Khushwant Singh's Book of Unforgettable Women


Book Description

"Though I am nothing to look at, it is women who have sought my company more than I have sought theirs." 'Khushwant Singh' In Khushwant Singh's Book of Unforgettable Women, India's most widely-read and irreverent author and columnist profiles some of many women in his life. From Ghayoorunnisa Hafeez, the girl who forever changed his attitude towards Muslims, to his wife, Kaval Malik, who is allergic to media publicity; from his old grandmother to the controversial artist Amrita Shergil; from Mother Teresa to Phoolan Devi, Khushwant Singh paints colourful and true-to-life portraits of the women he has known, loved, despised, admired, and lived with. The book also includes some of the women Khushwant Singh has conjured up in the numerous stories and novels he has written over sixty years. The lively Martha Stack (-Black Jasmine'), Lady Mohan Lal (-Karma'), Jean Memsahib (-The Memsahib of Mandla'), the hijra-whore Bhagmati (Delhi), the insatiable Champak (I Shall Not Hear The Nightingale), dark-eyed Nooran (Train to Pakistan) and the free-spirited Molly Gomes (The Company of Women) are only a few of Khushwant Singh's larger-than-life characters who are sure to entertain and amuse the reader.




The Portrait of a Lady


Book Description

‘A Khushwant Singh short story is not flamboyant but modest, restrained, well-crafted...Perhaps his greatest gift as a writer is a wonderful particularity of description’—London Magazine Khushwant Singh first established his reputation as a writer through the short story. His stories—wry, poignant, erotic and, above all, human—bear testimony to Khushwant Singh’s remarkable range and his ability to create an unforgettable PBI - World. Spanning over half a century, this volume contains all the short stories Khushwant Singh has ever written, including the delightfully tongue-in-cheek ‘The Maharani of Chootiapuram’, written in 2008. ‘Khushwant’s stories enthrall...[He has]an ability akin to that of Somerset Maugham...the ability to entertain intelligently’—PBI - India Today ‘His stories are better than [those of] any PBI - Indian writing in English—Times of PBI - India ‘The Collected Short Stories leaves the reader in a delightful, inebriated trance’—Sunday Chronicle ‘He is not an ordinary short story writer...[Collected Stories] is delightful reading’—Hindustan Times




On Women


Book Description

Khushwant Singh is well known for his brazen interest in the fairer sex. He has revelled in the notoriety that this interest has evoked. Some of his best known works are inspired by the enduring obsession with them, both as a peerless raconteur and as a journalist. on Women: Selected Writings is another good offering from this writer. In his book on Women: Selected Writings, he describes an embarrassing meeting with a drunken actress of yesteryear - Begum Para. He gives a detailed profile of Shraddha Mata and of a tantrik sadhvi who claimed she was the mother of the illegitimate child of Jawaharlal Nehru. Mr Singh also talks about his grandmother, with a touching sketch on the twilight of her life. He also returns to some unforgettable women characters from his previous works of fiction: A clueless American teenager, Georgine, who was taken advantage of by a middle-aged tour guide in Delhi. on Women: Selected Writings, contains a description of a young girl, Nooran, in pre-partition Punjab, who has a sweet feeling of falling in love for the first time but the partition casts a long shadow on her emotions.




Khushwant Singh on Women, Sex, Love and Lust


Book Description

An anthology of Khushwant Singh’s best writings on his favorite subjects, Women, Sex, Love and Lust is at once witty, informative, thought-provoking and flagrant. Definitely a book you can’t afford to miss! If you are looking for answers to eternal questions like which came first – love or lust, or debates pertaining to celibacy, chastity or arranged marriages, Khushwant Singh delivers his unique exposé. Whether he is analysing the fine dividing line between obscenity, pornography and erotica, describing sex from ‘Chaturbhani’ (200-350 B.C.) or his ideas of a composite Indian woman, Khushwant holds the reader’s attention effortlessly. But that isn’t all – years before terms such as ‘gender issues’ or ‘gender divide’ became popular, he was writing, thinking and sharing his views on them. His deliberations reveal an unexpected side to Khushwant . . . in these pages you’ll also find a rare glimpse of Khushwant the feminist. Women, Sex, Love and Lust abounds with Indian as well as foreign myths, legends, proverbs, and poems ranging from Chaucer, Shakespeare, Whitman to Kalidas, Iqbal and Faiz. Almost each page offers you delectable quotes from Russell to Wodehouse along with special anecdotes which could only come from the inimitable Khushwant. Only he could share with you his intense experience of nudo-phobia suffered in Sweden, his acute observation of Indian whoremongers when abroad, scandals amongst the literati and glitterati – H. G. Wells as a compulsive fornicator or Georges Simenon hammering away at his typewriter (and his women) at the age of eighty are only a few revelations.




We Indians


Book Description

A sharp and funny dissection of different aspects of the Indian character, from our attitude to sex, religion and women to our views on corruption and the English language. Irreverent and full of witty observations, this is a Khushwant Singh classic!




On Love and Sex


Book Description

The writing career of Khushwant Singh is more than six decades old. During this time he has come up with several frank and scare free writings that has punctured the prudishness, hypocrisy and humbug of Indian society. He has been quite open in expressing his views on human sexuality and he is considered one of a kind. In on Love and Sex: Selected Writings, he looks back at some of his previous publications like his autobiography, where he details about how he lost his virginity. He describes about a newly married couple, whom he witnessed, as they consummate their marriage on a moving train. This is presented as his rumination of sexuality in India. He then describes about an episode in a doctor's clinic, a poker faced narration, which left Singh with the feeling that he has been 'buggered'. He then picks another topic from his other fiction work called A Mixed Marriage. Here he describes about a Hindu-Muslim union during the times of Mughal. The Rooftop Massage describes about the unusual experience of Mohan Kumar with the Masseuse Molly. Kumar is given the suggestion later on that he should never try it again.




Company Of Women


Book Description

Recently separated from his nagging, ill-tempered wife, millionaire businessman Mohan Kumar decides to reinvent his life. He embarks on an audacious plan: he will advertise for paid lady companions to share his bed and his life. Thus begins his journey of easy, unbridled sexuality in the company of some remarkable women. From Sarojini Bharadwaj, the demure professor from small town Haryana who surprises Mohan with her ardour and sexual energy to the practiced charms of his obliging maid, Dhanno, The Company of Women is the story of a man's sexual exploits, and how it defines his life.




Truth Love and A Little Malice


Book Description

Born in 1915 in pre-Partition Punjab, Khushwant Singh, perhaps India’s most widely read and controversial writer has been witness to most of the major events in modern Indian history from Independence and Partition to the Emergency and Operation Blue Star and has known many of the figures who have shaped it. With clarity and candour, he writes of leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, the terrorist Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, the talented and scandalous painter Amrita Shergil, and everyday people who became butchers during Partition. Writing of his own life, too, Khushwant Singh remains unflinchingly forthright. He records his professional triumphs and failures as a lawyer, journalist, writer and Member of Parliament; the comforts and disappointments in his marriage of over sixty years; his first, awkward sexual encounter; his phobia of ghosts and his fascination with death; the friends who betrayed him, and also those whom he failed.




The Collected Novels


Book Description

This volume brings together all the novels, except The Company of Women, by India's most widely read and celebrated author. Included here are the classic Train to Pakistan that describes the tragedy of Partition through the love story of a Sikh dacoit and a Muslim girl; I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale, which deals with the conflict in a prosperous Sikh family of Punjab in the 1940s; and the best-selling Delhi , a vast, erotic, irreverent magnum opus centred on the Indian capital.




The Sunset Club


Book Description

Meet the members of the Sunset Club: Pandit Preetam Sharma, Nawab Barkatullah Baig and Sardar Boota Singh. Friends for over forty years, they are now in their eighties. And every evening, at the sunset hour, they sit together on a bench in Lodhi Gardens to exchange news and views on the events of the day, talking about everything from love, lust, sex and scandal to religion and politics. As he follows a year in the lives of the three men from January 26 2009 to January 26 2010. Khushwant Singh brings his characters vibrantly to life, with his piquant portrayals of their fantasies and foibles, his unerring ear for dialogue and his genius for capturing the flavour and texture of everyday life in their households. Interwoven with this compelling human story is another chronicle of a year in the life of India, as the country goes through the cycle of seasons, the tumult of general elections, violence, natural disasters and corruption in high places. In turn ribald and lyrical, poignant and profound, The Sunset Club is a deeply moving exploration of friendship, sexuality, old age and infirmity; a joyous celebration of nature; an insightful portrait of India's paradoxes and complexities. A masterpiece from one of India's most-loved storytellers, The Sunset Club will have you in tears and laughter, and grip you from the first page to the last