It is such a pleasure to read the early Khushwant Singh fiction again. In 50 years we have gained much and have lost much. There is one quality which would be placed on the credit side by some commentators, as sophistication, and under losses by others, who would call it innocence. Whether it is a plus or a minus, there is no Indian writer now who can write like the very early Mulk Raj Anand, or R K Narayan at his best, or Khushwant Singh when he had a good story to tell. Perhaps no one wants to.

There are 37 stories in the first volume, and many are old friends. ‘Karma’ and ‘The Mark of Vishnu’ are classics and well anthologised, but there are others in the same class. However, this rare opportunity to read them all at one sitting provokes an awkward line of thought. So many of Singh’s stories could have profited from a more judicious use of language, a more meticulous choice of phrase. (Ironically, one of the quotations in his Treasury is a Chinese proverb: “The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names.”)

Khushwant Singh, unfortunately for us, himself became an editor well before he qualified as a writer of the first rank. The lack of polish, of good editing, in his early fiction is often cloaked by its vigour. In his later years, in the sorry Delhi: A Novel and most of his last stories, the shoddiness and lack of good workmanship are apparent. When young, he knew where to stop, his tales had a terrific punch; old, they are often a fireside raconteur’s yarns, verbose and meandering.

In his brief Preface to the ‘Collected Stories’, Singh sums himself up very well, as he is wont to do:
“I don’t know how other short-story writers choose their themes. Mine are based on real people I got to know well… I look forward to meeting unpleasant people: arrogant, full of self-importance, posers, gasbags, braggarts, name-droppers, hypocrites. I encourage them to talk about themselves. They are never short of words. I put them in different situations, add some mirch masala… I have no great opinion of myself as a writer but I am different from my contemporaries as my stories are more malicious and funnier than theirs.”

At his best he is unsentimental, unsparing of what he calls “the humbug that still thrives in our society”. He is always as willing to spoof himself and his countrymen as he is slow to praise the ‘virtues’ we pride ourselves on. But it’s a thin line he treads, for where virtuosity is lacking, or the desire to improve one’s craft by toiling away at one phrase if necessary, such satire can so easily descend to stereotype. ‘The Collected Stories’ may, with reason, be called “The Best and the Worst of Khushwant Singh”.

The masterpiece
Train to Pakistan is a different matter altogether. What a good book it is, and how happy I am to renew my acquaintance with it after too many years. There is scarcely a false note through the book — though I must observe again that Singh’s energy often compensates for a lack of care in his art.

How well Singh knows his subject, the land and the people. How silly he makes the Salman Rushdies look, sitting with their Padmas in their pickle factories and spinning improbable fables that have nothing to do with any India we know. Just as a poet must know formal verse in order to go beyond and write free verse, a novelist must know social reality to make magic out of it.

The significant point about Train to Pakistan is that it is still relevant. While many novels that made a splash since Indian writing in English became “important” 25 years ago have ceased to be read, this book has been reprinted many times and has now come out in a new edition for a reason.

The loves and hates it chronicles, the human frailties and strengths, the puppets and the puppeteers, its many vivid shades of grey, are still our own. It is a lament for the land and its sorrows during Partition, but Khushwant Singh demands no tears from us that are not given freely. There is great art here as well as sincerity and a vitality that springs from the soil of the Punjab.

But that has long disappeared from Singh’s writing. He only echoes himself now. Surely a writer should put away his A4 when he permits his publisher to bring out a collection of his oddments. Khushwant Singh’s Treasury is subtitled “Favourite Prayers, Poems, Proverbs and Profanities for Every Day of the Year”. It reveals a surprisingly classical bent of mind: There is so much Shakespeare, Wordsworth and the Bible; not surprisingly, also the Adi Granth and a few Urdu poets. There is very little Khushwant Singh.

Some carping now. It would have been much better for all of us to have been given I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale instead of the Treasury. These editions are handsomely hardbound and very easy on the eye, but the proofreading and editing are quite bad, considering they are issued under the Viking imprint. And why are they here at all?

I have recently seen a hardcover edition of Train to Pakistan issued by Ravi Dayal and Permanent Black, distributed by Orient Longman and priced at Rs 175. The copyright page said © Ravi Dayal 1988 – not Ravi Dayal Publisher – and this was the 19th impression, 2004. The first 32 of the short stories here were also published by Ravi Dayal Publisher in 1989 and are presumably still to be found. The last five were published as Paradise and Other Stories (Penguin Books India and Ravi Dayal Publisher, 2004).

Ravi Dayal’s death has no doubt brought about many changes. But I see no reason why we should pay Rs 295 for a volume available in 2004 (and perhaps still available) at Rs 175.

Khushwant Singh is on his last lap as a writer, but he is in full possession of his senses and retains the concern for his readers which has always marked his writing. His fiction is well worth reading, but it is for his readers to profit, not for his publishers to make a quick buck.

Vijay Nambisan

Collected Stories, 461 pages, Rs 495; Train to Pakistan, 190 pages, Rs 295;
The Khushwant Singh Treasury, 201 pages, Rs 299;
Viking/ Penguin Books India and Ravi Dayal Publisher