Biography of english writer khushwant singh jokes

Sunil Sethi

Khushwant Singh, 1915-2014

“So you’ve come to write my obituary?” That was the salty sardarji greeting me when, some years ago, I went up to his summer home in the hill station of Kasauli to record an interview. Khushwant Singh’s (b. 1915) preoccupation with death, sex and much of the daily business of life betwixt and between, makes him one of India’s most widely read columnists, a hugely successful editor in his heyday, and a notable fiction writer. In a long life crammed with incident and a phenomenal output, there is scarcely a genre of writing that he has not attempted: as biographer and memoirist, historian and chronicler of people and places, mass retailer of dirty jokes and ex-MP, his is the contrarian’s take on everything from the body politic to bodily functions.

Khushwant Singh is a life-enhancer, and spending an evening in his company, is an unmatched pleasure. Erudite and exhibitionist in equal measure, he is the bon vivant par excellence. Pouring Patiala pegs of single malt that evening in Kasauli, savouring every sip himself, he urged more libations on my crew and me. “Keep me company. Have another, there’s lots to go.”

Born in present-day Pakistan, Khushwant Singh, the son of a wealthy builder, was educated at Government College, Lahore, St. Stephen’s College in Delhi and King’s College, London, before reading for the Bar at the Inner Temple. But he practiced law only briefly; his true calling was writing and his first novel Train to Pakistan (1956) on Partition-torn Punjab, was an instant critical and commercial success. More fiction followed and a landmark two-volume A History of the Sikhs (1963) established his credentials in scholarship. But his rise to national prominence came during his editorship of The Illustrated Weekly of India (1969-78), a dowdy journal that he turned into a sparky, controversial magazine that pumped up circulation and set the course for With Malice Towards One and A

Write on the prose style of khushwant singh depicted in train to pakistan

Khushwant singh's joke book 5
3. Khushwant Singh, humourist, raconteur, editor, short- story writer, novelist, commentator, has earned a new accolade — "the master spinner of jokes." He has been clubbed together with Birbal, Tenali Raman and Gopal Bhore as one of India's all time great humourists. His ability to make Indians laugh at themselves, and at their own foibles, has earned him a readership and fan following that is unparalleled. As India's best known journalist and syndicated columnist, he is admired and lambasted in equal measure because of his often irreverent and controversial views. However, even his staunchest critics agree that he is eminently readable. Born in 1915, Khushwant Singh received his education in Lahore, Delhi and London. After a brief law practice at Lahore High Court and a stint with the Ministry of External Affairs, he shot to literary fame with his award-winning novel Train to Pakistan and the two- volumed History of the Sikhs. He distinguished himself as editor of The Illustrated Weekly of India (1969- 1979), and The Hindustan Times (1980-1983). Master craftsman of his art, Khushwant Singh lives in Delhi and continues to "hold a mirror to our face ... frank, but not venomous, fearless but not intimidating.''
5. CHANDIGARH OR JALANDHAR Santa was flying to Chandigarh from Pune. He was allotted a middle seat but decided to take the window seat instead, which had been allotted to an old lady. The lady requested Santa to exchange the seats and let her sit on the seat allotted to her. He refused, saying, 'I want to see the view from the window.' The old lady complained to the air hostess who requested Santa to sit on his allotted middle seat. Santa was adamant and bluntly refused. The air hostess went up to the co-pilot. He too came and requested Santa, but in vain. Finally, the captain of the aircraft came. He whispered something in Santa's ears. Santa immediately vacated the

In the world of jokes, Khushwant Singh is the only name that still sells
The one commodity we Indians are never short of – natural gas.
What a lamp post is to a dog, a wall is to an Indian.
Jaat risky, after whisky.
— – Khushwant Singh’s Joke Book 8 (2008)
Whether it was one-liners like these, or more elaborate jokes, anecdotes or riddles that would go on for several paragraphs, Khushwant Singh could keep a reader amused for hours. The writer once wrote that “laughter is evidently the elixir of life, the best tonic in the world to ensure a long and happy life”.
Most book shops in Delhi have a collection of Singh’s joke books the majority of which have been published by Orient Paperbacks. Singh began writing for Orient in 1990 when Khushwant Singh Joke Book 1 was published. He wrote eight more such collections for Orient. The last one was published in 2012, two years before Singh died at the age of 99.
Referred to as the “dirty old man of Indian journalism”, Singh pioneered the joke book genre in India, and even though it has been two years since he passed away, his books continue to rule the market in this segment. In fact, they still sell at a time when most publishers are giving up on the format.
"We were lucky to have a big personality like him writing for us," said Sudhir Malhotra, owner, Orient Publishing. "Nobody handled humour better than Singh. He was the modern-day Birbal and Tenali Ram. He knew how to narrate a joke. He did it with finesse and grace while being cheeky at the same time.”
Beating the trend
Each of Singh’s joke books has had at least a dozen reprints.
Khushwant Singh's name is a brand in itself, said Sumit Sharma of Amrit Book Co. in Delhi's Connaught Place.
“Nobody is interested in buying joke books anymore, especially if not written by Khushwant Singh,” said Sharma pointing to a stack of books titled Modern Joke Books published by Rohan Book Company collecting dust next to a pile of joke books authore

Khushwant Singh, RIP
(Khushwant Singh died at the age of 99, just before his 100th summer. An old profile, in tribute.)

What do smart sardars and UFOs have in common?You hear a lot about them but no one’s actually met one.(Politically incorrect joke found on the Internet.)
I don’t know where you’d go to meet a UFO, but the polar opposite of the conventional sardar joke lives in Sujan Singh Park. Make an appointment, dodge a clowder of friendly cats, eyeball the legendary sign that advises you not to ring doorbell if you don’t have the said appointment, and spend an hour with Khushwant Singh. Who is, as the old joke has it, still “a surd among intellectuals, an intellectual among surds”.
Khushwant Singh, at the age of 90, has more books behind him than Delhi has new authors launched in the course of a year. (Ask him, and he’ll respond with his trademark line: “Any rubbish I write gets published.”) The Library of Congress logged 99 books about or by Khushwant-and this was in 2002, before he added more (he’s lost count himself). “[This] would inevitably be my last book, my swansong penned in the evening of my life,” he wrote at the age of 87, in the Prologue to his autobiography, Truth, Love & a little Malice, “I am fast running out of writer’s ink.”
Three years later, he told Outlook, “No one has yet invented a condom for the writer’s pen.” His most recent novel, Burial At Sea, is simultaneously receiving its last rites from reviewers and making the bestseller charts courtesy his fans. He has finished revising his monumental History of the Sikhs, a collection of short stories is due out, he’s contemplating another novel-and that’s not counting the bits and pieces that feed the awesome Khushwant industry.
His two weekly columns draw postcards by the hundreds and are syndicated in over 12 different Indian languages. I’v

Khushwant singh wife