Audiobooks by Khushwant Singh

'I thought the nation was coming to an end,' wrote Khushwant Singh, looking back on the violence of Partition that he was witness to over half a century ago. He believed then that he had seen the worst that India could do to herself. But after the violence in Gujarat in 2002, he had reason to feel that the worst, perhaps, is still to come.Analysing the communal violence in Gujarat in 2002, the anti-Sikh riots of 1984, the burning of Graham Staines and his children, the targeted killings by terrorists in Punjab and Kashmir, Khushwant Singh forces us to confront the absolute corruption of religion that has made us among the most brutal people on earth. He also points out that fundamentalism has less to do with religion than with politics. And communal politics, he reminds us, is only the most visible of the demons we have nurtured and let loose upon ourselves. A brave and passionate book, The End of India is a wake-up call for every citizen concerned about his or her own future, if not the nation's.'

Khushwant Singh (Author), Rajiv Dadia (Narrator)

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Big book of Malice

'Good people can be crashing bores. Evil men who combine evil-doing with drunkenness, debauchery and making illicit money make more interesting characters because they pack their lives with action. They do what most of us would like to do but do not have the guts to.'-Khushwant SinghMalice. The word is synonymous with Khushwant Singh; his pen has spared no one. For over four decades as India's most widely read columnist, he has commented on just about everything: religion, politics, our future, our past, prohibition, impotency, presidents, politicians, cricket, dog-haters, astrologers, the banning of books, the secret of 1ongevity ... the list is endless.Candid to the point of being outrageous, Khushwant Singh makes both his reader and subject wince. He writes unabashedly on nose picking, wife bashing, bribing journalists, gender wars and the desires of an octogenarian; on Nehru and Edwina, Lalu, Bal Thackeray, Chandraswami and Sonia Gandhi, among host of others.Khushwant Singh's Big Book of Malice brings together some of his nastiest and most irreverent pieces. Witty, sharp and brutally honest, this collection is certain to delight and provoke readers of all ages.'

Khushwant Singh (Author), Faraz Khan (Narrator)

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Absolute Khushwant

I would like to be remembered as someone who made people smile.' One of the great icons of our time, Khushwant Singh, 95, is a man of contradictions. An agnostic who's well-versed in the holy scriptures; a vocal champion of free speech who supported the Emergency; a 'dirty old man' who sees 'the world in a grain of sand and beauty in a wild flower'. Born in 1915 in pre-Partition Punjab, Khushwant Singh has been witness to almost all the major events in modern Indian history and has known most of the figures who have shaped it. In a career spanning over six decades as writer, editor and journalist, his views have been provocative and controversial, but they have also been profound, deeply perceptive and always compelling. Khushwant Singh has never been less than honest. In Absolute Khushwant, India's grand old man of letters tells us about his life, his loves and his work. He writes on happiness, faith and honesty. And, for the first time, about his successes and failures, his strengths and weaknesses, his highs and lows. He tells us what makes him tick and the secret of his longevity; he confesses his deepest fears and what he holds dear. He writes about sex, marriage, worship and death; the people he's admired and detested. With personal anecdotes and rare photographs, Absolute Khushwant is uncompromising, moving, and straight from the heart.

Humra Quraishi, Khushwant Singh (Author), Aneesh Nair (Narrator)

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The Sunset Club

Meet the members of the Sunset Club: Pandit Preetam Sharma; Nawab Barkatullah Baig and Sardar Boota Singh. Friends for over forty years; they are now in their eighties. And every evening; at the sunset hour; they sit together on a bench in Lodhi Gardens to exchange news and views on the events of the day; talking about everything from love; lust; sex and scandal to religion and politics. As he follows a year in the lives of the three men—from January 26 2009 to January 26 2010—Khushwant Singh brings his characters vibrantly to life; with his piquant portrayals of their fantasies and foibles; his unerring ear for dialogue and his genius for capturing the flavour and texture of everyday life in their households. Interwoven with this compelling human story is another chronicle – of a year in the life of India; as the country goes through the cycle of seasons; the tumult of general elections; violence; natural disasters and corruption in high places. In turn ribald and lyrical; poignant and profound; The Sunset Club is a deeply moving exploration of friendship; sexuality; old age and infirmity; a joyous celebration of nature; an insightful portrait of India’s paradoxes and complexities. A masterpiece from one of India’s most-loved storytellers; The Sunset Club will have you in tears and laughter; and grip you from the first page to the last.

Khushwant Singh (Author), Anish Nair (Narrator)

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Book Of Unforgettable Women

Khushwant Singh’s Book of Unforgettable Women is a brilliant recount of women in the author’s life—women who left their mark by shaping up his perspectives on different aspects. Khushwant Singh had quoted that women had sought his company more than he sought theirs, although he was nothing to look at! In this book, Khushwant chronicles the profiles of a few women he had known in his lifetime. Ghayoorunnisa Hafeez—the girl who changed his stance on Muslims forever, his wife Kaval Malik—who is sensitive to media publicity, his grandmother, the debated artist Amrita Shergil, Mother Teresa, Phoolan Devi Khushwant paints vibrant and true-to-life depictions of the women he had known, loved, loathed, respected, and lived with. The book also describes some of those women that Khushwant Singh has conjured up in his stories and novels he had written over six decades. The dynamic Martha Stack from Black Jasmine, Lady Mohan Lal from Karma, Jean Memsahib from The Memsahib of Mandla, the greedy Champak from I Shall Not Hear The Nightingale, the dark-eyed Nooran from Train to Pakistan, and the free-spirited Molly Gomes from The Company of Women are some of his flamboyant characters who are certainly going to amuse you.

Khushwant Singh (Author), Tavish Bhattacharyya (Narrator)

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Not a Nice Man To Know

The essential Khushwant Singh collection. In an essay in this anthology, Khushwant Singh claims that he is not a nice man to know. Whatever the truth of that assertion, there is little question about his skill as a witty, eloquent and entertaining writer. This book collects the best of over three decades of the author's prose-including his finest journalistic pieces, short stories, translations, jokes, plays as well as excerpts from his non-fiction books and novels. Taken together, the pieces in this selection (some of which have never been published before) show just why Khushwant Singh is the country's most widely read columnist and one of its most celebrated authors.

Khushwant Singh (Author), Dev Haldar J (Narrator)

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The Lost Victory

The Lost Victory perfectly captures the cultural essence of 1942 and the urgency of this colourful and moving pageant of a nation about to throw off the yoke of foreign rule. Essentially, it is the story of Buta Singh, a shrewd and wily official working with the British, and of Sher Singh, his vain and ambitious son driven to rebellion against the foreign master. It is also the story of the women of the family—Champak, Sher’s beautiful wife, her wild passions bursting the bonds of century-old prohibitions, and Sabhrai, Sher’s mother, whose matriarchal strength sustains the family in its time of crisis. What happens to this family when a brutal and senseless murder sets father against son, wife against husband, is told against the background of an India torn by religious tension and fraternal strife.

Khushwant Singh (Author), Akshay Ghildiyal (Narrator)

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The Company Of Women

Recently separated from his nagging, ill-tempered wife of thirteen years, millionaire businessman Mohan Kumar decides to reinvent his life. Convinced that 'lust is the true foundation of love', he embarks on an audacious plan: he will advertise for paid lady companions to share his bed and his life. Thus begins his journey of easy, unbridled sexuality in the company of some remarkable women.There is Sarojini Bharadwai, the demure professor from small-town Haryana who surprises Mohan with her ardour and sexual energy; Molly Gomes, the free-spirited masseuse from Goa, mistress of the sensual impulse; and Susanthika Goonatilleke, the diminutive seductress from Sri Lanka. After each affair ends and before the next begins, Mohan finds solace in the practiced charms of his obliging maid, Dhanno, and in the memories of his first lovers: the American Jessica Browne, to whom he lost his virginity, and the Pakistani Yasmeen Wanchoo, who brought him the heady passion of an older woman. In The Company of Women, Khushwant Singh, India's most widely read author, has produced an uninhibited, erotic and endlessly entertaining celebration of love, sex and passion.

Akshay, Khushwant Singh (Author), Akshay (Narrator)

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Train To Pakistan

Mano Majra is a place, Khushwant Singh tells us at the beginning of this classic novel, where Sikhs and Muslims have lived together in peace for hundreds of years. Then one day, at the end of the summer, the 'ghost train' arrives, a silent, incredible funeral train loaded with the bodies of thousands of refuges, bringing the village its first taste of the horrors of the civil war. Train to Pakistan is the story of this isolated village that is plunged into the abyss of religious hate. It is also the story of a Sikh boy and a Muslim girl whose love endures and transcends the ravages of war.

Khushwant Singh (Author), Paul Thottam (Narrator)

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Delhi

I return to Delhi as I return to my mistress Bhagmati when I have had my fill of whoring in foreign lands…’ Thus begins Khushwant Singh’s vast, erotic, irrelevant magnum opus on the city of Delhi. The principal narrator of the saga, which extends over six hundred years, is a bawdy, ageing reprobate who loves Delhi as much as he does the hijda whore Bhagmati—half man, half woman with sexual inventiveness and energy of both the sexes. Travelling through time, space and history to ‘discover’ his beloved city, the narrator meets a myriad of people—poets and princes, saints and sultans, temptresses and traitors, emperors and eunuchs—who have shaped and endowed Delhi with its very special mystique. And as we accompany the narrator on his epic journey we find the city of emperors transformed and immortalized in our minds forever.

Khushwant Singh (Author), Deo Haldar (Narrator)

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Truth Love And A Little Malice

Born in 1915 in pre-Partition Punjab, Khushwant Singh, perhaps India’s most widely read and controversial writer has been witness to most of the major events in modern Indian history from Independence and Partition to the Emergency and Operation Blue Star and has known many of the figures who have shaped it. With clarity and candour, he writes of leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, the terrorist Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, the talented and scandalous painter Amrita Shergil, and everyday people who became butchers during Partition. 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 sixty years; his first, awkward sexual encounter; his phobia of ghosts and his fascination with death; the friends who betrayed him, and also those whom he failed.

Akshay, Khushwant Singh (Author), Akshay (Narrator)

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Songs Of The Gurus

The Sikh religion was founded by Guru Nanak (1469–1539), who drew upon the teachings of Muslim, Sufis and Hindu Bhaktas. In its purest form Sikhism is about unity, simplicity, equality and surrender (to God) and the verses of the Sikh Gurus—most of them included in the Granth Sahib—articulate this beautifully. This elegantly illustrated edition contains a selection of verses from the Guru Granth Sahib and other sacred texts like Guru Tegh Bahadur’s Vairagmayi Bani and the Dasam Granth of Guru Gobind Singh. Brilliantly translated by Khushwant Singh, these moving mystical hymns retain the immediacy and the lyricism of the originals. In addition, vibrant and imaginative illustrations by Arpana Caur, one of India’s most celebrated artists, make this a collection to treasure.0

Khushwant Singh (Author), Deo Haldar, Dev J. Haldar (Narrator)

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