My first introduction to Khushwant Singh’s writing was when as a teenager my father made me read the then 1956-best seller ‘Train to Pakistan’. The Partition and its horrific aftermath were still fresh in the minds of my parents’ generation that lived through it.
Then as the years passed I, like millions of other readers, got addicted to and kept in touch with the inimitable style of this Sardarji primarily through his widely-read weekly column, ‘With Malice towards One and All’, published in several leading English-language Indian newspapers.
In this, The Sunset Club, his most recent novel written at the age of 95, the author takes the reader through 12 months, starts on 26 January 2009 and ending a year later, again on the Indian Republic Day in 2010.
Set in New Delhi, the ‘club’ comprises three members in the ‘sunset’ days of their lives – a Punjabi Brahmin Hindu erudite Pandit Preetam Sharma, a Muslim businessman, Nawab Barkatullah Baig Dehlavi – and a Sikh, Boota Singh, unmistakably fashioned after the writer himself. One is certain Baig and Sharma are also based on actual friends of the authors.
The book, sub-titled Analects of the Year 2009, is a collection of literary, political, historical, cultural, religious and philosophical anecdotes, interspersed by what Singh is known and accepted for – his, and Baig’s sexual exploits with women which could have been censored.
But then, that is Singh for you! Outspoken, bold, candid, frank – but honest.
The three men, now escorted by their servants, have been meeting almost every evening for four decades. The venue is Lodhi Gardens where they sit for a chat on their earmarked bench dubbed Boorah Binch facing the Bara Gumbad (Big Dome) monument.
There are numerous nuggets of information within the pages that perhaps most of us are not aware of. Topics discussed include artificial mourners, to Valentine’s Day in India, to Kurukshetra and its significance in the Mahabharta, to astrology and astronomy, Norman Borlaug who changed the face of agriculture in India far back in 1963 which led to the Green Revolution, about the commonality between Sikhisim and Hinduism as well as the differences, and how many practices of the Muslims are borrowed from Judaism – and of course, the three men also discuss topical political happenings.
The text is interspersed with quotes from Guru Nanak, from the Granth Sahib, Gayatri Mantra, Urdu poet Ghalib, Bahadur Shah Zafar, Sanskrit writer Bhasa, Iqbal, ninth century Indian poet Amaru, and Kalidas.
The author is reputed to be nature lover and he adds colour and soul to the chapters with the trees and flowers in bloom and the migratory birds stopping over in the Lodhi Gardens. With these come the festivals too.
You know its February, the Month of Flowers, when the capital is a riot of colour with beds of roses and other seasonal blooms, as well as flowering trees. March, where many trees denude themselves of leaves to grow new ones. The months ahead bring flame of the forest, gold mohur, jacaranda, laburnum as with them the change from spring to the searing heat of summer, to the much-awaited monsoons
Take away what might be considered space fillers or old age ailments that commonly riddle the body, commonly one’s digestive system and other organs. Singh’s character Boota revels in relating these in ‘gory’ details – and the reader comes across not just his views on every subject but anecdotes related to these which he has been privy to in his lifetime.
The book ends with both Baig and Sharma passing away. Yet the left-alone Boota Singh shakes away his despondency – and again on Republic Day 2010, he goes to the Boorah Binch in Lodhi Gardens, as if to say, ‘life must go on’ – and perhaps this is what his friends would have liked him to do.
Read the book if you are a Khushwant Singh fan, and can overlook the parts which you might find not too pleasant – because there is lot more pleasanter material in The Sunset Club which you can imbibe and learn from – as I did..
