Chanakya’s View
Ihad the opportunity last week to attend the Khushwant Singh Literary Festival at Kasauli. For the last four years I had confirmed that I will, but something or the other had intervened at the last minute to make me change my plans. This year, I was able, at last, to fulfil my commitment. Kasauli, a quiet cantonment hill station on the way to Simla, is quite lovely in early October. The Kasauli Club, the venue where it is held, dates back to the 19th century, and the lovely deodar trees around it look that old. But, for me personally, the real dividend was that I was able to participate in an event dedicated to the memory of a man whom I had the great privilege to know very well, and for whom I had the highest respect.
Khushwant Singh (KS), loved to deliberately project an image that would provoke some kinds of people to hate him. This was an image he had conjured up about himself: a Scotch loving, womanising, atheistic, irreverent old man with “dirty” ideas in his head. But the reality was quite starkly different. Yes, he did love his evening drink, which he had at sharp 7 pm, but he was by no means a drunkard. In fact, his “happy hour” would end exactly at 8 pm. He would eat early, wake up around 4 in the morning, was very particular about his exercise — tennis, swimming, walking — and worked with a discipline that was as unwavering as it was admirable. That is why he was such a prolific and thoughtful writer.
His home was a salon where, for that period between 7-8 pm, only the very lucky were invited. The guests could include the talented but unknown, as also the most powerful and the most famous. It was always the right mix of people, and during these small soirees the conversation was far more important than the spirits. It is true that he had a weakness for beautiful or unusual women, but he was very far from being a letch, and treated them with great respect. His wife, who died only a few years before he did, was always present, and his occasionally flirtatious or outrageous remarks were never in bad taste, but only a way to jolt people out of their complacency or hypocrisy.