I remember Khushwant Singh from With Malice Towards One and All and that I always looked forward to reading his column. The Company of Women is not the Singh I had been familiar with but it was a book that I read to the end - something that is not often the case with me the last several years. The plot points are uncomplicated, the prose style extremely plain and after a few chapters you see a predictable way the protagonist Mohan Kumar engages with women. He needs them to fill the void in his life - sex is pivotal but there is companionship as well, his need to be the man who makes dreams come true for the the woman in his life, no matter now temporal and transactional the relationship. It is no work of art, literature or hallmark of erudition, this particular book. It is a lazy read at best.
Yet, there is something to be said for it. What got my attention was his depiction of women as eager, willing and enthusiastic sexual partners. They are diverse in background, culture, and education but are similar in the expression of their primal urge. In that, they find common ground with Mohan Kumar, a man who can make dreams come true for a few or many months but not forever. So we have the moving cast of women that come in and out of his life, mostly without leaving any long-term marks but collectively, they keep him afloat, tend to his physical and mental aloneness. In 1999 when the book was published, Khushwant Singh was still associated with being the former editor of Illustrated Weekly and his eviscerating, no holds-barred political commentary.
This book would be highly frivolous coming from him and that took courage. India pre-2000 was a very different country than it is now. To write something this lewd at a time of his life when he would be putting the finishing touches to his legacy is pretty bold. The book on its own is quite unremarkable. Considered in the context of who wrote it, where and when it gives the reader pause.
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