Book of Unforgettable Women

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In Khushwant Singh’s Book of Unforgettable Women, India’s most widely-read and irreverent author and columnist profiles some of the 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 in the numerous stories and novels ha has written over sixty years. The lively Martha Stack (‘Black Jasmine’), Lady Mohan Lal (‘Karma’), Jean Memsahib (‘The Memsahib of Mandla’), the hijrawhore Bhagmati (Delhi), the instiable 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.

Khushwant Singh was born in 1915 in Hadali, Punjab. He was educated at Government College, Lahore and at King’s College and the Inner Temple in London. He practiced at the Lahore High Court for several years before joining the Indian Ministry of External Affairs in 1947. He began a distinguished career as a journalist with All India Radio in 1951. Since then he has been founder-editor of Yojna (1951-1980), chief editor of New Delhi (1979-1980), and editor of the Hindustan Times (1980-1983). Today he is india’s best-known columnist and journalist.

Khushwant Singh has also had an extremely successful career as a writer. Among the works he has published are a classic two-volume history of the Sikh, several novels (the best known of which are Delhi, Train to Pakistan and The Company of Women), and a number of translated works and non-fiction books on Delhi, nature and current affairs.

Khushwant Singh was Member of Parliament from 1980 to 1986. Among other honours he was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1974 by the P[RESIDENT OF India (he returned the decoration in 1984 in protest against the Union Government’s siege of the Golden Temple, Amritsar).