She spoke English without a trace of an American accent and Hindustani in the Dakkhani lilt and the genders all mixed up which I find very attractive. She was looking for a job. I had a temporary one to offer. I was conducting a party of American students around the world. Two months were to be spent in India. We had completed one month in Delhi. The second was to be in Hyderabad. The boys and girls had to be put up with Hyderabadi families and lectures arranged for them.
Anees was a Hyderabadi who knew the best families in the city. She accepted the job at what was then a handsome remuneration. She executed her assignment with dispatch and found excellent homes for all my students getting top academics like Professor Rashiduddin, MP, to speak to them. At the same time, instead of one Delhi-Hyderabad-Delhi air trip, she made me pay for three. She got under the skin of the family she was staying with and was unceremoniously thrown out. Far from being crushed, she bounced back to life and made her presence felt in the city.
Whenever she came to see me in any hotel, she drove up in the American Consul-General’s big limousine. At a dinner reception hosted by this diplomat, she overshadowed all the others present. Many guests got the impression she was closely connected with the family of the Nizam of Hyderabad.
Actually, Anees Jung’s ancestors were not from Hyderabad but from Lucknow. Her father, Hoshiar, migrated to Hyderabad and soon attracted the Nizam’s attention. He was a very cultivated man with a gift for words. Though never formally given an official position, he was given the title ‘Nawab’, and became a very close companion masahib of His Exalted Highness and was granted a large haveli and other real estate in the city.
The family lived in feudal splendour till, for reasons unknown, he fell out of favour and lost most of what he had. Nothing now remains of Nawab Hoshiar Jung’s wealth. However, Anees can be forgiven for believing that her father was a minister—even prime minister—of Hyderabad.
Being go-getting is Anees’s second nature. Once when I was invited to Guwahati, a Canadian woman, Sue Dexter (over six feet tall), who wanted to see as much of India as she could in a fortnight, asked me if she could come along with me. I agreed that she could but warned her that I had many engagements in Guwahati and would not have much time to take her around. Also that she would have to find her own accommodation as I would be staying in the Circuit House. She asked Anees, whose sister she knew, to come along as her escort, all expenses paid. We arrived at Guwahati to a guard of honour presented by the Khalsa High School and a band playing the national anthem. The two women came to the Circuit House with me. Sue Dexter found a room in a small hotel. Anees rang up the Governor, B.K. Nehru, and told him she was a friend of his son and did not know where to stay in Guwahati. She was invited to stay at the Raj Bhavan.
For the next three days, the three of us rode in the Governor’s ear to see the sights along the Brahmaputra.
Her muscling in on President Zail Singh’s visit to Bombay to inspect the Indian Navy was even more audacious. When I told her I had been invited by Gianiji to accompany him, she simply rang up Rashtrapati Bhavan and told the. President’s secretary that she would be coming along as well.
We flew in the President’s private plane. While I stayed in a hotel, Anees was a guest of Governor Ali Yavar Jung. She flew back on the same plane. President Zail Singh was enchanted by her bada gharana upbringing and impeccable manners. Every Eid, a Presidential hamper of fruit was delivered at her flat.
I had many opportunities of seeing Anees Jung when I was editing The Illustrated Weekly of India. The board of Bennett Coleman wanted to launch a magazine for the young. I was involved in the decision taken regarding the choice of editor. I chose Anees Jung. Youth Times was based in Delhi. But within a few weeks Anees had become a great favourite of the board, particularly with the general manager, Mr Ram Tarneja.
She was in and out of Bombay whenever she wished. Every evening she would be seen sitting in the back of Tarneja’s car parked in the portico. All the staff going home viewed her as the most privileged of editors of The Times of India group of papers.
I was very put off and decided to have nothing to do with her. For a couple of years after being thrown out of The Illustrated Weekly of India, I refused to speak to her. At a reception in the house of the Pakistani High Commissioner, she came to sit near me. I got up and took another seat. ‘So it is still like that,’ she remarked and went into a sulk.
Youth Times didn’t survive. Anees was once again out of a job. Then for the first time she thought of doing some serious writing. Everyone was surprised to find she had a talent for good, straight and very evocative writing. I don’t recall how we got together again, but she was with me when I went to Amritsar in June 1984 to see the havoc wrought by the Indian Army in Operation Bluestar. It was not I, a Sikh, but Anees Jung, a Shia Muslim, who kept making offerings of flowers, money and prasaad at every shrine we visited.
It would be unfair to describe Anees Jung as matlabee, a seeker of favours. Her columns in The Times of India gave her an all-India readership. She has published many books and Unveiling India went into many editions opening up several avenues for her. She got a lucrative assignment from the UN to do a definitive book on the status of women in Asia. It was released at the UN conference on population in Cairo. She is currently with the UNESCO and is a voice for Asian women.
I haven’t met another woman quite like Anees Jung, and I am tempted to write a novel with her as the central character.
Kamna Prasad
It was sometime in 1980, soon after I had taken over the editorship of The Hindustan Times, that Kum Kum Chaddha who had become one of my favourites on the staff asked me, ‘Sir, I want you to meet my closest friend. She wants to meet you.’ (After fourteen years of visiting each other’s homes and despite my protesting, Kum Kum continues to address me as ‘Sir’. So does Kamna. She goes a step further. She never uses my name even when talking to third parties; it’s always, ‘Can I speak to Sir?’)
The next day Kum Kum brought Kamna over to my office and left her there for us to get to know each other. I found her uncommonly beautiful in the classical Indian mould—like an Ajanta fresco.
She was a couple of inches taller than me. Long, lustrous, jet-black hair falling down to her hips. Neither very fair nor very dark, she has a light café-au-lait complexion. Beautiful neck, middle-sized bosom, very slender waist with her flat belly displaying her belly button and unusually broad hips designed to accommodate a brood of children.
I gathered that she was from Patna; her father was into Urdu poetry and she herself could quote Urdu and Hindi poetry fluently. Her mother had been a minister in the Bihar Government but due to poor health had retired from politics.
She was not very close to her parents but was devoted to her younger brother Raju. Her elder brother was married to Babu Jagjivan Ram’s daughter but she rarely saw him.
She lived alone in Delhi and worked for a Gujarati firm engaged in the export of ready-made garments and semi-precious stones.
I did not get all these facts at the very first meeting. I gathered all this information after many sessions of interrogation because Kamna was a very private person and inexplicably secretive about small things.
I invited Kamna to come to my house with Kum Kum. I knew she had to have my wife’s approval to become a regular visitor. She came and soon won over the affections of the entire family including our servants.
But it was only with me that she shared her confidences. Gradually, I became a father figure. She often sat on the floor beside my chair. I rested my hand on her silken-soft shoulders as she poured out her heart to me. She never opened up completely but always held something back for the next meeting.
Kamna had a way with people, both men and women, which drew them towards her. She was also very touchy about certain issues and took offence when no offence was meant. She was particularly sensitive about the fact that being attractive, living alone and in some style, she might give men the wrong idea about her availabilit
y.
She was often in our home in the evenings when drinks were served. I looked forward to her fixing my Scotch. Although a strict teetotaller, she knew how much was good for me. Once there were some other people present when I asked her to give me a drink and referred to her as my saqi (wine-server).
She was furious. She said nothing to me at the time but turned up the next day to berate me in no uncertain language. She accused me of having made her look like some kind of bimbo. I protested that I had used the word with affection as I had for Harjeet and Sadia who often saved me from having to pour my own Scotch and soda.
She remained unmoved and inconsolable. I apologised to her, but felt uneasy about the fact that if she could so utterly misunderstand my affection, our friendship would not last long. She forgave me and peace was restored.
Kamna became a favourite with my friends. But not everyone took to her.
Anees Jung could not understand why I liked Kamna and tried to dismiss her as a very lightweight person. Once when Anees and I had found ourselves together in Bombay in the same hotel with Kamna and Kum Kum in the adjoining room, Smita Patil, the celebrated film star, rang me up to say she wanted to see me.
As editor of The Illustrated Weekly of India I had put Smita on the cover after having watched her first film, and had referred to her as the actress of the future. Smita wanted to come over to thank me personally.
Anees happened to drop in and was determined to meet Smita. Kamna was equally determined to see to it that Smita saw me alone. A lively slanging match began between the two.
After ignoring Kamna’s presence, Anees abruptly turned to her and said, ‘Why don’t you go back to your room?’ Kamna snapped back, ‘Why should I? Why don’t you leave Sir alone? Smita does not want to meet you, she wants to meet Sir.’ I don’t recall how the tussle ended. Smita came, spent a few minutes with us and departed. A few months later she was dead.
Being, as I have said before, uncommonly attractive and instinctively generous, Kamna drew a lot of men and women to her. Women came and went. First there was Kum Kum, then a toughy called Chaudhry, then Sadia.
Men were more abiding. She had many suitors. She kept them at a respectable distance as she did want to marry and beget children. She went through a half-hearted engagement with a clean-shaven Sardar living in Kuwait. It came to nothing as Kamna was determined to live in India.
Then there was a German, unhappily married and with two children. He fell desperately in love with Kamna and promised to divorce his wife to marry her.
Another engagement ceremony with Hindu rites took place in her apartment. She even spent a couple of weeks in Germany to see how she would fit in as a hausfrau. She returned to Delhi disillusioned and disengaged.
She was drawn towards the painter M.F. Husain and enjoyed the attention he paid her. He made several portraits of her, and at her persistence, made two of mine. Her portraits, along with one of mine, decorate her home.
Then he started to take her for granted. She gave short shrift to him and refused to talk to him. Husain pleaded with me to beg her to forgive him. She did so at her own terms. He dedicated his autobiography to her. They are friends again.
Much as I loved Kamna, I wanted to see her married and bear children. She eyed a lovely, large painting in my home and asked me to give it to her. ‘I will give it to you as a wedding present,’ I told her. She took it away without getting married. She liked a large terracotta Ganesh that Anoop Sarkar had given me. Again I promised to give it to her as a wedding gift. And again she took it without getting married.
When finally she did decide to get married, she sprung it as a surprise. She asked me over for a meal to meet a very special friend she had made. This was the tall, handsome, bearded Englishman Michael Battye of Reuters.
I could see with half an eye that he was deeply in love with Kamna and she with him. I had my doubts about their marriage as she knew nothing of his background or his career prospects. She left that part to me. I invited him over to see me. The next day I asked him what any father of a girl would like to know about his prospective son-in-law.
Michael had no private property nor much of a bank balance. He had good prospects of getting to the top in Reuters but that would involve many postings away from India and finally settling down in England.
I couldn’t see Kamna, an elegant hostess, scrubbing floors, cooking and washing dishes in a flat in London’s suburbs. A father-in-law-to-be should ask his son-in-law-to-be to produce a physical fitness certificate. That was too delicate a subject and Michael was not wanting in health and handsomeness.
I told Kamna I approved of him but was not sure if she could make a home in England. However, a marriage date was fixed. I agreed to perform kanyadaan.
I had to go to Assam to preside over a literacy conference at Sibsagar with assurance from Chief Minister Hiteshwar Saikia that he would get me back to Delhi in time for the nuptials. Indian Airlines decided otherwise. My flight from Calcutta to Delhi was delayed by six hours.
I returned home after the Hindu rites of the Kamna-Michael wedding were over. Kamna’s parents had come over from Patna to give her away to her English groom.
A week later a civil marriage was performed in my apartment where Michael’s parents were present. Rani Jethmalani and I signed the certificate as witnesses.
Kamna moved out of her spacious apartment to a more spacious bungalow rented by Reuters. She went to England with Michael, spent a few weeks with his parents and sister. They bought an apartment in Belsize Park in North London.
Even so, I could not reconcile myself to Kamna living anywhere else except Delhi and going out of my life forever.
I am unable to analyse my affection for Kamna. It is much more than her physical appearance. She is a giver, not a taker. For whatever I gave her (or she extracted from me), she returned twice over in gifts to my wife, daughter and granddaughter. Anything my wife wanted done, she could rely on Kamna to have it done, and with difficulty pay her the cost.
Perhaps the most important factor behind my affection for her was her faith and trust in me. I began to dread the day when Michael would get orders transferring him to some other country.
Without Kamna, Delhi would not be the same.
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 and 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 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, 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 h
ad helped herself to a bottle of beer from the fridge and was in the bathroom freshening up. I had little doubt my uninvited 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 cold and Europian classical music 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.
Khushwant Singh's Book of Unforgettable Women Page 6
