After getting top recommendations from Prem, Karan and Amazon reviews, I was more than convinced to buy this novel straight away. As this book is out of print, I had to buy a used copy straight out of 1970s print. I personally consider ‘Train to Pakistan’ as one of my favorite writings ever and more the reason I was eager to lap up ‘I shall not hear the nightingale’. I finished this book in one go and now its time for a review! What did I think of it? Read on!
I shall not hear the nightingale
I will not really elaborate on the story here as I normally don’t like to give away storyline of a book. To be brief, the book is set in years 1942 – 1943 during world war and our [Indian] independence struggle. The story revolves around the family of Buta Singh who is a British loyalist and his young rebellious son Sher Singh who along with his close friend Madan Lal have decided to use violence as a means of targeting the British. With the principle cast are Sabhrai, Buta Singh’s wife and Sher Singh’s mother, Beena – Sher Singh’s sister, Champak – Sher Singh’s wife and Sita -Â Madan Lal’s sister. Mr. and Mrs. Taylor make up the British angle to the book. And yes a loyal dog too.
To be precise, the book narrates a story of inter-leaved relationships, Father Son ambitions, a devout mother, Sher Singh’s ambition as a youth leader and surprisingly good natured British Commissioner. The book is a story of loyalty, bravery, cowardice and ultimately faith. The book is a nice look into the times just before independence – i.e. The mentality of people, the overall political structure in which our independence was heading and the usual corruption in there. Lastly the book is also musing of a perverted mind.
The Hookers
No I don’t mean hookers. I mean what hooks you to the book! There are some superbly narrated sequences in the book. The very beginning of the book has an incredibly chilling description of shooting of a Sarus Crane – its one sequence which really bogs a reader down. The sequences towards the end are also brilliant in their way of execution. The almost un-noticeable reference to the nightingale is dealt with supreme brilliance towards the end – it was simply a piece-de-resistance.
The second strong point of the book is the character of the mother in the book. Slowly but surely she rises to the occasion with her faith in god. I loved the part where author mixed God into the book. Several times the author digresses into explaining the culture aspects of Indian society which make up for a beautiful read – his descriptions of monsoon is beautiful and can be only read to be appreciated completely! Its definitely these parts that make the book interesting.
The Strippers
Don’t get ideas again. What I mean here is what strips away the magic of the book. For one, until the half way mark the story is pretty much ordinary and beyond a point bores you. You cannot help but notice Khushwanth Singh leap into his customary pervert descriptions. I would have loved if only one character of the book was a sex starved character, however most of the women characters in this book are sex starved – be it Sher Singh’s wife Champak, Shannu the maid servant or Beena his sister; providing ample opportunity for Khushwanth Singh to digress into nether worlds.
The Simla sequences and the sequences of Madan Lal are straight out of a Hindi movie and seem utterly disjointed with the proceedings; and so is the Shannu and her inner parts drama. It seemed as if the author hadn’t really made up his mind where to progress the story and how. I had almost given up hope on this book but luckily Khushwanth Singh turns around the book and makes the rest of the books a superb read.
The Downers
However given its contrasting nature of the book, several aspects were either badly researched or the author intently put them in the book. May be Khushwanth Singh was targeting this book towards western audiences in his time who knows, but I couldn’t help noticing characters speaking of temperature in Fahrenheit scales in summer (we used / use Celsius scale). The distances in the book are talked of in ‘Miles’ rather than ‘Kilometers’ which was / is used in our generation. It is difficult to imagine that the author didn’t know these things – rather it looked more like an attempt to make this book acceptable to westerners.
The worst part of the book probably for me was it was not a sincere attempt at writing. Seeing the author digress into inane sexual tensions make me feel that the author didn’t really have much material to give to readers – however he manages to weave them well. It would have been more satisfying if the author had explored relationships rather than co-relating them to sexual vagaries. At the end of the book, I felt it was a good book, but not a sincere book.
Overall
Overall this is a good book to read, but definitely not Khushwanth Singh’s best by any standards. His best still remains ‘Train to Pakistan’ because of the sincerity and the honesty of the book. The book begins superbly, degrades hopelessly only to recover back superbly at the end. How I wish the author had simply chopped off the senseless sexual muck and just concentrated on explaining the intricacies of relationships, or maybe explored the British couple in the book.
At the best, it’s a good book and nothing more. Don’t die for it – read it when and if you have time!
Happy reading.