Khushwant Singh, one of the best-known Indian columnists of all times, was born in 1915 in Hadali (now in Pakistan). He was educated at the Government College, Lahore and at King's College, Cambridge University, and Later the Inner Temple in London.

Khushwant Singh

    He practiced law at the Lahore High Court for Several years before joining the Indian Ministry of External Affairs in 1947 during which span he was posted in Europe and North America. He was sent on diplomatic postings to Canada and London and later went to Paris with UNESCO. He began a distinguished career as a journalist with the All India Radio in 1951. He, however, soon moved to print media holding a number of plum assignments. Since then he continues to write for a number of publications regularly.

    As India's most popular author and critic Khushwant Singh's prolific literary output over the years has overshadowed his career as a journalist and a diplomat. But those were the fields he started with, and a considerable amount of his writing was done in those periods of his life. Since then he has been founder-editor of Yojana (1951-1953), editor of The Illustrated Weekly of India (1979-1980), chief editor of New Delhi (1979-1980), and editor of the Hindustan Times (1980-1983). His Saturday column "With Malice towards One and All" in the Hindustan Times is by far one of the most popular columns of those days.

    The feisty Sardar is best known for his books, of which he has written over 80. He is equally proficient in fiction and non-fiction. He has written extensively on the history of Sikhism, with separate books for some of the prominent historical figures of the religion. Train to Pakistan, History of the Sikhs, End of lndia, Delhi, etc. are his works. The Library of Congress has 99 works on and by Khushwant Singh. As a writer he possesses the supreme capacity to laugh at himself.

    Even at 85, Singh continued to write with as much zest as in the budding years of his career. Khushwant Singh has always been worth listening to. In a career spanning over five decades as writer, journalist and editor, his views have been provocative and controversial, but they have also been profound, deeply perceptive and always compelling.
 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 60 years; his phobia of ghosts and his fascination with death; the friends who betrayed him, and also those whom he failed.

    In 1997 he won Mondeilo Award. In July 2000, he was conferred the "Honest Man of the Year Award" by the Sulabh International Social Service Organization for his courage and honesty in his "brilliant incisive writing". When he was practicing law and was in diplomatic service, he comments that, "I didn't have much to do, that I began reading in a serious way. As our past, prohibition, impotency, presidents, politicians, cricket, dog-haters, astrologers, the banning of books, the secret of longevity... the list is endless".

    Khushwant Singh is a writer of over three decades of a wide variety-including the finest journalistic pieces, short stories, translations, jokes, plays as well as non-fiction books and novels. His works show why Khushwant Singh is the country's most widely read columnist and one of its most celebrated authors. Some have branded him a sexy-obsessed dirty old man, but his matter-of-fact reply had shut their mouths. For his witty, whimsical and practical writing, he has been named as a diligent 'wordsmith'.

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