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No full stops for this Sardar
A salute to Khushwant Singh, still naughty in his nineties, for adding to our humour quotient. He manages to make us chuckle, smile, guffaw and often break into peals of laughter
Nirupama Dutt
Santa said to Banta,
"I have invented a new kind of computer which behaves like a
human being"
"In what way?" asked Santa. "Whenever it makes a
mistake," replied Banta, "it blames other computers."
 Our
well-loved Santa and Banta owe a lot to the bespectacled sardarji,
with his untidy turban, sitting in a bulb and scrawling through sheets
of paper every day: Khushwant Singh, of course. He made the
Santa-Banta jokes popular indeed by carrying them as a tailpiece in
his weekly columns and then compiling them in best-selling books that
adorn the kiosks at bus stands and railway stations.
A couple of years
back I was introduced to a visiting Gujarati, married to Punjabi, a
lady who ran her own little Indian restaurant in Innsbruck as 'a
Punjabi poet'. Continuing the conversation she said, "I know
another Punjabi writer." She went on to repeat "Singh"
several times, failing to recall the first name. Then she said,
"Oh! That joke writer."
Not being a great fan
or for that matter from the inner circle of Khushwant Singh, yet I was
taken aback and almost offended on his behalf. "Do you mean
Khushwant Singh?" I asked. "Oh! Yes she said tapping me on
my arm: "His name is Khushwant Singh!" I went on to
elaborate as politely as I could that he was no mere joke writer but
an Indo-Anglian fiction writer, columnist, connoisseur of poetry and
had also written a well-appreciated History of the Sikhs. She
was not even listening to me for it was the joke part of Khushwant oeuvre
that interested and suited her. She wished to know no more.
Such is the charisma
of Khushwant that he had something to offer every reader and they can
take the pick and create their own image of the man who had humour
flowing out with the ink of his pen.
Till date the most
widely read columnist, his column is translated widely into different
Indian languages. Many admire him, a lot more despise him and there
are some who scorn at him. Yet everyone reads him and often with
delight. He remains the most readable of writers and his style is
straightforward yet elegant.
 A reader of his from the
1970s, when he published some of his brilliant translations of short
stories of writers like Qurratulain Hyder, Amrita Pritam and Dalip
Kaur Tiwana, translated some fine Urdu poetry and also wrote funnily
shocking pieces on the rosy backsides of monkeys. The first meeting
with him came when he was visiting Chandigarh when Mrs Gandhi was out
of power. My colleague Kishwar Rosha (now Desai) and I were cub
reporters and decided to visit him in the guest house where he was
staying even though our paper wanted not a word on this 'Mrs. G's
man'. After the morning meeting, we reached the guesthouse and knocked
at the door of his room. He was relaxing for when he opened the door
he was in a pair of shorts and no turban. Offering us chairs, he said,
"I did not know that two young girls were visiting me or I would
have been better dressed." "Oh! Don't worry", Kishwar
said, "We are quite used to it." The man who liked to shock
others was quite shocked for a few seconds till he joked about this
statement. Decades later, he had his punch at this comely writer when
she was pondering whether to marry Lord Desai or not? "Oh! Go
ahead," he is reported to have told her, "if nothing else,
you will become a Lady."
This is Khushwant for
you: Witty, winsome and controversial. He knew the pulse of popular
readership and used the skill in his columns which had the ingredients
that Somerset Maughm said were the essentials of good story writing:
Religion, sex, mystery, high-rank, non-literary language and brevity.
At 97, he continues to charm his readers and when time comes to bid
adieu his will be a formidable legacy of books.
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A brush with the pen
 The
signboard reads ‘Dr. K. Singh’s Clinic’ and sure enough
old man Khushwant Singh is there in a doctor’s garb, examining
a patient truly down and out. His prompt diagnosis is: "A
case of chronic Humouroglobin deficiency’ and the prescription
is: ‘Make him read my Santa-Banta Jokes three times a
day."
The traffic
sign says ‘Go slow on curves’ and there is Khushwant Singh
riding a huge pen with four wheels in great hurry. The catch
here is that the curves are not those of the road but of the
female form.
Yet another
finds him in the garb of ‘Sardar’ Omar Khayyam, with a
goblet in one hand and a pen in the other, sitting with a
mandolin by his side in a tent which is held up by books and
more books. The literary journey of the 97-year-old writer has
inspired the Khushwant Singh Litfest at Kasauli. It is indeed a
very interesting brush with the pen by Chandigarh-based artist
Satwant Singh who made some 50-odd humorous drawings all in the
honour of the bearded man in a bulb. This portfolio of
caricatures is the prized possession of prolific painter Satwant,
who has shared a long relationship with this lucid pen starting
a long time ago when he was but a schoolboy. "I had enjoyed
reading Khushwant Singh’s short stories while still at school
and the account of his grandmother touched the core of my
heart." Later, Satwant followed the popular syndicated
column With Malice towards One and All and always found
them interesting.
"I was
particularly moved by his humour and I started making
caricatures of him. I sent him a couple which were not very
flattering but to give the old man his due, he could both make a
joke and take a joke." Khushwant wrote to Satwant saying
that he would like to meet him when he came next on his way to
Kasauli.
The meeting led
to more interaction and more drawings which came together in an
exhibition in 1996 titled "Satwant on Khushwant".
Khushwant came to open the show and his remark that stays in the
memory along with the other things he said is: "I am
tickled to death." The drawings by Satwant probe the many
layers of Khushwant’s psyche and writing as well as
highlighting the popular branding he did of his column,
literally rushing in where angels fear to tread, upsetting ever
so many by his unsavoury remarks and talking with passion about
liquor and women even though he was but a moderate drinker and
faithful to a fault to his beautiful and sought-after wife.
In one of the drawings, he has
Khushwant saying ‘I love CATS’ and the cats lounging on the
carpet of his living room have faces of pretty women. In a
recent column in which he expressed a death wish he also added
that nothing gave him greater joy to admire a pretty face,
tickle a quick intellect and enjoy a swig of leisurely whiskey
in the evening! Satwant has sketched showing him as the ‘Nathkhat
Penwala’ stealing the clothes of politicians, selling Jokes
Makhni at ‘Khushwant da Dhaba. What does Satwant plan to do
with these drawings which are his prized possession? "I am
planning to bring out a book of these sketches and I may add a
few more too because these were done when life had begun for him
at 80. So some more to record the years that followed,"
says the artist for whom it is a labour of love. |
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