  Why did not he start as a novelist much earlier in life?  He could have done so better as a writer.  He was almost a contemporary of V.S.Naipaul who had achieved international status in the literary world as a writer and a novelist.  Khushwant took to writing much later in life and the field of journalism and contemporary politics had a toll on his literary genius.  It had given him name and fame but took a lot in return by not allowing him an elevated position in the world of literature.  He had the capability of achieving much higher a place to what he had really achieved.  Journalism is a time consuming and risky business which thrives only in its temporariness.  It helps to rise instantly but never brings depth of a literary charm, satisfaction, a prize , a Booker ,a Nobel.  He missed the opportunity of a whole time literary writer, a narrator, a novelist and standing in the line of a well recognized man of letters early in his life.  As a journalist he was able to produce, train and nurture serious scholars and editors - Akbars and Karkarias - but missed the whole life chance of becoming a Naipaul, a Wilson, a Moore or a Fowles.  He stands much behind them, although he has had better privileges and longevity of life.  He has yet to be assessed as a novelist with his limited stock and range of production separately.

Writing on sex has not been his weakness, but strength, strategy and a hobby.  He has opted for sex oriented subject matter and style of writing because he has firm belief that it sells like a hot cake; it is a central theme of every body’s life and has a larger scope for writing and provides larger circulation and wider audience.  But he has never tried to become sublime as sex occupied higher place in his life than love.  He seldom rises to a higher plane of love.  For Khushwant Singh love finds its ultimate destiny in sex and lust.  They are intermingled and inseparable.  His populist ways have been a constraint in his achieving higher levels and greater pursuits of writing.  It checked him to soar high like a star in sky.  It stopped him to become a timeless writer transcending the boundaries of agelessness. Journalism restricted him to temporary realities.  He could travel only from The Illustrated Weekly to The Hindustan Times that too after many efforts put up by Sanjay Gandhi and he became his “Bhakt” on that count.  There seemed to be a great contrast when one looked at The Weekly days of  Khushwant -  the time he joined, and when he left it.  There were two aspects of it.  It was Khushwant Singh who brought its sale many fold (from 60,000 to 4,50,000) and it was he who brought it to the point of closing down too.  It was a paradoxical situation.  The Illustrated Weekly ceased to be a respectable family magazine – for every house hold, for every home, for every drawing room.   Bannet Coleman & Co was much disturbed by it.  In fact, it produced a wrong signal and Khushwant Singh’s term of editorship ended without delay or any extension.  Khuswant Singh converted the magazine to the caliber of a Play Boy.  It soared high, but it became a carrier of too much of paper sex, gossips and cheap humour.  Khushwant Singh never exhibited author’s journalism.  It lacked the literary charm.  It symbolized Hinglish style of ‘Roti-making and Chappal-faking’ language developed and adored by Khushwant.  It was said that with Khushwant Singh the Illustrated Weekly of India had attained its perfection and peak, and with him also started its decay and downfall.  Even Kamath, who succeeded him, failed to check its deceleration and imminent close down.

His other distraction was his unacceptable punching humour tending to farcical situation and creating unending annoyance.  It never became classical; it attained only a populist way and vanished the moment it was released.  It was mere a collection of jokes, some acknowledged, other anonymously projected, and he worked them out as an editor, getting also published in book form in his name almost becoming a farcical character himself of the rank of either Banta or Santa who will perhaps survive through the eternity.  This sense of humour was isolated from real life and could not attain any literary charm, a well expressed form and style, sublimity, relief or emancipation.  It never hit the imagination, but spoiled the taste, the ambience, the individual and group behaviour of understanding to overcome the socio-cultural inhibition and relief of tension.  He unfairly caricatured his own image, society and people whom he represented. 

He showed the exemplary strength of character as an editor when he supported Indira Gandhi during the Emergency days.  It was not a sudden advocacy.  One has to understand Khushwant Singh’s basic adherence to the principles of democracy and its real purpose.  One has to understand the times, the delicate situations, the meaning behind the utterances, and the hidden agenda made to spoil the governance of the period.  Khushwant supported Indira and the imposition of the Emergency as a logical conclusion of JP’s anarchistic style of politicking.  While Khushwant Singh succeeded in his stand, the most of journalist fraternity failed to understand it because they worked only on the lines of cartel behavior guided by the bosses like Goenkas, Sahus, Birlas and others.  Indian journalism has never been free, the way freedom of press is really understood.  It has always remained a caged bird.  It works under the lense and surveillance of industrial groups of the type of Goenkas, Sahu Jains, Birlas, Andrews, Karnanis, Kasturis etc.  Indian press remains censured always mentally and emotionally by their crony capitalist bosses.  So when censorship was imposed during Emergency it was the group like Goenkas or JP’s which was hit most because this pseudo revolutionary movement was highly projected through the press.  The press was already a jailed bird controlled by Goenkas, Birlas, Jains and others.  What mattered if they were not allowed to magnify an anarchist movement?  Khuswant Singh survived Emergency because Bannet Coleman as a unit was never influenced individually as were Goenkas by JP.  Had any Daily news paper stopped its circulation or production in protest against press censureship?  Had any editor left his job in protest against his freedom?

JP was neither a socialist nor a democrat.  He paid lip sympathy to Gandhism and always misguided the people who surrounded him; who considered him as a revolutionary or an avatar to bring total revolution which flopped within two and a half years and Indira like Phoenix re-emerged from ashes to punch JP’s sense of inflated ego.  ‘JP failed yet again’ wrote one of his sycophants and when Indira met JP at Kadam Kuan (Patna), he had no words but to appreciate her courageous victory.  JP said to Indira,” you had a bright past and I wish you a brighter future”.  Those who lived the Emergency times and still dishonouring the era of discipline – Anushasanparva – or discarding Emergency must answer the nature and causes of Indira’s re-emergence as a victorious leader.  Many adulatory books or “JP Chalisas” had been written by journalists, civil servants and academics but none had a courage to answer: why Indira re-emerged and why total revolution turned to be a total flop?  The followers of JP still keep this dead movement close to their chest in the hope that it might come to life someday like Macaque monkey keeping the dead infant close to the heart.

Khushwant Singh was one of the great personalities of India who had seen merit in Emergency.  This was the truth of his life, and somewhere in his consciousness Khushwant found a Gandhian touch in him as far as the courage of conviction was concerned.  Khushwant had always admired Gandhi.  As a student of Modern School, he had an occasion to meet Gandhi who created a lasting influence on him.  The strength of truth provided Khushwant Singh a special mindset to generate a sense of righteousness of his own understanding.  This elevated him amongst the journalists of his times – he was The Master.  As an editor of Illustrated Weekly he had a cover story to publish about the pitfalls of JP’s movement.  And he did so courageously while JP was alive.  What Khushwant Singh predicted had happened.  Emergency was imposed and JP was jailed.  In the luxurious ambience of PGI, Chandigarh, well protected and carefully looked after by doctors, JP had an occasion to spew up venom in the Prison-Diary.  The conditions of Emergency were of JP’s own creation. There was no alternative to the anarchy brought about by him.  JP had given a final call for armed forces to revolt.  No government, worth the name, would have tolerated such a situation.  JP was in hurry to become a Lenin.  But history had pulled him down as a failed leader.  Those who still adore JP must answer: where is the total revolution?  One has to admit Khushwant Singh as a truthful and courageous editor who admired Emergency to its core even in the midst of all opposition from his journalist fraternity.  And he ultimately had to pay the price for it.  Unperturbed by trials or tribulations, he stood on his ground firm like a rock of strength with full conviction and faith that Emergency was inevitable.

Khushwant Singh’s truthfulness had been reflected much when he wrote quintessential books on his life like – Absolute Khushwant: The Low-Down on Life, Death and Most Things In Between; Khushwantnama: The Lessons of My Life; The Good, The Bad and Ridiculous; Agnostic Khushwant: There Is No God; Truth, Love and A Little Malice;  Women and Men In My Life etc.  As a writer he believes that truth must be told, accepted and worked out.  Nothing except truth should prevail.  It is truth that is exhibited in all his writings – journalistic or literary.  He is comfortable with it; sometimes hilarious and other times bitter too.  He left nothing untold about his life: of love, dejection, hope and despair; of sex, women and prostitution; of friends, family, home and hearth; of death, deception and defeat – in a sense all about his professional and personal life.  It is this revelation which makes him different from Gandhi‘s openness who had concealed his clear way of approaching his love for a woman of Tagore’s family (as discovered by his grandson later) and his practical indulgence in prostitution in London.  Revelation does not mean fooling the readers; it is courageous way of embracing bitter truth as Khushwant Singh has done.  His truthfulness and agnosticism are the outcome of his transparent behavior, openness of mind and clear vision of life.  He is bold enough to acknowledge his failures and also a bit of his ugliness, malice, sex, bitterness and blasphemy.

Khushwant Singh had a peculiar sense of imagining his death and writing about his obituary or own epitaph.  At one time he was so enamored with the idea that he wanted to have a grave of his own.  Well and good.  He was trying to create a non-sense style of humour to make others rejoice on his death.  Sometimes he felt ‘The Tribune’ would write this or ‘The Times of India’ write that.  But it did not happen.  Of all his prophecies, perhaps one stood correct out of his ‘make belief’ obituaries.  It reads,”Khushwant Singh, a noted novelist, died in his sleep……”.  He wrote his own Epitaph emphasizing how he should be remembered – 'as a critic, a sod, a blasphemer and a nasty writer ( not a good man to remember?), thank God he is dead’.  But the most fitting Epitaph is as follows (in Khushwant Singh’s own words with a bit of alteration and much of addition) and with an apology to this great liberated soul: 

“Here Lies the Man Whose Pen Had No Condom To Wear”;

He was a literary sort of 'Vikky Donor' and a great seer.

He produced and nurtured writers,journalists,as the peer;

And left behind his affairs, to mourn, crates of whisky and beer.  

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