<p>In an essay in this anthology, Khushwant Singh claims that he is not a nice man to know. Whatever the truth of that assertion, there is little question about his skill as a witty, eloquent and entertaining writer. This book collects the best of over three decades of the author s prose including his finest journalistic pieces, short stories, translations, jokes, plays as well as excerpts from his non-fiction books and novels. Taken together, the pieces in this selection (some of which have never been published before) show just why Khushwant Singh is the country s most widely read columnist and one of its most celebrated authors.</p>

Not a Nice Man to Know: The Best of Khushwant Singh

Khushwant, Singh

Penguin books.India

Khushwant Singh s Book of Unforgettable Women is a brilliant recount of women in the author's life - women who left their mark by shaping up his perspectives on different aspects.    Khushwant Singh had quoted that women had sought his company more than he sought theirs, although he was nothing to look at! In this book, Khushwant chronicles the profiles of a few women he had known in his lifetime. Ghayoorunnisa Hafeez - the girl who changed his stance on Muslims forever, his wife Kaval Malik - who is sensitive to media publicity, his grandmother, the debated artist Amrita Shergil, Mother Teresa, Phoolan Devi Khushwant paints vibrant and true-to-life depictions of the women he had known, loved, loathed, respected, and lived with. The book also describes some of those women that Khushwant Singh has conjured up in his stories and novels he had written over six decades. The dynamic Martha Stack from Black Jasmine, Lady Mohan Lal from Karma, Jean Memsahib from The Memsahib of Mandla, the greedy Champak from I Shall Not Hear The Nightingale, the dark-eyed Nooran from Train to Pakistan and the free-spirited Molly Gomes from The Company of Women are some of his flamboyant characters who are certainly going to amuse you.

Khushwant Singh's Book of Unforgettable Women

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

India Penguin

Burial at Sea

Penguin??Books

When the red lilies bloom on the waterlogged fields, the birds panic that the water is on fire. They fly helter-skelter trying to guard their nestlings under their wings.  Red Lilies and Frightened Birds is a collection of poems in praise of the three ancient Tamil royal dynasties Cheras, Cholas and Pandyas. Translated from the early medieval Tamil classic Muttollayiram, these beautifully crafted verses retain a surprisingly contemporary tone a testament to their enduring appeal over the centuries. While some of them are odes to the splendour of the king s country and city, his prowess in war, and the ruining of the enemy country, others reveal how young women, deeply infatuated with the king, pine and long for him.  M.L. Thangappa s translation brilliantly brings to life the playful inventiveness and heady imagery of the original verses. This edition also includes an illuminating introduction by A.R. Venkatachalapathy which places this classic in its historical and cultural context.

Portrait of a Lady

Literature & Fiction

Short Stories & Anthologies

<p>Delhi is the twin of pure paradise, a prototype of the heavenly throne on an earthlyscroll Amir Khusrau A city of contradictions, where ancient traditions and modern aspirations jostle for space, Delhi has often been compared to a phoenix rising from the ashes. Its three thousand years of eventful history have witnessed the rise and fall of several empires, a process that continues today. City Improbable brings together writings by immigrants, residents, refugees, travellers and invaders who have engaged with India s capital over different epochs. Babur shares his earliest experience of the city and Amir Khusrau praises the fine lads of Delhi; Ibn Battuta and Niccolao Manucci record the glories and follies of prominent rulers; William Dalrymple and Khushwant Singh provide intriguing accounts of the threshold period that saw the coming of the British and the waning of the Mughals. Poets and storytellers Meer Taqi Meer, Ghalib, Yashpal, Kamleshwar, Ruskin Bond narrate their versions of the city. Contemporary Delhi is featured in a variety of vignettes: the bureaucracy, the Emergency, the anti-Sikh violence, lovers and joggers in Lodi Gardens, the city s Sufi legacy as well as its changing cuisine. Among the new pieces in this expanded edition are Sam Miller s account of his experiences in the suburb of Noida, Manto s story about a girl from Delhi leaving the city during Partition, Jarnail Singh s unflinching recollection of the massacre of Sikhs in 1984, a photo essay on Shahpur Jat by Karoki Lewis, and a composite narrative by the young writers of the Cybermohalla Collective about the making of a resettlement colony.</p>

City Improbable: Writings on Delhi

A rare collection of essays that invites the reader to revisit a vanished era of sahibs and memsahibs. From Lord Mountbatten to Peggy Holroyde to Maurice and Taya Zinkin, Britishers who lived and worked in India reminisce about topics and points of interest as varied as the Indian Civil Service and the Roshanara Club, shikar and hazri, the Amateur Cine Society of India and the Doon School, Rudyard Kipling and Mahatma Gandhi. Selected from a series of articles commissioned by Khushwant Singh when he was the editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India, these delightfully individualistic and refreshingly candid writings reveal a fascinating array of British attitudes, experiences, observations, fond memories, the occasional short-lived grouse and, above all, a deep and abiding affection and respect for India.

Sahibs Who Loved India (PB)

Professionals & Academics

Penguin/Random House India

The Mark of Vishnu

If people have lost their lives in a storm, it is a different matter; but how can a massacre be forgotten? Especially when there s been no justice? The three days of 1984, when over 3000 Sikhs were slaughtered, have indelibly marked the lives of thousands more who continue to exist in a twilight of bitterness and despair. It was outrage at this state of affairs that led Jarnail Singh an unassuming, law-abiding journalist to throw his shoe at Home Minister P. Chidambaram during a press conference in New Delhi. He readily acknowledges that this was not an appropriate means of protest, but asks why, twenty-seven years after the massacres, so little has been done to address the issues that are still unresolved and a source of anguish to the whole community. I Accuse . . . is a powerful and passionate indictment of the state s response to the killings of 1984. By exploring the chain of events, the survivors stories and the continuing shadow it casts over their lives, Singh seeks answers to some relevant questions. Who initiated the pogrom and why? Why did the state apparatus allow it to happen? Why, despite the many commissions and committees set up to investigate the events, have the perpetrators not been brought to book? Because, finally, 1984 was not an attack on the Sikh community alone; it was an attack on the idea at the very core of democracy that every citizen, irrespective of faith and community, has a right to life, security and justice.

I Accuse... The Anti-Sikh Violence of 1984

Jarnail Singh

Train to Pakistan

Penguin

The Sikh religion was founded by Guru Nanak (1469 1539), who drew upon the teachings of Muslim, Sufis and Hindu Bhaktas. In its purest form Sikhism is about unity, simplicity, equality and surrender (to God), and the verses of the Sikh Gurus most of them included in the Granth Sahib articulate this beautifully. This elegantly illustrated edition contains a selection of verses from the Guru Granth Sahib and other sacred texts like Guru Tegh Bahadur s Vairagmayi Bani and the Dasam Granth of Guru Gobind Singh. Brilliantly translated by Khushwant Singh, these moving mystical hymns retain the immediacy and the lyricism of the originals. In addition, vibrant and imaginative illustrations by Arpana Caur, one of India s most celebrated artists, make this a collection to treasure.

Songs of the Gurus: From Guru Nanak to Guru Gobind Singh

Reference

Encyclopedias & Subject Guides

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Books by Khushwant, Singh