Khushwant Singh (Women and Men in My Life)

It is most gratifying for me to know that there are people still wanting to read me. My first book, The Mark of Vishnu and Other Stories, was published in London in 1950. I never stopped writing since then: novels, short stories, biographies, history, translations, poetry, nature—down to gossip and pointless tittle-tattle. The knowledge that HarperCollins reissued some of my works sweetened the last years of my life. Khushwant Singh

What can you expect when Khushwant Singh-irrepressible as ever and cuttingly candid—decides to write about some of the women and men in his life: film makers, politicians, industrialists, lawyers, civil servants and writers? A series of profiles in his characteristically saucy, no-holds-barred style, each revealing intimate titbits about the dramatis personae and throwing light on little known aspects of their personalities. This volume is vintage Khushwant-racy, perspicacious, amusing and provocative.

Khushwant Singh (1915-2014) authored over fifty books, including A Train to Pakistan, a two-volume History and Religion of the Sikhs, which is still considered the most authoritative writing on the subject, innumerable collections of short stories and articles as well as translations of Urdu and Punjabi works. He was also the editor of The Illustrated Weekly of India. His acerbic pen, his wit and humour, and, most of all, his ability to laugh at himself made him immensely popular.

Rohini Singh, who has edited other selections of Khushwant Singh's writings, is also the author of seven books on cookery published in the US, the UK and India.

Thousands of men and women come into the life of every person. A few relationships abide, most are short-lived. In the first category are members of the family into which one is born: grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts, brothers and sisters, cousins, and others who come into the family by marriage. In the second are others who come close to them in school or college days or later in their careers. Most of these associations are stronger because they are self-acquired and not inherited by accident of birth. However, they are also shorter in duration. In the beginning they can be intense like love between adolescents or adults. When the ardour begins to subside they begin to drift apart, make newer relationships which also run their course and come to an end. After a while they are completely forgotten. It is of some of these kinds of transient relationships that I have written about in this book. As a passage in the Mahabharata says, they are like two planks of wood floating in the ocean. Waves bring them together side by side and make them appear inseparable. Then the same waves separate them till they lose sight of each other. Such relationships are items for one's autobiography. I have written about them in my life story to be published later.

I have chosen my subjects at random - mostly those men and women I befriended in my sixties and seventies. Some were offended with what I wrote about them and are no longer on talking terms with me; some pleased with the confession of affection I have made. And yet others, without bothering to read what I had written about them, said they don't give a damn about what I think of them. Now it is up to you to decide whether or not the exercise has been worthwhile.

**Contents and Sample Pages**