the freethinker’s prayer book

Khushwant Singh

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Khushwant Singh is an agnostic who wakes up before dawn to listen to Sikh hymns, recites the Gayatri Mantra and knows large parts of the Bible and the

Quran by heart. He likes being known as a dirty old man who delights in malice

but is, in fact, fanatically disciplined and generous to a fault. He has lived

an extraordinary life—marked by contradiction, mischief, compassion,

courage and wisdom (though he denies all these charges). Where does this man

of no faith turn for inspiration? What does India’s grand old man of letters believe

in? Here, he gives us some answers.

T h e B o o k o f A l e p h

Old age is a nuisance. It buggers up your life. Take it from a very old man—I am ninety-seven. Though I have not yet gone senile and I have been spared the indignity of bedpans and nurses wiping my bottom, it is now time to go. I am reminded of these lines by John Keats:

Now more than ever seems it rich to die,To cease upon the midnight with no pain…

There is only one thing that makes it difficult to go, and that is my lack of faith. I don’t believe in God, paradise or the possibility of rebirth. I don’t know where I will be after I die. For this reason, I have always dreaded death. As Paul Valéry put it: ‘Death speaks to us in a very deep voice but has nothing to say.’ People who have religion also fear death, but they seem to derive comfort from the belief that they will meet their Maker, or that they will be reborn in some form. The more self-righteous among them believe they will die and go to heaven. I have no such delusion, and no such comfort.

But I do not regret being an agnostic; it is the only logical choice. Even though I have retained the outward emblems of the Sikh faith—beard, kesh (hair), turban and my surname—I rejected religious rituals quite early in life. I also stopped believing there was a God. No one has seen God. No one has been able to define God, besides investing him with numerous fantastic attributes. The argument that if there is a watch there must then be a watchmaker never made sense to me. If God created everything, who created God? If an omnipotent, all-seeing God does exist, why is there injustice and suffering in the world? I cannot accept a God who is selective in granting his grace, or who is blind.

Rejecting the possibility of God and giving up religion was not easy. You need faith and someone to pray to when you are afraid or in

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S UMME R

pain, or when you feel helpless. Having rejected religion, how would I fill the vacuum? Over the years I came up with a kind of religion of my own. It had very simple rules: ahimsa—non-violence—above all; work as worship; honesty (even about one’s dishonesties); helping people in need; and respecting and preserving the natural world. I may have failed to live by these rules sometimes, but I have tried to do so to the best of my ability.

I also decided that since I had only one life to live, and I did not know when it would come to an end, I would try to get as much out of it as I could. I would indulge my senses to the full, feasting my eyes and senses on all that is beautiful in the world: its mountains and lakes, seashores and deserts; the break of the monsoon and the scent of wet earth; good food, vintage wines and the finest Scotch whiskey; Western classical music and shabad-kirtan; the fragrance of flowers and herbs; birdsong at the break of dawn; classic literature; and beautiful women (about whom, alas, I can now only fantasize).

In all this I have derived inspiration from the words of poets and fakirs, prophets and rogues, grave men and clowns. There is a lot to be learned from both the sacred and the profane, and I am enjoying the process of putting all of it down for my new book. It is a prayer book for every freethinker. Here’s a sampling:

Know him alone as a man of God who knows the pain of another. He helps those in need and shares their sorrow, but his heart is free of pride.—Narsinh Mehta

(These are the opening lines of Bapu Gandhi’s favourite bhajan)

[Khushwant Singh]

is a literary version

of Osho Rajneesh…

[the] rumbustious,

Rabelaisian black

sheep of the flock.

—THE TIMES OF INDIA©

Mus

tafa

Qur

aish

i

T h e B o o k o f A l e p h

S UMME R

Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is allYe know on earth, and all ye need to know.—John Keats

Words do not the saint or sinner make,Action alone is written in the book of fate,What we sow that alone we take.—Guru Nanak

People of the Book,do not go to excessin your religion.—The Quran (translated by Thomas Cleary)

Your spirit is a river. Its sacred ghat is contemplation; its waters are truth; its banks are godliness; its waves are love. Go to that river to cleanse your soul: mere water will do nothing for you. —Hitopadesa

Confusion’s my fate ever since I renounced wine; I’m lost and distracted, unable to work; The pious repent and vow to abstain;I, too, vowed to abstain—and now I repent.—Babur

O Divine Master, grant that I may notSeek to be consoled as to console;To be understood as to understand;To be loved as to love;For it is in giving that we receive,It is in pardoning that we are pardoned. —St Francis of Assisi

T h e B o o k o f A l e p h

Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise:

Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, Provideth her

meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.

—The Bible (Proverbs 6:6-8)

Don’t torture this body with thirst and hunger,

Give it a hand when it stumbles and falls.

To hell with all your vows and prayers:

Just help others through life, there’s no truer worship.

—Lal Ded (translated by Ranjit Hoskote)

Don’t be boastful.

Don’t be short-tempered.

Don’t make a short-lived attempt.

Don’t expect gratitude.

—The Dalai Lama

A droplet of dew with reflected sun ablaze!

The talk of life and death sounds a fairy tale.

—Asghar (translated by K. C. Nanda)

Born in Punjab’s Hadali village (now in Pakistan) in 1915, Khushwant Singh has acquired an iconic stature: he is, today, India’s best-known and most widely read author, columnist and journalist. He was founder-editor of Yojana, and editor of The Illustrated Weekly of India (which he made India’s most popular and talked-about English-language weekly), National Herald and Hindustan Times. His first book, The Mark of Vishnu and Other Stories, was published in 1950, and he has published several acclaimed and bestselling books of fiction and non-fiction in the six decades since. The best-known among these are the novels Train to Pakistan, I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale, Delhi, The Company of Women and The Sunset Club; his

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autobiography, Truth, Love and a Little Malice; and the two-volume A History of the Sikhs. He has also translated the works of major Urdu and Punjabi poets, novelists and short-story writers.

Khushwant Singh was a member of the Rajya Sabha from 1980 to 1986. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India in 1974; he returned the award in 1984 to protest the siege of the Golden Temple by the Indian army. In 2007, he was awarded India’s second-highest civilian honour, the Padma Vibhushan.

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