Dr Amitabh’s memoir explores a profound encounter with literary giant Khushwant Singh and others in the Himalayas, highlighting the lasting impact of Singh’s words, exclusively for Different Truths.

Khushwant Singh Sahab, India’s leading journalist, novelist, and lover of poetry, passed away on 20 March 2014 at his home in Delhi. I remember him as a humble person visiting me with his wife at my high-altitude snow-clad hospital in Chukha, Bhutan, in February 1985.

Over Special Courier Scotch Blend Whiskey and the roaring fire from Bhukhari, he asked me many questions to which I didn’t have a reply. He understood. I recited a couple of poems, which were published in the Bhutanese national newspaper, Kuensel. He and his wife enjoyed my hospitality.

While leaving, he looked into my eyes and said, ‘Kuch to haih.’ He wrote about me in his columns in the Times of India, ‘With Malice Towards One and All’, which gave me instant fame. He said, “I can’t understand this single doctor sitting on a mountaintop and writing love poems. He must be surrounded by a bevy of beautiful Bhutanese damsels.” 

MJ Akbar, editor of Sunday magazine also visited me from Calcutta. His article on me had the headline, ‘The Mad Man of Bhutan’. He believed that I was in spiritual pursuit. This madness persists. My love for Bhutan and some special Bhutanese individuals also insist.

Dasho Lyonpo Om Pradhan

I met Dasho Lyonpo Om Pradhan, in 1985, at the Bhutanese Embassy in Delhi. He was the serving ambassador of the Royal Government of Bhutan to India.

Fluent in Urdu, Hindi, Nepalese and Dzonkha, he showed a keen interest in Arts and Literature of India and Bhutan.

Memories of his personal library within the embassy, the books he gifted, and long late-night conversations, sipping scotch, on China, India-Bhutan relations, querying the existence of Yeti beyond the borders and higher ranges of Gangkhar Punzum, the possibility of a Shangri-la somewhere hidden there, gave deeper insight to my pursuit.

At the guest house within the embassy that night, I dreamt of flying lamas and eternity.

Eternity has space
Eternity has a flower

Picture design by Anumita Roy

Dr Amitabh Mitra

Amitabh Mitra is a poet, artist, and medical doctor based in East London, South Africa. He is the Head of the Trauma and Emergency Medicine Department of a tertiary hospital complex in the black township of Mdantsane. It is the second-biggest Black township after Soweto. Recently, the Department of Arts and Culture, in association with Oxfam, honoured him for his contribution and long-standing devotion to the people of Mdantsane.