Sardarji is definitely making money with an equal speed as he lost what he had in legacy. Khushwant Singh in his latest work has brought a lot of dirty linen from everyone’s closet to the public ghat.
Gossip if you like or a feeling of, ’if he can write, so can I’ may be evoked after this reading. He’s one of the most published author in India. His is the most read column in the national daily, The Hindustan Times. But he’s still very much a common man’s writer. Death at my doorstep is a compilation of obituaries of people rich & famous, to friends & even his pet dog Simba. The author has penned his & other’s thoughts on death with no possible conclusion, but good food for thought to munch with your friends in the lunch hour. I for more than one reason would never make my friend’s life miserable by giving out all his secrets to public which is Mr. Singh’s bread & butter now.
At the same time, he becomes the common man’s writer which a simple writing style. You may finish it on a 12 hour train journey & have plenty to discuss for days. The Urdu couplets & works of others that he quotes are beautiful, yet the reader longs for something equally beautiful to come from the writer himself. It all sounds like a diary reading sessions punctuated by borrowed lines of alien thoughts & his own personal bias.
His own republished obituary is not much of a read, but history & legendary personalities through the eyes of the author definately become very human as he counts them down to their finest idiosyncracies that are still hidden from the masses.
Sardarji as I lovingly call him once again proves to be an unstoppable, daring & hardworking man in his mid 80’s.