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Khushwant Singh, the renowned scholar, journalist and editor, has finally come out with his much awaited autobiography, "Truth, Love and a Little Malice." His fans who have been reading his column, " With Malice Towards One and All," in the Illustrated Weekly and Hindustan Times, "This Above All" in The Tribune, his controversial books, Company of Women, Unforgettable Women, and the novel Delhi will be adequately compensated. He gives blunt opinions about his friends and foes, exaggerates their weaknesses, weaves stories around some anecdotes with the creative imagination of a fiction writer, and adds doses of sensationalism here and there in the narration.

There is no dearth of juicy masala of K Singh’s variety in the book. His characters swear in typical unsavory Punjabi (Punjabi galan). He has a dig at every one, friend or foe, from Nehru, Krishna Menon, Indira Gandhi to Sikh leaders Bhinderanwale, Buta Singh, Balwant Singh, and Sikh intellectuals Kapur Singh, Tarlochan Singh, Gopal Singh, etc.

He remembers Nehru as a vain and arrogant man. Singh narrates an interesting story of Nehru’s secret midnight visit to Lady Edwina Mountbattan which The Daily Herald covered with a large photograph of Nehru with Lady Mountbatten in her negligeé opening the door for him!

Singh perhaps reserves the worst for Indira Gandhi. He not only gives a detailed account of Indira Gandhi’s petty and vindictive nature as mother-in-law (when she threw Maneka Gandhi, her widowed daughter-in-law, out of her house), but holds her responsible for all the ailments of India. " I had no great admiration for her as Prime Minister and I am convinced that all that has gone wrong with the country emanated from her," observes Khushwant Singh .

He is furious about her secret plans to attack The Golden Temple in 1984, despite her assurances to the contrary. On the Blue Star Operation he writes :

In protest Khushwant Singh returned the Padma Bhushan award to the President of India, Giani Zial Singh. Gianiji, being a Sikh in that high office, felt quite a lot of guilt about this. "I don’t think my qaum (community) will ever forgive me for this," confessed Gianiji. "No, Gianiji I don’t think the Sikhs will ever forgive you for the Blue Star," confirmed an angry Khushwant Singh. Khushwant Singh also decries the 1984 Delhi pogrom against the Sikhs where his own life was in danger. He describes how he exposed the nefarious designs of the government in his speeches in Rajya Sabha. For a more detailed account of this turbulent period, one must read his  A History of the Sikhs, Vol.2, 1999.

Despite his aversion to religion, and his Western thinking and bohemian life style, he stuck to his Sikh identity, and to his wife. "I continued to retain the outward emblems of the Khalsa not because of any conviction but out of a wish to remain a part of the Khalsa fraternity," claims Khushwant Singh. When his son became clean-shaven, he was deeply hurt. At one point, when his relations with his wife came to a breaking point, and she threatened to leave him, he spent the whole night in Gurdwara Bangla Sahib praying for the strength to face the crisis. While translating the hymns of Guru Nanak, he felt the hand of the Guru on his shoulder. The religious influence of his grandmother in his childhood did not go to waste.

Though Khushwant Singh knew many Sikhs were not happy with him for his anti-religion views, he always yearned for recognition from his own community. He was disappointed when Akalis picked Lt. Gen. Jagjit Singh Aurora over him as their candidate for Rajya Sabha despite promises made to him. It was a sad commentary on the political maturity of Akalis since he had pleaded the Sikh cause most forcefully and logically in the previous house of Rajya Sabha where he was a nominated member.

Finally recognition came with the award of Nishan-e Khalsa at the tercentennial celebration of the birth of the Khalsa in 1999, and an honorary doctorate from Guru Nanak Dev University, giving Khushwant Singh a sense of fulfillment. His scholarly work, A History of the Sikhs and translations of sacred hymns have reserved him a special place among the galaxy of Sikh scholars.

In his book, Khushwant Singh comes across as a secular man who gave a good coverage to Muslims in the Illustrated Weekly. He persuaded Lata Mangeshkar to tie Rakhi on the wrist of matinee idol Dilip Kumar. His pre-Partition days in Lahore, fascination with Allama Iqbal’s poetry, and family friendship with M A Jinnah, founder of Pakistan, earned him a good number of friends in Pakistan. He was warmly received whenever he visited Pakistan. Even there he would not hesitate to make fun of bigots whenever he got a chance. Once, in Islamabad, he regaled his audience with an Urdu couplet which became very popular with the people there:

He has a very high opinion of the hospitality of Punjabi Muslims, but for puritans, he has a simple rule, "Avoid making friends with a Punjabi Pakistani who prays five times a day, who fasts during Ramdan- and does not drink."

One thing which endears Khushwant Singh to his readers is his style of providing fun at his own cost. In an early school incident, he played a prank on some rural Sikh students who happened to be with him in the same tent. They got hold of him, took off all of his clothes and threw him out of the tent as a tamasha for others to watch. He tells us that when his mother read his novel, A Train to Pakistan, she called him Beysharam (shameless). He was dubbed a chamcha of Sanjay Gandhi when he wrote in favor of Sanjay in Illustrated Weekly. He tried to persuade Morarji Desai to leave urine therapy and try drinking scotch.

Singh shows no hesitation in putting down his weaknesses as a human. The assassination news of Mahatma Gandhi shook him deeply, but he could not resist the temptation to see a play in a theatre in London the same evening. He failed as a lawyer as he did not like lying for money. He writes, "A common prostitute renders more service to society than lawyers." His visits to prostitutes, taking his daughter and wife to a restaurant in America with topless waitresses, and his affairs with women even after marriage do not enhance his image. The honest man does accept bumps in his married life, but hides the details.

Yet all such acts did not deter the Sulabh International, which honored him with, "The Honest Man of the Year," award in 2000. The award is given every year by the Sulabh International Social Service Organisation to uphold moral values by honouring persons of impeccable character and exceptional integrity. He describes the ceremony in his characteristic style, "I should have turned down the award, but the sum of ten lakh rupees tax free proved too much for me to quibble about my honesty…..To prove how dishonest I could be , I stole the ball point pens from the portfolios of Chandrababu Naidu, Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, who presided over the function."

The book, however, is not free from minor errors and omissions. In 1975, Indira Gandhi’s election to the Lok Sabha was declared invalid by Justice Jagmohan Lal Sinha of the Allahabad High Court, not by Justice Verma as given in the book. Normally a biography has pictures of the author’s family, of eminent persons and places that influence his life, but this book has none. We know little about the birth of his children, or the time he spent with them, and there is not much about his brothers, sister or their families. He does talk of his Leftist leanings during his Lahore days, but tells us little about the great minds who influenced him in that direction, or how and why he turned against organized religion. He does not give dates with the incidents. It is difficult to ascertain when something actually happened.

Finally, his obsession with sex and profanity, which keeps appearing every few  pages has spoiled an otherwise compelling commentary on the contemporary politics, politicians, literary figures and his friends which  keeps the reader glued to the book. His most loyal fans will love the book, but others who had seen flashes of his genius in his monumental works, A History of the Sikhs and, A Train to Pakistan, will be disappointed.

Recitation of Guruvani is a perennially elevating personal experience, sometimes, sobering, often ecstatic, but occasionally melancholic and sobering. In so far the original text, in hymns classified according to ragas, is in Gurmukhi, script that is easily understood by most Hindi knowing people, a translation might seem superfluous. Yet in modern time it is - arguably - the translation into English which helps evoke the spiritual moods and instil the philosophical nuances, touching the depth of our consciousness.

This evocative translation of Rehras, the Sikh evening prayer, is enchantingly soulful, for it combines the message and the melody in felicitous English, thanks to a rare rapport between the two translators: one young, keen and devout and the other profoundly skillful with the English idiom; both keen to communicate the quintessential message of Rehras. The translation endeavours to capture the cadence and the repturous spirit of Guru Nanak’s sodar, the piognancy of Guru Ram Das’s So-purakh - one a cosmic invocation and eulogy, and the other a soul-stirring paean to the wondrous Creator who dwells in every heart - even as He is beyond our comprehension.

The text, in Devanagari, is a boon for general readers in India unfamiliar with Gurmukhi. Though costly at Rs. 195 the connoiseur - as well as the pious learner - would perhaps appreciate that the dainty pocket size book is meant for regular recitation and constant inspiration on a daily basis.