{"id":67067,"date":"2009-09-19T07:00:58","date_gmt":"2009-09-19T07:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=67067"},"modified":"2009-09-19T07:00:58","modified_gmt":"2009-09-19T07:00:58","slug":"the-satirist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/the-satirist\/","title":{"rendered":"The Satirist"},"content":{"rendered":"

I WANT TO<\/strong> hang on but I know it\u2019s close,\u2019\u2019 the grand old sardar had said of death \u2013 four years ago. In a rare moment then, he had discussed death for over an hour and, looking out of the window, had said, \u201cI often look at that tree and wonder how long I\u2019ll be able to see it. I\u2019ve seen it grow with me. I\u2019d like to hang on but I question what will remain of me \u2014 some memory, some book. I\u2019m mentally fit but am losing my strength. I saw my wife lose her mind and then I saw her become a vegetable. I have to prepare for that possibility.\u201d<\/span>
\n

\"Khushwant<\/a>
Khushwant Singh<\/strong>
Age:<\/strong> 94
Profession:<\/strong> Possibly India\u2019s best known writer. His column \u2018With Malice Towards One and All\u2019 continues to be popular
In the pipeline:<\/strong> He is currently writing another book. What it\u2019s about, the world will have to just wait and see Photo:<\/strong> Shrad Saxena<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nHe may be preparing for it, but Khushwant Singh, the raunchy raconteur and author of 30 books, is firmly focussed on life. Ask his son, Rahul Singh, what keeps his father going and the reply is quick: \u201cTwo shots of whisky every evening and all his women friends who drop in to seek his advice on their romantic lives.\u2019\u2019 Every evening \u2014 without fail \u2014 the former editor of\u00a0The Illustrated Weekly\u00a0<\/em>puts his feet up on a stool (by the same window) in his living room and plays host to a select crowd of visitors between 7-8 pm. The bar at this elite central Delhi address has strict happy hours and there is a board at the main entrance that says, \u201cDo not ring the bell, unless you are expected.\u201d<\/span>
\nSave for that one hour, Khushwant follows a strict regimen. He wakes up at 4 am before the crack of dawn and does all the crosswords in the daily newspapers, writes his column, takes a two-hour nap at noon, looks forward to the \u2018happy hour,\u2019 finishes his dinner by 8.30 pm and is fast asleep by 9.<\/span>
\nHe\u2019s up again at 4 am the next day, and though he needs the support of a wall to walk and though he often picks up the landline at home only to say, \u201cI am deaf, I can\u2019t hear you, please send me a letter,\u2019\u2019 Khushwant is of perfect mental health and it\u2019s not just his female friends who boost his energy. Urdu poetry and humour are steady, everyday companions and he needs them in equal doses.<\/span>
\nSikhs are known to be able to laugh at themselves, and recently when the grand old sardar found he was \u201cbleeding from his bottom\u2019\u2019, as his son Rahul put it, Khushwant laughed about it, just as he now jokes about his inability to have sex. In the same interview four years ago, when asked what he misses most, he\u2019d said, \u201cGood sex. I already miss good sex and it\u2019s been missing for some time. The day you can\u2019t have sex is really the time for a man to go. But yes, I fantasise.\u201d<\/span>
\nIrreverence is one principle he\u2019s measured his own life through, even writing his own obituary when he was in his 20s. His weekly column, \u2018With Malice Towards One And All\u2019 bears testimony to the fact that he is still in love with life. And life is what he\u2019s focussed on, having already shed what he calls, \u201cemotional baggage.\u2019\u2019 He has given everything away and says, \u201cI have not a penny with me.\u201d He has much more to share, and that he does, week after week, even if it is with malice!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I WANT TO hang on but I know it\u2019s close,\u2019\u2019 the grand old sardar had said of death \u2013 four years ago. In a rare moment then, he had discussed death for over an hour and, looking out of the window, had said, \u201cI often look at that tree and wonder how long I\u2019ll be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":67074,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[56],"tags":[6744,6945,6946,6947,6948,1024,6949,6934,6950,6951,6952],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67067"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/72"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}