Subtle, sexy, successful

Ink in My Veins: A Life in Journalism
S Nihal Singh  Hay House India  308 pages

NIHAL Singh is a charming Sardarji, though he shed his turban and long hair when he was in his late teens. He was born in 1929 in a well-off family. Nihal wanted to be a doctor, but chose journalism instead. He started at the bottom as an unpaid trainee and rose to be the editor of four newspapers, three in India and one in Dubai. As a correspondent he met and interviewed dictators and feudal lords, presidents, prime ministers and other celebrities in India and abroad, and provides some good quotes.

He was buggered when he was a school kid. At age 24 he was ‘deflowered’ by an English grandmother who kept him active for some time, though she didn’t always take off all her clothes. He married a Dutch girl in Amsterdam and surprised his parents in India by introducing her as his wife. An American friend of his wife told him, “Your eyes are deadly. I better watch out.” He didn’t sleep with her, but he did have affairs with many other women.

Besides his seductive charm, Nihal had advanced social skills which got him invited to the homes and parties of celebrities. He must have also been skilled in ostentatious servility without which correspondents can’t get close to politicians, who are always insecure and wary of journalists. A correspondent cannot write very negative stuff about a country or a politician; he might be exiled, jailed, beaten up, or even killed. A correspondent has to be a good actor in VIP relationships and subtle in his reportage. Nihal managed both well.

Nihal is a good observer. He reports on the political and social conditions of the countries in which he served – China, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Dubai, Pakistan, Russia, France, Japan, the USA, the UK – because he could get along with ordinary people too. So you get leaders’ opinions and public views.

There are lessons in the book for journalists, journalism students, and non-journalist readers. Nihal did what he did for fun, to seek adventure. He wasn’t in search of higher pay and more elevated designations. He moved from place to place in search of new experiences. He even tried to start a newspaper in France, but he did not get financial backing. He had a cooperative wife who didn’t object to being dragged around by a tramp.

Then, there is no malice in the book. Nihal doesn’t take revenge on those who must have annoyed him, or played games behind his back. That’s an unusual sense of forgiving, especially in a journalist. Nihal was not a linear thinker; he did global lateral thinking. And when you are this busy, you don’t have the time or inclination to bitch about SOBs. Essentially, the lesson from the book is: Have fun and adventure with your profession, and to hell with money and social status!

There are flaws in the book, of course. The writing is not orderly. Nihal jumps from one date to another, from one personality to another, which makes reading tiresome. The book cannot be read at one sitting. You put it away after reading a chapter or two. When you’ve overcome your irritation, you pick it up again. This problem arises surely because Nihal didn’t have an editor to do good editing, and an editorial adviser to tell him which boring parts to shorten and which exciting parts to expand.

In the chapter on Pakistan, Nihal makes fun of Pakistani English. But his own English is of the North Indian “What is your good name?” kind. And every page is decorated with clichés that a good editor would have deleted. Nigel Rees, author of The Joy of Cliches, would do a funny piece on Nihal’s English, as Nihal did on Pakistani English.

Nevertheless, the book is a good read because it presents a guy who loves fun and adventure. Readers trapped in their patterned life-paths will say, “Bastard! I wish I had his imagination and determination! … And his sex drive!”

(A version of this was published in DNA.)