Not a Nice Man to Know Read online

  Eighteen years ago when I was editor of the Hindustan Times, I was usually the first to be in office and the last of the editorial staff to return home, often after midnight. K.K. Birla who owned the paper once asked me, ‘Sardar sahib, aap ka retire hone ka koi programme nahin hai?’ I replied, ‘Birlaji, retire to main Nigambodh Ghat mein hee hoonga —meaning that I would give up work only when I was carried feet first to the cremation ground. I was then in my seventies. Now I am past my eighties and am having second thoughts on the subject. I still manage to rise at 4.30 a.m. and work almost non-stop till 7 p.m. Not being religious I do not waste time on prayer or meditation. My motto still remains ‘Work is worship but worship is not work’. I hope I will be able to stick to this motto till the last day of my life.

  However, I am coming around to the view that there may be something in the traditional Hindu belief of the four stages of human existence—Brahmacharya (bachelorhood), Grihastha (house-holder), Vaanprastha (retiring to a forest abode) and Sanyasa (solitude) each of a span of twenty-five years. Guru Nanak described what happens to person who lives into the nineties. In a hymn in Raga Mauha, he wrote (I use G.S. Makin’s translation from The Essence of Sri Guru Granth Sahib): ‘A human being spends the first ten years of his life in childhood, up to 20 years in growing up, at 30 he blossoms into a handsome youth, at 40 he attains full growth: at 50 he starts feeling weak: at 60 he feels old, at 70 he feels the weakening of his senses, at 80 he is not capable of doing any work and at 90 he keeps lying down and does not understand the basic reasons of all the weaknesses.’

  Nature has its own calendar of ageing. Human societies in different parts of the world have evolved norms to suit their social structure. By nature’s calendar both males and females may be regarded to be in their infancy till they are old enough to procreate, that is in the case of the female when she begins to menstruate and in that of the male when he is able to fertilize the female. However, human societies prescribe different ages for when they are allowed to do so. So we have legal bars against marriages below certain ages and we provide deterrents against having too many children. The common use of contraceptives makes this possible. The reproductive phase of females comes to an end with menopause, while that of males lasts much longer but with rapidly decreasing capability. Both males and females are at the peak of their physical prowess between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five. Thereafter their bodies begin to decline but their mental faculties remain unimpaired for many more years to come. Nevertheless, man-made rules require them to retire by the time they are sixty. So is human nature in conflict with human rites and laws throughout a person’s existence? In addition, medical sciences have made spectacular advances which ensure us much longer lives in good health than our ancestors could have envisaged. Their neatly made-up calendars of the spans and stages of life no longer hold good.

  Guru Nanak lived for seventy years (1469–1539). With the kind of medicines and medical expertise available at that time, one can well understand that by fifty, a man started feeling weak, at sixty old, at seventy his senses (sight, hearing, taste etc.) began to deteriorate, by eighty he was unfit to do any work and at ninety he was largely confined to his charpoy. As one of the Guru’s followers, I can cite my own case. I am close to being ninety. Although my vision is poor, I am hard of hearing and can only hobble around my house, I do not spend most of my time lying in bed. I work much harder than I have ever before. Among my present-day pre-occupations is to read the Guru’s bani and translate it into English.

  As for the Hindu division of life into four periods, I have been in the fourth, i.e. sanyasa, for quite some time. But it has my own definition. It means having contact with the outside world to the minimum but enjoying all the creative comforts at home (ghar hi main udaasa). I have no intention of entering the actual sanyasa. Where in the jungle will I find a doctor or a dentist when I need one?

  In view of advances made in the standards of hygiene and medicine I think the period of grihastha should be doubled, as most men are capable of producing their best upto their seventies. For them Vaanprastha should not necessarily mean retiring to an ashram or its modern counterpart, an old people’s home, but while staying with their families gradually withdraw from decision-making—let their sons and / or daughters take over the family business, give up directorships of companies and being on the governing bodies of clubs, schools, colleges, hospitals etc. Also, cut down travel and their social life to the necessary minimum. That will give them more time to be with themselves and prepare them for the fourth and final stage of their life’s journey.

  Sanyasa no longer requires them to become a lonely wanderer. I do not recommend spending time in places of worship as that amounts to an admission of inability to be alone. If they need the solace of religion or prayer, let them indulge in them at home. There are other things they could do to distract their minds: work in the garden if they have one, grow potted plants, paint, listen to music, best of all, immerse themselves in books, all kinds of books, and if so inclined, write. I am quite happy living in sanyasa without becoming a sanyasi. I mean to keep reading books, all kinds of books, till my eyes give up on me. And I mean to keep writing till the pen drops out of my hand.

  My youngest brother, who among other things owned a restaurant and made it a point to be the last to leave, would often tell me, ‘K. Singh, of two things you can never be sure: one, when a person may drop in to have a meal, and two, when death will come to you.’

  A vaidji whom I often visited in his shop while taking an after-dinner stroll disagreed. He said death gives you many signals before it finally arrives to take you away. He quoted an anecdote of a wealthy man who became a friend of Yama, the messenger of death. One day he made a request to Yama, ‘You and I have been close friends for many years. I ask you for just one favour: please give me timely warning that my time on earth will soon be over so that I can arrange my worldly affairs before I go.’ Yama agreed to do so. However, one day the wealthy man suddenly died, leaving his business in a mess. When he met Yama he complained bitterly of having been let down by his friend. ‘Not at all,’ protested Yama, ‘instead of one warning I gave you several. First I made your hair turn grey, then I deprived you of your teeth; then I made you hard of hearing and impaired your vision. Finally I made you feeble of mind. If you still chose to ignore these warning signals, you can only blame yourself.’

  It is true that an enfeebled mind is, as it were, the final alarm bell for the start of a long march to the unknown. Other things you may learn to live with, but a mindless existence is like being dead while continuing to breathe. Alec Douglas Home summed it up in a doggerel:

  To my deafness I’m accustomed,

  To my dentures I’m resigned,

  I can manage my bi-focals,

  But oh how I miss my mind.

  This view is confirmed by a physiotherapist:

  Man is not old when his hair turns grey

  Man is not old when his teeth decay,

  But man is approaching his long last sleep

  When his mind makes appointments

  His body cannot keep.

  The trouble with us humans is that we begin to think of death only in our old age. In our young years time hangs heavy and we delude ourselves into believing it will go on for ever and ever. Time picks up speed as we grow old:

  When as a child I laughed and wept

  Time crept

  When as a youth I dreamt and talked

  Time walked.

  When I became a full-grown man

  Time ran.

  And later as older I grew

  Time flew.

  Soon shall I find when travelling on

  Time gone.

  Will Christ have saved my soul by then?

  Amen!

  Happy Families

  Much has been written about what it takes to make a happy family. It is like casting pearls of wisdom before swine. I can count the number of happy families I know on half the fingers of one hand; u
nhappy families, by the score. Also, happy families tend to be self-centred, unwelcoming towards outsiders, and uniformly boring. On the other hand, however awkward it may be to visit an unhappy family, you will find a lot of individuality amongst its members (which is why they find it difficult to get on with each other) and they are usually more interesting.

  I can think of only one family which was held out as an example of an ideally integrated home. I stayed with them many times. I was always made to feel like an intruder and a poor relation. They spent their time praising each other and running down everyone else. The children, far from growing up into healthy, successful men and women, fell by the roadside as non-entities.

  The base of every family is its children. Neglect them, and you erode the very foundations on which the family edifice is built. You achieve the same negative result by mollycoddling them. The family tree is meant to shelter them from the rain and the scorching sun while they are juveniles. Once they are adults, the umbilical cord must be finally cut, they must be exposed to the harsh world, learn to make their own decisions, make their own mistakes and pay for them. But make sure that the nucleus of the family home remains intact so that they can return to it to lick their wounds till they are ready to face the world again.

  No one can prescribe rules for a happy family. There must be some kind of bonding like being together at meals, going out together to the pictures or picnics, and if you are believers, worshipping together. I have found that in families which have books in their homes for different age groups, there is usually more interaction between its members, less contention and more harmony. A bookless home is no home. A bookless family is less likely to hang together than one in which members have other things than making money and scandals on their minds.

  We all know by experience that families whose members are at variance with each other are the most unhappy because it does not take much to change bonds of affection into bitter hatred. In such situations, it is best to break the family up and let everyone go his or her own way.

  Prepare for Death While Alive

  I do not know when I was born, because in my village, no records of births or deaths were maintained. And in my part of western Punjab, no one bothered with such things as horoscopes. My father was away in Delhi; my mother, who was barely literate, did not think birthdays were of any importance. My year of birth was put down later as 1915—it could as well have been 1914 or 1916—and my father put down 2 February as my date of birth. His mother, who was there when I was born, told me later that her son had got it all wrong and that I was born in mid-August. So I am right in saying that I am not sure when I was born. And I cannot say when I will die except that it will not be too long from now. By any reckoning I am eighty-five years old, give or take a year.

  Humra Qureshi had come to interview me on what she assumed was my eighty-fifth birthday, for a column she writes for the Times of India. After putting me through the usual routine of questions about my past and present, she came to the final ‘What now?’ I did not give a very coherent answer on what I planned to do in the years left to me. However, after she left I pondered over the matter for a long time. Socrates had advised, ‘always be occupied in the practice of dying’. How does one practice dying? The Dalai Lama, then only fifty-eight, advised meditating on it. I am not sure how thinking about it can help. It is particularly difficult for someone like me who has rejected belief in god and the possibility of another life after death, be it reincarnation or the Day of Judgement followed by heaven or hell. However, there comes a time when one stops regarding death as something that comes to other people with the realization that you too are on the waiting list. If you are taken ill, you begin to think about it sooner than if you are in good physical shape. In either case, by the time you are in your eighties, it begins to preoccupy your mind more and more. You think of what you could have done in your life but failed to do. You wanted to become a millionaire but did not go beyond accumulating a modest bank balance; you wanted to become prime minister of India, a champion tennis player, cricketer, golfer, athlete etc., but did not get beyond being part of the second eleven of your college team or a mediocre club player. Or, in my case, I wanted to win many literary awards, earn huge royalties but ended up as a second-rate book writer who would be forgotten a few years after he was gone. So the first thing to get over through meditation or just pondering, is the feeling of regret over your failures—you did your best but it was not good enough to get you to the top. So what?

  Equally important is to get over the sense of guilt for having wronged other people. Everyone of us causes hurt to someone or the other in our lives. This rankles in our minds. It is advisable to make amends by expressing regret. Having peace of mind should be a person’s top priority in the final years of his life. Prayers, pilgrimages and religious rituals are not as effective as candid confession and seeking forgiveness. There also comes a time when you begin to regard your body as no more than something which encases your real self, like an envelope that contains a letter with a vital message. The body will perish when the envelope is torn open; will anything survive after the body is gone? Will the letter inside the torn envelope be something worth reading after the envelope ceases to exist? I do not have answers to these questions, and none of the answers given by people who believe that something of us survives after death, makes sense to me.

  All I hope for is that when death comes to me, it comes swiftly, without much pain; like fading away in sound slumber. Till that time I will strive to live as full a life as I did in my younger days. My inspirations are Dylan Thomas’s immortal lines:

  Do not go gentle into that good night,

  Old age should burn and rage at close of day;

  Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

  One should prepare oneself to die like a man; no moaning, groaning or crying for reprieve. Allama Iqbal put it beautifully:

  Nishaan-e-mard-e-Momin ba to goyam?

  Choon margaayad, tabassum bar lab-e-ost

  (You ask me for signs of a man of faith? When death comes to him, he has a smile on his lips.)

  Profiles

  Amrita Shergil

  I am hardly justified in describing Amrita Shergil as a woman in my life. I met her only twice. But these two meetings remain imprinted in my memory. Her fame as an artist, her glamour as a woman of great beauty which she gave credence to in some of her self-portraits, and her reputation for promiscuity, snowballed into a veritable avalanche which hasn’t ended to this day, gives me an excuse to include her in my list.

  One summer, her last, I heard that she and her Hungarian cousin-husband who was a doctor had taken an apartment across the road from where I lived in Lahore. He meant to set up a medical practice; she, her painting studio. Why they chose to make their home in Lahore, I have no idea. She had a large number of friends and admirers in the city. She also had rich, landowning relatives on her Sikh father’s side who regularly visited Lahore. It seemed as good a place for them to start their lives as any in India.

  It was June 1941. My wife had taken our seven-month-old son, Rahul, for the summer to my parents’ house ‘Sunderban’ in Mashobra, seven miles beyond Simla. I spent my mornings at the High Court gossiping with lawyers over cups of coffee or listening to cases being argued before judges. I had hardly any case to handle myself. Nevertheless, I made it a point to wear my black coat, white tabs around the collar and carry my black gown with me to give others an appearance of being very busy. I returned home for lunch and a long siesta before I went to play tennis at the Cosmopolitan Club.

  One afternoon I came home to find my flat full of the fragrance of expensive French perfume. On the table in my sitting room-cum-library was a silver tankard of chilled beer. I tiptoed to the kitchen and asked my cook about the visitor. ‘A memsahib in a sari,’ he informed me. He had told her I would be back any moment for lunch. She had helped herself to a bottle of beer from the fridge and was in the bathroom freshening up. I had little doubt my uninv
ited visitor was none other than Amrita Shergil.

  For several weeks before her arrival in Lahore I had heard stories of her exploits during her previous visits to the city before she had married her cousin. She usually stayed in Faletti’s Hotel. She was said to have made appointments with her lovers with two-hour intervals—at times six to seven a day—before she retired for the night. If this was true (men’s gossip is less reliable than women’s) love formed very little part of Amrita’s life. Sex was what mattered to her. She was a genuine case of nymphomania, and according to her nephew Vivan Sundaram’s published account, she was also a lesbian. Her modus vivendi is vividly described by Badruddin Tyabji in his memoirs. One winter when he was staying in Simla, he invited Amrita to dinner. He had a fire lit for protection from the cold and European classical music was playing on his gramophone. He wasted the first evening talking of literature and music. He invited her again. He had the same log fire and the same music. Before he knew what was happening, Amrita simply took her clothes off and lay stark naked on the carpet. She did not believe in wasting time. Even the very proper Badruddin Tyabji got the message.

  Years later Malcolm Muggeridge, the celebrated author, told me that he had spent a week in Amrita’s parents’ home in Summer Hill, Simla. He was then in the prime of his youth—his early twenties. In a week she had reduced him to a rag. ‘I could not cope with her,’ he admitted. ‘I was glad to get back to Calcutta.’

  A woman with the kind of reputation Amrita enjoyed drew men towards her like iron filings to a magnet. I was no exception. As she entered the room, I stood up to greet her. ‘You must be Amrita Shergil,’ I said. She nodded. Without apologizing for helping herself to my beer she proceeded to tell me why she had come to see me. They were mundane matters which robbed our first meeting of all romance. She wanted to know about plumbers, dhobis, carpenters, cooks, bearers etc. in the neighbourhood whom she could hire. While she talked I had a good look at her. Short, sallow-complexioned, black hair severely parted in the middle, thick sensual lips covered in bright red lipstick, stubby nose with blackheads visible. She was passably good looking but by no means a beauty.