With Malice: Stroke of a Pen with Khushwant Singh

So many Gods, so many creeds, so many paths that wind and wind.

When just the heart of being kind is all that the sad world needs.

Genius of Indian literature, harbinger of eroticism refined in a dignified manner, journalist and columnist par excellence and a man who doesn’t flinch in calling a spade a spade. A man of great intellectual stature who enjoys his cup of tea in a royal fashion and a young mind that never grow old, unparalleled finessed and cultured soul. That’s how I define the forever young man whose erotic poems I adore reading. A man whom I love to read for drawing inspiration in my soul so that I can write at length and romanticize my notions of life through my ill defined and half baked stroke of a pen. That’s how I define one of ma favorite authors, Khushwant Singh, who taught me how to love literature. A soul whose timeless beliefs in a world ridden by hatred, communal spectrum of the vast human race belie our human capability to think in a rational and secular way, never affected him. That’s the best quality of a writer to avoid the pitfall of extreme, prejudicial beliefs to write prose, poems and jot thoughts in a free way. Truly, no malice in the world of Khushwant Singh. This is the best quality in a writer not to suffer from orthodox religious or moral beliefs. They don’t make such writers, anymore, or do they?

When I am dead, it may be said:

‘His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.’-Khushwant Singh on Women, Sex, Love and Lust

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife;

Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art;

I warm’d both hands before the fire of life;

It sinks, and I am ready to depart- Khushwant Singh in The Sunset Club

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My love affair with the young mind started with Train To Pakistan and reached a high literary note with the beautifully erotically woven, ‘In The Company of Women’ and since then, there has been no looking back. The love affair and tryst with the ‘Dronacharya of Literature and couplets’ struck at the time I was a carefree youth during my  perfect and flawless days, the time I was roaming like a vagabond at my abode Churchgate in Mumbai. Can anyone walk past Churchgate Station by ignoring the books displayed on the street opposite Eros Theatre, just where Planet M was located. as you get out of the station? You simply cannot if you love books like Adam seeking an orgy! I stumbled upon ‘In the Company of Women’ which I grabbed, not without doling a paltry 60 bucks to the street vendor. Peanuts for someone like Khuswant Singh. That was way back in 2007.

The lonely nights in the hostel room at B-Road Churchgate were spent relishing the story of a young man forced to marry a rich girl and getting trapped in the high society parties. The young man succumbs to the company of the ‘Eves’ of the world as he find himself lured in the temptations of torrid affairs. I discovered Khushwant Singh, the brazen writer whose eyes doesn’t bat twice as he regaled us with erotic tales and sex encounters through the finesse of his plume. One thing led to another as I time traveled to the  world of Khushwant my bio-scope of heart rendering tales in Sunset Club, Women, Sex, Love and Lust or Agnostic Khushwant in ‘There is No God.’ Tales told from the heart as Khushwant Singh pinpoints from sex as a suppressed but hidden emotions in a subtle manner to one where he discards the notion that God that punishes us for not complying with moral rules or being evil or indulging in sin.

Khushwant Singh writings is not just about books on life, sex, denying the existence of God or erotic love but he was imbibed with a sharp mind taking pot shots at the political class. Who can forget his sassy column, ‘With Malice Towards One and All’ that appeared every Saturday in Hindustan Times. It was something I looked forward to read every Saturday as the man made the likes of BJP, NaMo, Gandhi or film stars feel so important in a osmosis that could have sent them in tizzy,oops! oblivion. Speak of adrenaline rushing down their spines as Khushwant Singh fires his salvo with malice.

Oft in the stilly night

Ere slumber’s chain has bound me

Fond memories brings the light…

The smiles, the tears

Of boyhood years.

The cheerful hearts now broken.

‘With Malice Towards One and All’ as I looked forward with malice every Saturday night and lying on the bed lapping Khushwant’s humor that held one in splits. It was an adventure through the stroke of the mighty pen of a man who remained forever young in deed, mind, soul and spirit. The Khushwant Singh who confesses of raising a wine toast to his good health and the effusive persona made the liquor a cool but writer’s luxury stuff in his lust for life.

Guess, who can fight the law of nature? The mighty pen was deprived of a milestone as he blew the candle at 99 much to the chagrin of his fans who are in need of a young and bright mind to show the way how prose, rhythms, literature and sensational-cum-witty columns with sardonic style are whipped to make the heart happy.

I love them fluffy-I know it’s bad taste-

with fluffy soft looks and a Bower at the waist,

With golden hair flying, like mist round the moon

And lips that seem sighing, ‘You must kiss me soon’,

No huffy & or stuffy& not tiny or tall

Butt fluffy, just fluffy, with no brains at all.

What shall remain will be memories of the Khushwant Singh shrouded in thoughts that he shall took with him in his own world where drama may just be a word. We shall be content with the memoirs of the man and his passionate work of art that we shall treasure in our trove.

Her godly bosom, like a strawberry bed;

Her neck, like a bunch of columbines

Her breast, like lilies, ere their leaves be shed;

Her nipples like young blossomed jasmines.

And, Truly Khushwant Singh leaves us baffled with the sheer power of words. Who said word porn is just a name coined when you have such gem:

To his bride the keen-eyed detective,

Can it be that my eye-sight’s defective?

Has the east tit the least bit

The best of the west tit

Or is it faulty perspective?

A tribute to a man whose existence delighted many literary hearts and still continues doing so. Death can be liberation, tragedy or celebration of life for the doer. Khushwant Singh is all about celebration of life and death in equal fervor. As the man said, “”People don’t become important, when they die”.

Concluding Note:

I expressed shocked when I heard the maverick writer, Khushwant Singh died today. A tribute to the man whose timeless and forever young mind, enraptured my mind. An obituary of death ahead of his time.

RIP Khushwant Singh.

V