You can see a ninety one year Khush
Want (Laughing & with many qualities) young man
of 91 years old, and a badshah (King) of words,
dressed in old crumpled clothes, worn out shoes and
socks with a difficult arranged meeting. He looks
like a little neglected widower sprawling on a long
easy chair like the Sphinx. He is still young at
heart and remains always in jovial mood. He has a
glowing, healthy face and looks much more handsome
than he does on television and still attracts many
young beautiful women. He can pen any idea or
situation. His writings are like a magic. He is not
the cranky old man - impatient, and irritable. He has
a magic of words in his writing and knitting them in
to different forms of literature. I called him during
my visit to India but S.Chetan singh replied to call
again in the evening however I had to leave for Punjab
urgently for the marriage ceremony of my nephew Harjinder
Tanda.
In Sujan Singh Park, Delhi, across the street from
Hotel Ambassador this great writer lives in an
apartment complex. It is a majestic looking complex
of apartment buildings from the outside. The door,
walls, and hallway wear an old look are in need of
paint. There are cobwebs in every corner. However, it
is not all that well maintained from the inside.
I know Khushwant Singh since I read his first story
The Mark of Vishnu in my school days and was very
much impressed by his fictional approach. Then I
listened his very informative lecture when he visited
PAU Ludhiana, Punjab for the inauguration of Replica
House invited by Dr MS Randhawa, the then Vice
Chancellor of the PAU Ludhiana. He is a master of
words and speech. He says that Sikhs are kes-dhari
Hindus, I agree with him and now in Punjab most of
the Sikh boys are going without turban and same is
the case in so many other countries where Sikhs are
living without turban. We can not differentiate among
all, whether he is a Hindu or Sikh boy. Many Sikh
boys bear turban only when they visit Punjab at the
time of their marriages for the sake of Anand Karja.
He also says,” Their religious source is
Hinduism. Sikhism is a tradition developed within
Hinduism. Guru Granth Sahib reflects Vedantic
philosophy and Japji Sahib is based on the
Upanishads”.
He is true when he says that Sikhs are
not discriminated against in India. They are making
progress all over the country. They are in the
mainstream of Indian life. He says that R.S.S. is a
communal organization and dangerous to the country's
secular fabric. No scholar should be summoned to Akal
Takht. Is it a religious place or not a kotwali (police
station).
He is of the view that a mona (non-turbaned) or sahaj-dhari
[unorthodox] Sikh has the right to vote in S.G.P.C.
elections.
Sahaj-dharis have been part of the Panth (community)
since the very beginning. Now they say only amrit-dhari
[orthodox] men can do seva at Harmandar Sahib, but
not women, even if they are amrit-dharis. This is not
congruent with the Gurus' teachings: maanas kii jaati
sabhai ekai pahchaanbo (all humans are equal
regardless of caste or creed).
'Sikhs were nothing before Jats became Sikhs.'
I base my opinion on historical evidence, he says.
After Guru Gobind Singh's death, Sikh peasantry rose
in arms under Banda Bahadur. Then Jats in the Sikh misls
[armed groups] fought all through the 18th century to
establish Khalsa raj [rule]. Out of the 12 Sikh misls,
9 were headed by Jat chiefs. In this struggle, they
made tremendous sacrifices. If one generation was
wiped out, the next generation took up arms. Finally,
they emerged victorious at the end of the century.
In 1915, Khushwant Singh was born in a
small village of Hadali in Sikh family of Punjab, and
was brought to Delhi at the age of five by his father,
Sir Sobha Singh, a contractor engaged in the building
of New Delhi. He graduated from Government College, Lahore
in 1934 with BA and went on to King’s College, London
and eventually, in 1939, qualified as a barrister
from the Inner Temple, though he says that he was
very poor in studies. He married Kaval Malik after
returning to India and began practising law in Lahore.
He says that my autobiography, Truth, Love and a
Little Malice, earned me the most money. It earned Rs.
26.5 lakh [1 lakh = 100,000] in the first six months,
when asked. His message for Sikhs abroad is “to
remain in Chardi kalaa keep your spirits high and don't
fight in gurdwaras”.
He has spent time in a number of other professions,
over his long life, including law, diplomacy, radio
broadcasting and politics. Khuswant Singh is known as
a professional writer in India today whose name
appears on the covers of over eighty books
encompassing a wide variety of subjects. After three
years at diplomatic postings in London and Ottawa he
gave up his post and returned to Delhi where he
joined the External Service of All-India Radio as a
producer of English programmes. He is a public
personality, and very often an outspoken and
controversial one.
His first book entitled The Mark of Vishnu and Other
Stories was published in London in 1950 before he
returned to India. In 1959 a grant from the
Rockefeller Foundation enabled him to embark on a
project, a definitive history of the Sikhs.
He was invited to teach at American universities by
his rising reputation as a historian in academic
circles. He was offered the editorship of The
Illustrated Weekly of India. His “Editor’s
Page”, became one of India’s most widely
read editorials in which he took up outspokenly
controversial positions on social and political
issues. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan, one of India’s
highest civilian honours, in 1974, in recognition of
his contribution to Indian letters in several fields.
He was given the editorship of The Hindustan Times, Delhi’s,
largest and most popular English newspaper when Indira
Gandhi returned to power in 1980. He was nominated to
a seat in the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of India’s
Parliament, and he continued to hold his seat till
1986.
In his native Punjab, this was one of the most
turbulent and crisis-ridden periods in India’s
post-Independence history because of a violent
secessionist movement led by Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale,
that culminated in June 1984 in the storming by the
Indian army of the Golden Temple at Amritsar. Sant Bhindranwale
and many of his followers were killed and the Temple
was extensively damaged. The military assault on the GoldenTemple
ordered by Indira Gandhi’s government outraged
Sikhs everywhere and Khushwant Singh, despite his
life-long unorthodoxy in religious matters and the
fact that he had bitterly opposed Bhindranwale’s
movement in print as well as in Parliament, could not
but be affected by it. He returned the Padma Bhushan
in protest against the government action. The
storming of the Golden Temple was to lead, a few
months later, to the assassination of Indira Gandhi
by two of her Sikh bodyguards and, immediately after
the event, to particularly bloody anti-Sikh riots in
Delhi and sporadically elsewhere in the country in
which some 2000 men, women and children died. His
reflections on these events, as well as on the
secessionist movement that continued to rage until
the mid-90’s, appear in his journalism of the
time as well as two other publications: Punjab
Tragedy: Operation Blue Star and After (1984, with Kuldip
Nayar) and My Bleeding Punjab (1992).
He made up for the lack in 1990 with the publication
of his third novel, the longest so far, Delhi: A
Novel, not only pays tribute in fiction to the city
he loves, but also reflects his interests in history
– it was a novel, Khushwant Singh claimed, that
he had worked on for twenty years and the historical
material of which he had meticulously researched. He
continued to publish editions and collections as well
as translations from Punjabi and Urdu. The notable
titles include Sex, Scotch and Scholarship: Selected
Writings (1992) and Uncertain Liaisons: Sex, Strife
and Togetherness in Urban India (edited with Shobha
De, 1993). Not a Nice Man to Know: The Best of Khushwant
Singh (1993) is a collection of his earlier
journalism and essays. Women and Men in My Life (1995),
a memoir, aroused some controversy because of his
unflattering portrayal in it of a number of his
contemporaries and personal acquaintances. The long-awaited
film version of Train to Pakistan, in 1997 directed
by Pamela Rooks, opened to critical acclaim.
Khushwant Singh wants to be remembered as an
historian, journalist and a fiction writer. He loves
beautiful women and gives them meeting time very
easily. Actually, he is a latha admi (open & kind
hearted). I love and respect him, he always remains
to be in charhdi kalaa (buoyant spirits). He is a man
with logic and has no regrets in life.
21.10.2006
