The passing away of renowned author Khushwant Singh at the ripe old age of 99 has left a void
in Indian writing in English. Once an editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India, a prominent English magazine of yesteryears or rather a bygone era, he raised it to the highest level of
popularity in terms , both of content
and circulation. In my schooldays , I was introduced to him
through his story “”The Mark of Vishnu “
containing the irony of a
snake biting the very person who fed it with milk everyday, at the spot on
his forhead smeared with the holy paste
with the letter ‘V’ . Later I read his ‘The
Train to Pakistan’ relating the poignant
saga of Partition. By his own admission, an
unorthodox Sikh, his “ History of the Sikhs “ remains his magnum opus.
His weekly column in the English papers, going by the name of ‘With malice towards one and all “ & “this
above All “ was eagerly awaited by
numerous readers. Budding writers from Himachal
made it a point to visit him at Kasauli-his summer abode and he always encouraged them. Active till well into his
nineties , he always wrote literally
putting pen to paper, without any aid from the computer.
My humble tributes to the celebrity author !