Notes On the Great Indian Circus

by Khushwant Singh

  After Partition, we found ourselves in Delhi and then London. He was education officer, I a press attaché. Our boss Krishna Menon did not like Prem but liked me to start with. Prem was sent back to the ministry. A couple of years later, I resigned from my job and was back in Delhi. We resumed our friendship. Prem was joint secretary and an eligible bachelor. One afternoon while sharing the office car with a lady colleague, his hand slipped and fell on her shoulder. The lady promptly responded by giving him a full-blooded kiss on his lips. There was no escape. His father approved of the girl (she was South Indian) and their engagement was announced. What came as a surprise to me was that Prem, now in his 40s, knew so little about the female sex. One afternoon when overcome by passion he tried to bed her; she pleaded illness and begged him to be patient for a few days. That was the first time he had heard of women menstruating. ‘Please don’t tell anybody I didn’t know about this,’ he begged me. Of course, I told everyone. The way he broke up with the lady was even more amusing. She fixed the date for their wedding. Prem disappeared from Delhi and sent her a telegram saying he had broken his leg and the marriage would have to be postponed indefinitely. For a few days he even had his leg put in plaster.

  Past experiences did not deter Prem from making passes at young women. And when they responded, he beat a hasty retreat.

  What I have said about Prem may make him appear very light-weight. He was not. He became head of the cultural division of UNESCO, member and then chairman of the executive board. Although he knew very little about art or music either Eastern or Western, he made an excellent chairman and conducted meetings with great skill. His strength lay in gentleness and offending nobody. Although I made cruel fun of him, he remained devoted to my entire family. We travelled together all over Europe and Latin America. My accounts of these journeys are peppered with anecdotes about Prem. Once in Madrid I had to bully him to visit Prado by telling him that it had a richer collection than the Louvre and that his colleagues were bound to ask him about it. He strode through the Prado galleries in fifteen minutes flat. Back in Paris he told his friends that he thought Prado was better than the Louvre. They were horrified and told him so. He, in turn, was angry with me for having exaggerated the quality of Prado.

  At another time, still in Madrid, we decided to invite Elizabeth Adiseshiah, who was staying in another hotel with her husband Malcolm, for dinner, as her husband was busy in a conference. Prem went to call up from the hotel telephone in the lobby which was packed with guests having tea. When he got her on the line Prem began to shout at the top of his voice: ‘Lisbeth, this is Prem. If you are not doing anything this evening then come and have dinner with us.’ Everyone in the lobby stopped talking to listen to the announcement. When he came back he told me, ‘Elizabeth will come for dinner.’ I replied, ‘I know. So does everyone else in the hotel. Why did you have to shout so loudly?’ His reply was classic: ‘She is in the other hotel which is a long distance from here.’

  Prem returned to Delhi to become secretary of the ministry of education. He had a strong patron in Dr S. Radhakrishnan who saw to it that Prem got what he wanted. Prem was not averse to laying on flattery when it was required. ‘You are the greatest philosopher in the world today,’ he told Radhakrishnan. I could not resist cutting in, ‘Sir, he has not read even one of your books.’ Prem gracefully acknowledged, ‘That is true. I have not read your books but everyone tells me you are a great philosopher. I accept that.’ Prem who knew little about Radhakrishnan’s works remained his favourite. I, who had read almost everything he had written, was kept at a distance.

  After retirement from government service, Prem took on Delhi Public Schools—perhaps the largest chain of schools in the country. He got me nominated to the board as he needed support against mischief-makers who were for ever trying to take over the management. Although DPS kept him busy, he still had a lot of time on his hands. Prem has evolved a new pattern of living. He gets up late. Then he takes a long walk in the Lodhi Gardens. After lunch he takes a long siesta before tea. He is in the India International Centre almost every evening. Back home, he has yet another bout in bed. By dinner time he is fresher than anyone else. He cannot bear to be alone because he does not read—he has the largest unread library in his house. He invites the same people to his dinner parties. And if he cannot get anyone, he lands up in my flat with the announcement, ‘What’s happening?’ and then stays on for dinner.

  Prem has become hard of hearing. He has also taken to painting in the most garish of colours. The walls of his sitting and dining rooms are plastered with his paintings. He also composes poetry at the drop of a hat.

  He loves to celebrate his birthday when he keeps an open house. Champagne and Scotch flow. On the centre-table he keeps albums. One has pictures of the women he admired or loved. The other is of himself with notables like Dr Radhakrishnan and the director general of UNESCO. Beside these albums lies the latest edition of the Balliol College magazine.

  ▇

  A.G. Noorani

  ‘If you ever write about me, I will never speak to you again,’ said Ghafoor Noorani to me soon after we got to know each other in Bombay. Since he stopped talking to me soon after, it makes no difference to me now.

  I had read many articles written by him and was eager to get him to write for The Illustrated Weekly of India of which I had just been appointed editor (1969). He dealt with serious subjects like the Constitution, corruption in high places, Muslim Personal Law, etc. Though he had no turn of phrase or wit, what he wrote was well documented, authentic and thought provoking. Apparently he was equally eager to write for the Weekly which was fast picking up circulation.

  The introduction was made by my assistant editor, Fatma Zakaria, to whom he was distantly related. Both were Cutchi Memons born and brought up in Bombay.

  ‘I have only two interests in my life,’ Noorani told me soon after we got to know each other, ‘Vakalat aur siyasat (law and politics).’ However, it was neither in one or the other that Noorani earned fame. It was sihaafat (journalism) that made him a household name throughout India.

  Though vakalat, siyasat and sihaafat were his main preoccupations, after a while when he opened up with me, I discovered that he was also interested in Urdu poetry, had a sizeable repertoire of verse including the bawdy, and was not averse to paying attention to the fair sex.

  Noorani was and remains a bachelor. He lived in a one-bedroom apartment close to Kemp’s Corner on Malabar Hill. Although he had a good cook, he liked to dine out if he found pleasant company. He wasn’t a party man and preferred being with just one other person.

  I was then leading a bachelor existence living as a paying guest with a young Parsi couple who only gave me breakfast. I had to go to restaurants for my evening meal. Soon we began to meet every evening, and take a walk along Marine Drive to Nariman Point. We had coconut water and came to my room in Churchgate. I had my Scotch while he sipped orange juice or whatever non-alcoholic drink I had to offer. Then we went to restaurants in and around Churchgate or Colaba.

  After our meal we went to our favourite paanwala. Noorani’s instructions were precise which he rattled off in one breath: ‘Kaatha-choona-supari-masala.’ Then we took leave of each other. He took a taxi to Kemp’s Corner; I walked home to my pension.

  I found Noorani very good company because he was very well informed on current affairs and very clear-headed. I could see that M.A. Jinnah was his role model. He invariably wore a suit and tie, socks and shoes even on the warmest of summer days.

  Before stepping out, he would examine his appearance in my bathroom mirror, brush back his well-oiled hair with both his hands till he was assured that what he saw in the mirror met his approval.

  He tried to imitate the Jinnah approach to problems, analysing their pros and cons with cold logic and expounding them in measured tones. However, while Jinnah rose to the top in law and politics, Noorani, who probably had as sound a grasp of law as Jinnah, had a modest practice and made no mark in politics.
The difference between them was that though he kept aloof from others, Jinnah was courteous towards everyone he met. Noorani, on the other hand, could get into angry arguments with his clients, solicitors and judges.

  He had a knack for needling people to the point of exasperation. I was told that once he riled a fellow lawyer to such an extent that the other simply picked up Noorani and dumped him out of the window.

  Many common friends who saw us together every evening told me, ‘It won’t last very long; Noorani is a compulsive quarreller. One day he will drop you as he has dropped all his other friends.’

  Our friendship lasted longer than anticipated by people who knew Noorani better than I. We were together at many seminars—Delhi, Hyderabad, Goa and Islamabad. Noorani’s contribution was usually the most lucid of any presented by other participants.

  He was a little uneasy in Pakistan: he had been detained during the Indo-Pak war for having pro-Pak sympathies. That was a calumny perpetrated by our government against many Indian Muslims.

  In Islamabad Noorani put the Indian point of view across with much stronger emphasis than any of the other Indians. But the Pakistanis would not take anything said by an Indian Muslim seriously. I do not think Noorani was happy with the reception he got.

  After months of keeping company with me, the very proper and correct Noorani began to let down his hair occasionally and bandy bawdy Urdu verse with me.

  This was most unusual for a man who was known to snub people who took the liberty of calling him by his first name, Ghafoor. ‘I don't think you know me well enough to call me Ghafoor. I am A.G. Noorani to you.’

  The most charming side of Noorani was his naïveté when it came to women. Once we were entertaining two girls who had arrived that evening in Bombay. One was a six-foot tall Canadian, the other a petite American. After dinner we walked them to their hotel. The tall girl and I were ahead, Noorani and the petite American girl following a few steps behind us.

  After we had bid them good night, Noorani and I walked on towards Nariman Point. He was very excited. ‘Yaar, you know what that American girl said to me? When I asked her if she was single or married, she replied, “I am married but I commit adultery.” What do you think of that? Doesn’t it amount to an invitation?’

  ‘No,’ I told him. ‘I know many American girls. They say that kind of thing without meaning anything.’

  Noorani refused to accept my explanation and tried to date the girl. She refused his invitation and later rang up. ‘Please tell your friend to get off my back.’

  I asked her if she had really told Noorani that she committed adultery. The American girl replied, ‘Yes, I did. And I do. But I didn’t mean to commit it with your friend.’

  Noorani was a sentimental kind of chap. Once he was taken up with an Englishwoman; a mousy nondescript girl who had very little to say for herself. He persuaded her to come to my room for a drink and then come out for dinner with us.

  While Noorani and I were having our drinks (his being a lemonade) my phone rang. It was the English girl. She begged me to excuse her as she was feeling unwell. She imitated a very sick person’s voice.

  I broke the news to Noorani. The high spirits he came with went into a steep decline. He wanted to get over with dinner and go home.

  We went to a restaurant in Churchgate. As I entered I saw the same girl sitting with Bhaichand Patel, then a lawyer-cum-journalist whom Noorani loathed.

  I turned back and took Noorani with me to another restaurant. He was out of sorts throughout the meal. I don’t know what he had to say to the girl. There were many such episodes all with equally unromantic endings.

  Why Noorani did not have an arranged marriage with a nice Cutchi Memon girl, I was never able to find out. He was eminently eligible. He earned good money and had become an all-India celebrity.

  One time some friend did try to arrange a meeting between him and an equally celebrated Muslim lady journalist. They were to meet in a hotel in Delhi. The hotel had five restaurants. It was not specified where the tryst was to take place. The lady waited in one restaurant, Noorani in another.

  After half an hour, both decided to call it a day. As fate would have it, they found themselves in the same elevator. Without ever having met before, they recognized each other. Noorani held up his wristwatch and pointed to the time. He deliberately mispronounced the lady’s name and said with some anger, ‘You see the time? I wasted half an hour waiting for you. I am a busy man, you know!’

  Not to be outdone, the lady showed him her wristwatch, told him how her name was pronounced and remarked, ‘I too have wasted my time and am as busy as you are.’

  They began to wrangle in the lift and carried on doing so in the lobby till they got to their respective cars. As far as I know, this is as close as Noorani came to finding a life-companion.

  Noorani was, and probably is today, a very touchy and cantankerous person. It is hard to believe that he dropped me because I did not answer his telephone call. He never tried to find out whether or not I had received his message; nor if I had tried to get him on the line and failed. An unanswered telephone call he regarded as an act of gross discourtesy deserving to be punished with kuttee (severance of relationship).

  I am not the only one whom he befriended and then cast off like a worn-out garment. I know dozens of others who met the same fate. A.G. Noorani has innumerable admirers but no friends.

  ▇

  Bharat Ram

  Sometime in the early 1920s, two young Bania boys joined Modern School, New Delhi. They became the butts of the pranks of their schoolmates for the simple reason that they had long chuttiyas or bodees (pigtails) dangling down from the tops of their heads to the backs of their necks. They tied a part of them in knots. Though some very young Sikh boys wore long hair plaited like girls, we had got used to them, but bodees were something new to Modern School. Boys would tug at them and run away. The two brothers’ lives were made thoroughly miserable but they did not have the courage to snip their pigtails off for fear of their orthodox parents.

  One day some boys stuck chewing gum in their pigtails. Much as they tried to get it out by disentangling their hair and washing it with soap, the gum stuck. In sheer desperation, they cut off their chuttiyas. Their days of torture were over. The brothers were Bharat Ram and Charat Ram, sons of the richest man in Delhi, Shri Ram, owner of the Delhi Cloth Mills. To us they were known as Bharato and Charato.

  I was a year senior to Bharat. He was in the same class as a girl named Kaval Malik who was later to become my wife. Bharat, like many other Modern School boys, was enamoured of her, and as the boys became adolescents, their admiration turned into adoration. Kaval Malik was a very pretty girl, somewhat tomboyish; she cycled to school and played hockey and football with the boys. She grew into a beautiful young lady. My acquaintance with Bharat would have ended when I passed out of school. It continues to this day because Bharat, his father Sir Shri Ram, and his wife Shiela continued to cherish my wife’s friendship and perforce had to suffer mine.

  Bharat and Charat were indifferent in their studies. But Bharat, despite his small size, turned out to be the best hockey, football and cricket player of the school. He played centre-forward in our hockey team and was not daunted by the opposing side’s fullbacks trying to hit him in his shins. He was our top goal scorer.

  Bharat was put into the family business immediately after he passed out of college. I realized pretty early in life that true friendship can exist only among equals in wealth and status. Bharat was the son of a very wealthy man and attracted sycophants and self-seekers like flies to a pot of honey. Some pretended to be rude and to speak their minds to him. Bharat was unable to see through the game. He was generous by instinct and kept an open house for everyone. He was very keen on bridge and lost heavily at every session which went on almost non-stop over weekends. The only use I made of him was to spend summer evenings bathing in his private pool.

  When I was commissioned by Charat to write a biography of his f
ather, I discovered how Bharat came to marry Shiela. Sir Shri Ram put an ad in the matrimonial columns of The Hindustan Times for a suitable bride for his son. Shri Ram’s standing as an industrialist brought in a large number of applications, among them one from Shiela’s parents. Father and son went to inspect the girl. By then Shiela had got so fed up of being periodically put up for show and made to sing for parents of eligible sons that she refused to deck herself up and appeared before Shri Ram and his son in the soiled, crushed sari she was wearing. Other suitors had found her too dark. Bharat had no hesitation in saying ‘yes.’

  They were duly married and she gave Bharat three strapping sons. One of them was born about the same time as my son, Rahul. That summer, Shiela, Bharat and the child came to spend some days with us in Mashobra near Simla. Shiela was unable to feed her son. My wife, who was better-endowed, had the two boys suckling her. Thereafter, Sir Shri Ram always presented her with a sari on his grandson’s birthday and treated her like his own bahu.

  The atmosphere in the Shri Ram household was very formal. Attendance at lunches was understood to be compulsory. Like a patriarch, Shri Ram sat at the head of the table and took note of any one of the family who was absent. He enquired about their health and if they were not ill and still missing for more than a couple of days, he dictated a note to his secretary and had it delivered to the defaulter, asking for an explanation. Whenever tensions built up in the family, they were diffused by an exchange of correspondence between people living under the same roof. The only one allowed to talk loudly was the patriarch. Others spoke in whispers. Lady Shri Ram rarely, if ever, appeared at family gatherings. She always wore a soiled white sari and had a fixation that she could not afford to buy a new one.

  Shri Ram was a man of strong likes and dislikes. Those he liked would live off him endlessly. One couple was Dr Kapur and his wife who were his guests right from the time they migrated from Lahore in 1947, till the time he died. He had a soft spot for Sushiela Rani and gave her husband Babu Rao Patel, editor of Mother India, money to buy jeeps to fight his election. He paid for their airfare Bombay-Delhi- Bombay whenever they wanted to come to Delhi. To start with, he was very fond of his daughter-in-law, Shiela, and shamelessly kissed her on her lips when she came to touch his feet. Then for no rhyme or reason he developed a strong aversion to her. She was very hurt and turned sour against him. He liked my wife but did not think I was worthy of being her husband. Whenever I met him sitting on the lawn in front of his house, he asked, ‘Kuchh kaam-vaam bhee karta hai ya baap kee kamai par rahta hai? (Do you do any kind of work or do you live off your father’s bounty?)’ I avoided meeting him.