If Valentine’s day is about a time to celebrate love, it is also a time to display a great deal of hypocrisy. Why should this great celebration of love’s courtesies be confined to just one day in a year? For beyond Valentine’s day, the Indian male seems incapable of — or uninterested in — comprehending what exactly it takes to make a friendship last and what bonding is all about.And this entire week, while brushing aside many a Valentine’s day overture, I have been thinking about who I would like to spend the evening of Valentine’s day with. I meticulously went through a mental list of friends and acquaintances. Very spontaneously, the only name that sustained scrutiny was that of Khushwant Singh — the grand old man of Indian journalism and letters.Having always regarded him as a father figure — as a matter of fact, I address him as “abba” — he is not, of course, my Valentine in the conventional sense of the term. But here is a man who can teach the rest of his sex a lesson or two on how to sustain a friendship.I don’t know how the image as man of wine and women came to subsume the other aspects of Khushwant Singh’s personality, but here is a man who instinctively knows what affection and caring is all about.In my several years of interaction with him, he comes across as a downright conservative personality who lives his life in accordance with his convictions and principles. He also never really compromises on time or the timetable he has set for himself. He will welcome you with great warmth only at 7 pm sharp and until the “bottoms up” hour of 8 pm, he is entirely there for you.Over whisky (soda for stubborn teetotallers like me) he will hear you out on anything that’s preoccupying you at that given moment and then respond to your observations with such honesty and spontaneity that each word has the capacity to touch you.He will then bid farewell with a gentle hug and a warm clasp of the hand. Although almost 89 years, his eyes still retain a childlike innocence. He speaks from his heart and writes in exactly the same way — undeterred about the effect his words could have on his readers.It is this that makes Khushwant Singh stand apart — this, and the unchanging genuineness about him. He is what he is, without any frills or facades. This, in itself, is a rare quality in these times.For human relationships are all about genuine caring. If a relationship can be based on caring, the rest follows. And such caring cannot be confined to one particular day in a year — whether you call it Valentine’s day, or anything else. It should be for keeps.
