‘…Which the Gurus have simplified for the masses. What about your visits to Haridwar?’
‘Whenever I visit Haridwar, which is at least twice a year, I make it a point to watch the aarti. It has nothing to do with religion. The sight is so beautiful. The pandas have come to recognize me and make place for me to watch the proceedings from a vantage point.’
‘I had a bad experience there. We stopped there while returning from Hemkunt Sahib. After the cleanliness at the Sikh places of worship, the incredible, untameable beauty of the Himalayas, Haridwar was unbelievably dirty in the monsoons.’
‘Have you been to Nizamuddin?’
‘Yes.’
‘How dirty that place is, and lined on both sides by beggars. A Muslim lady from abroad wanted me to show her the gurudwara. She was surprised at the utter cleanliness and the lack of beggars.’
‘I had once gone to the Jama Masjid. Strangely, they remove their footwear but carry it inside under their arms. Have you been to Hemkunt Sahib? The gurudwara is ordinary but the natural beauty surrounding it is incredible.’
‘I have a book on Hemkunt Sahib on the centre table.’
‘For an atheist, you have quite a collection of religious books,’ I said, picking it up.
‘It is for you.’
He was being generous with his books. I thanked him and said, ‘I too have something for you.’
I opened my bag and took out a finely woven little pram – a container filled with multicoloured plastic toothpicks. ‘It is for you to use after your evening drink and snacks.’
Whenever I brought a little something for him, he would look at me with the eager anticipation of a child awaiting a present. This time I could sense that he was disappointed.
‘Keep it on the mantelpiece,’ he said without much enthusiasm. But I still had the coup de grâce in my bag. Slowly, I took out a gold-coloured lantern that was in fact a battery operated light source.
His eyes lit up as I turned the flame on. ‘Just what I wanted when the lights go off! I would not have to use these phallic symbols any more.’
Looking up, I saw two huge half-burnt candles and laughed out loud.
I had been with him for forty minutes and we had barely noticed. But then Khushwant Singh suddenly looked at the clock and said, ‘Now run along. I have some work to do.’
‘I have one last request to make, if you will oblige me …’
‘What is it?’
‘I would like a photograph with you …’
‘There is no one at home to take the snap. Perhaps next time …’
I had already taken out the camera and pressed the zoom button. Out came the lens like a phallus.
‘It looks quite obscene. Doesn’t it have a timer?’
‘It does, but I don’t know how to use it.’
‘Wait. Let me see if we can get someone from outside to do so.’
We went out, but there was no one in sight. Eager to avail of the opportunity of a lifetime, I beckoned a driver sitting in his vehicle some distance away.
We stood together under the arch of his verandah – the autumn and winter of life with flowers of spring blossoming in my heart. The kindly stranger clicked two snaps, one full-length and the other half. My day was made.
44
28.7.03
Dear Khushwant Singhji
I wanted to wait till I got the photographs developed but that might take some time and there were a couple of jokes I had to tell you.
‘What does one see between the breasts of a 75-year-old woman?’
‘Her cleavage?’
‘No, her navel!’
A sardar was addressing a gathering of deaf people. He stood on the stage and cupped both his hands on his chest. After that he touched his groin, opened his zipper and jerked off right there! The organizer, aghast at the obscenity exclaimed, ‘Just what do you think you are doing?’
‘Talking in sign language. I was saying, “Ladies (the hands cupped on my breasts) and gentlemen (my hand on my genitals)” and the last meant “it gives me great pleasure”!’
I was glad to meet you after such a long time. You looked very nice in that crisp cotton kurta – blue suits you. Thanks once again for the books you gave me. I have skimmed through the pages of the Kama Sutra and marvelled afresh at the expertise of our ancestors. It seems they had nothing better to do than to cohabit (not that anything else is better) though some of the sexual acrobatics verge on the bizarre. Imagine teaching one how to seduce another’s wife. Wasn’t it condemned socially?
Love
Amrinder
P.S.: You could write ‘your letters are a joy to read’ ad infinitum. I will never tire of it.
Sure enough, he never wrote that sentence again.
3 Aug. 2003
Dear Amrinder
I thought that you would be trying out some of the ‘asanas’ you saw in the book. How can fun be turned into torture? A soft bed or a couch with fluffy pillows to raise the woman’s middle to a more receptive pose is all one needs + an occasional word of endearment when the lips are not occupied probing the mouth or sucking non-existent milk. Just about everything I have read as a sexual classic has been disappointing. I’d rather read modern erotica.
I am in low spirits and must have a thorough check-up. I keep postponing it, hoping I’ll heal myself.
Love
Khushwant
***
7.08.2003
Dear Khushwant Singhji
I’ll be chauffeuring my mother to Mamaji’s place on the 12th of this month for Rakhi and sit there all demure and respectful amidst aunts fawning over their only brother when I’d rather be exchanging notes with a certain naughty gentleman a few steps away.
The photographs have come out rather well and though it sounds clichéd, they will be counted amongst my most prized possessions. Besides a copy of the pictures, I am sending an informative pamphlet on prostatic hypertrophy that might be of interest to you.
As for trying out the asanas, I am in a catch-22 situation. ‘He’ has always taken the initiative in such matters and if I begin to teach, it might make him suspicious. On the other hand if I show him the collector’s item you gave me there will be a hundred questions that I will be unable to answer. Moreover there is not much in it that we haven’t tried thanks to a series of glossy booklets with coloured illustrations from the Kama Sutra that he bought years ago.
With the advent of the mobile phone there has arisen a subculture of sending and receiving salacious jokes by SMS. These I collect avidly to update you; hence my inexhaustible repertoire.
‘What is the difference between the panties of the seventies and of today?’
‘In the seventies you had to tear the panties to see the butt and now you have to tear the butts to see the panties!’
‘Which part of a woman’s body enters heaven first?’
‘Her legs.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Every night when mummy has her legs up, she says, “God, I’m coming!”’
Love
Amrinder
***
10 Aug. 2003
Dear Amrinder
A million thanks for the two photographs. Looks very much like ‘made for each other’. I will cherish them.
I belong to an age when if you wanted to screw a girl you got her to tie a rakhi round your wrist, called her your sister – then made love to her. You continued describing her as your rakhi sister and screwing her – married or unmarried. We are a nation of behanchodes.
Love
K
***
5.9.2003
Dear Khushwant Singhji
Though you were never my teacher in the conventional sense of the word I have learnt a lot from you, hence it was but natural that I remember you with reverence on Teacher’s Day and with pleasure and love on every other day of the year.
I wanted to write a letter for quite some time but for the first time in years I had nothing to say that c
ould be of interest you. As a self-appointed court jester, I decided to make this letter a jokes special and proceed to humour you with the following:
A woman who arouses a man and leaves him high and dry is called a ‘cockteaser’. What do you call a man who does the same?
‘Moisturizer!’
Santa to Banta: Parjai kithe hai?
Banta: Kapoorthale.
Santa: Usi mar gaye si ke?
Banta to Santa: Oye don’t marry that girl. She is a taxi.
Santa: Taa ki hoya. Chota jiya shaher hai, kinik chali hogi?
How do you differentiate between a bull and a she-buffalo?
Try milking both of them. The one that smiles is a bull.
Mum: Didn’t I tell you that if a guy touches your boobs say, ‘Don’t’ and if he touches you down there say, ‘Stop’?
Girl: But mom he touched both, so I said, ‘Don’t stop.’
Never f*** a policewoman. She’ll say, ‘Stop. Hands up.’
Never f*** a nurse. She’ll say, ‘Next please.’
Always f*** a teacher. She will say, ‘Now repeat it five times.’
It is confirmed now. Adam was the world’s first gay. Who would sit next to a naked woman and chew apples instead of nipples!
Love
Amrinder
***
Kasauli
14 Sept. 2003
Dear Amrinder
A guru always expects a gurudakshina; I am too old to avail of it even if offered on a platter, but the idea makes me feel good. I have your jokes in my diary. I wonder what people will make of them after I am gone.
One of your jokes applies to me – fucking your teacher. I started off with her and had to run for my life because she would not let me go. She was years older – the lusty bitch!
I’ve been neck-deep trying to update my second volume – History of the Sikhs – the last 25 years. It is a demanding task. So much violence. The one who comes off best is K.P.S. Gill – brave and ruthless. Also hits the bottle hard and loves stroking the bottoms of fat women. So do I, but I don’t dare.
This morning I was visited by three ambassadors and their wives – the British high commissioner, the Mexican ambassador and the head of Salvador embassy. I don’t know where Salvador is. Do you? It was a big ego massage but in Kasauli there is not much to see except the highest peak – Monkey Point and the ageing monkey who writes books. I told Sir Robert Young to visit the British cemetery; it has many graves with amusing epitaphs.
I hope to be back by Oct. 2nd. Mala will come to fetch me.
Love
Khushwant
45
24.9.2003
Dear Khushwant Singhji
How do you cope with loss – the irretrievable loss – of the one being that made life worthwhile? Remember I had sent you a poem on my little Lhasa apso, Toffee, in my last letter that ended with:
With
Unconditional love
Unflinching loyalty
He stands by me and
Will always do, till,
Death do us part.
The last line proved prophetic, for the beloved companion of every waking moment of my life is no more. The grief is intolerable and I writhe as if mortally struck. No one will ever love me as much as Toffee did; there is no one I loved more than Toffee.
I miss him beyond endurance and I do not know how to cope? His leash still hangs behind the door, his bowl and platter are still where they always were but he is no more.
Worst of all is the knowledge that he died an untimely death (he was just 6 years old), at the hands of a new servant who knew no better. At the age of 3 Toffee was diagnosed to be an epileptic (Lhasa apsos reportedly are prone to such afflictions) and though he was on medication, he had a fit every four to six months. The vet assured me that seizures do not affect the longevity of a dog’s life. Last Sunday we went for a movie leaving an animated, affectionate Toffee behind and returned to a furry little brown corpse!
People don’t understand why I grieve so much over the death of a mere dog. One can always keep another, they say. How can they be so obtuse? No one can replace him.
Now all I ask the departed soul is:
For what realms you’ve left
I am lonesome without you.
Have you found another mistress
In the Great Unknown who,
Loves you more than me?
Can you ever love another
More than you loved me?
Love
Amrinder
***
30 Sept. 2003
Dear Amrinder
Sorry to hear about Toffee. Human–dog relationships are often closer than man-woman relationships. But all too brief – 15 years at the most. I had a German shepherd Simba who slept on his cot beside my bed and often snuggled beside me. He lasted 14 years. I continue to love dogs but am too old to give one the attention and exercise they need to keep in good shape. I have a mongrel now, Billoo. He prefers to remain with the caretaker’s family but joins me at breakfast, tea and dinner. I can sense your closeness to Toffee in the way you write about him. I have a couple of days left. I have done what I came to do but one fall has taken a toll on my self-confidence. I added several years to my age. I have no regrets. Ninety is long enough.
Love
Khushwant
46
16.10.2003
Dear Khushwant Singhji
I keep telling myself ‘if you don’t want to get hurt, never depend upon another for your happiness’ and yet I fall into that trap time and again. Though my feelings have hardened against many a human – the most inhuman of all species – I am surprised at my emotional dependence upon you! When Toffee died I informed you of my loss hoping for some comforting words. This time I even got the state right (remember once I had written Kasauli, UP, instead of HP!) and when I did not get a reply for 20 days (I don’t know why your reply – sent on the 30th of Sep, which was prompt enough – was posted on the 13th of Oct. and reached me today), I began yet another letter drenched in self-pity, an emotion that I know you abhor.
Thank god, your letter arrived before I completed it. After going over your letter again and again (partly because your writing, illegible to begin with, has deteriorated to dismal depths) I realized how much I depend upon you for emotional succour. I know that it exposes my vulnerability once again to injury but that is a risk I am willing to take.
It’s nice to learn that you have finally updated your documentation of Sikh history, which includes the most famous bottom-pincher of our times – K.P.S. Gill. What about females like Amrita Pritam and Kiran Bedi or Daler Mehndi for that matter, who made the world sway to his tune? And what does Khushwant Singh have to say about the most colourful Sikh of our times – Khushwant Singh?
I am sorry to hear about your fall. With calcium-depleted bones as brittle as sticks, falls can be very nasty at this age. I hope no bones were broken. Here is one of my trademark jokes to cheer you up.
Woman to husband: ‘Tell me, how many women have you slept with?’
‘Only you, darling.’
‘Are you speaking the truth?’
‘Absolutely. With the rest, I stayed awake!’
Love
Amrinder
***
18.10.03
After reading about the connection between one’s bowels and happiness in your column, I remembered the blessing an old man gave to his newborn grandson.
‘Hagda mootda rahe,’ which, offended the new mother no end. She was too young to understand that all he meant was that the little one stay healthy. It is not difficult to imagine the state a person would be reduced to if he stops passing urine or motion.
My brother’s professor of gastroenterology in the US released wind without the courtesy of a silencer! In the horrified silence that ensued he said, ‘You young fellas overrate sexual gratification. Nothing can beat the satisfaction of a fart!’
Wishing you a very happy Diwali.
Love
Amrinder
***
22nd Oct. 2003
Dear Amrinder
Thanks. I hope by now the pain caused by Toffee’s departure has abated. As the cliché goes – time is a great healer. Only dog lovers know the bonding between humans and animals.
I’ve been in low spirits due to much work at the cost of my health. Fluctuating BP, vertigo, succession of doctors and therapists. But I have no intention of giving up the ghost just now. Too much to be finished before I tell the Badey Mian up there, ‘Okay, I am ready. Do your worst.’
A v. happy Diwali to you.
Love
Khushwant
***
10.11.2003
Dear Khushwant Singhji
I too have experienced incapacitating vertigo due to cervical spondylosis. I couldn’t even turn sides while lying down or get up suddenly from bed when the phone rang. I have now succeeded in overcoming this malady by sheer willpower though a relapse does occur off and on.
I can well imagine the horror you must have experienced on sinking to the floor and being unable to get up. I know you are a fighter, a survivor and will find means to overcome the problem or learn to live with it. Like that little story of two persons who developed insulin-dependent diabetes – while one moaned about his lot day in and day out, the other thanked the person who invented insulin, took his daily injection and went about his business with good cheer.
You know what hurts senior citizens most? It is a feeling of redundancy. My daddy would use words like ‘spent force’ or ‘useless commodity’ when he retired as an air commodore from the air force. It took him a long time to make the transition from an officer in command to a house husband at the beck and call of a mere wife. When I complained of overwork to an aunt, a retired school principal, she said, ‘Thank your stars that you are busy. My greatest problem these days is how to pass my time; time that used to be a scarce commodity when I was in service.’
The Afternoon Girl Page 17
