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.

About The Author
Khushwant Singh is India???s best-known writer and columnist. He has been founder???editor of Yojana, and editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India, the National Herald and the Hindustan Times. He is also the author of several books which include the novels Train to Pakistan, I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale, Delhi, The Company of Women and Burial at Sea; the classic two-volume A History of the Sikhs; and a number of translations and non-fiction books on Sikh religion and culture, Delhi, nature, current affairs and Urdu poetry. His autobiography, Truth, Love and a Little Malice, was published in 2002.

Khushwant Singh was a Member of Parliament from 1980 to 1986. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1974, but returned the decoration in 1984 in protest against the storming of the Golden Temple by the Indian Army. In 2007, he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan.