Khushwant? Absolutely

Khushwant Singh tells how his latest book Absolute Khushwant came about

Is there a universally accepted definition of absolute truth? Just as change is the only constant, the quality of being human militates against the very idea of an absolute. Maybe that's why Gandhiji, whose status as the epitome of truth earned him the epithet Mahatma, only got as far as “experiments with truth”. Seemingly at the other end of the spectrum from the ascetic Mahatma is the irrepressible Khushwant Singh, who states that Gandhiji is his icon, and that in moments of quandary he does as he thinks Gandhiji would have.

This dichotomy, among the many puzzling paradoxes that characterise India's “grand old man of letters”, is what makes the title of his latest book so apt: Absolute Khushwant, a Penguin publication, released this week. But surely the chief of these paradoxes is that Singh, after half a century as a journalist, authoring over two dozen books, being an editor of leading national journals and dailies, and continuing to write two columns a week, should need a co-author. The cover of Absolute Khushwant tells us the book is by “Khushwant Singh with Humra Quraishi”.

One wonders if it could be because he is closer to 100 than 90 and needed a hand. But that is obviously not so. Singh, though tired the day after the launch and (honestly, as always) admitting he couldn't hear much of the proceedings as his hearing aid was not efficient enough, has certainly not ceded his command over the pen. This book was not his idea at all, he states simply. It was Penguin's.

Full report here Hindu