The most readable and trustworthy account of the history of the Sikhs yet. Sikhism has stood the test of time and stands for universal brotherhood. Here is a book that narrates the history of this glorious religion without emphasizing its recent dirty and divisive politics (as opposed to Patwant Singh's attempt at 'history')

Highly recommended for uninitiated westerners, serious scholars and history buffs.

there millions of sikhs all over the world, who would like to know about their heritage, in a nondistorted way. there is no reliable text that one could refer to. kushwant singh probably is the most reliable source at this point.we should not be deprived of this source of enlightenment.

Like Train to Pakistan, this book explores a side of Indias history that was very very painful. It is a towering achievement in storytelling, and is a compulsively readable book. Khushwant Singh is a well known Delhi based journalist who views India with an unflinching eye, and populates his stories with utterly believable characters and situations.There is much tragedy, and much humour throughout the book. Do not be surprised if you shed a tear reading this one.

Khushwant Singh's genius is in plain view. This is a story of a Sikh family in the days before India's independence. The father is a minor official, a loyal servant of the British. The son is a hot blooded young revolutionary, but emotionally still a child. I Shall Not Hear The Nightingale gives the reader a window into the world of this family caught up in changing times and the turmoil they endure. It is a unique look at the relationship of the British masters with those Indians who were loyal to them, at the unravelling of that relationship, and at the heartbreaking devastation it brought to the families of Punjab.

This book is a must read for those interested in Indian history, culture, and psyche. All Britishers, Indians and Pakistanis should read it, as should students of the social impact of decolonization.

Khushwant Singh is the Master of Bawd ! This novel is the product of twenty-five years of his libidinal excursions into literature. As he says in the foreword, he has injected liberally, in this interpretation of the history of Delhi, the stores of his seminal fluid. Only a master of the language like Khushwant Singh can write such an erudite thesis on the expulsion of wind from the nether orifices - the chapter on farts is a masterpiece. The weaving of the past and the present with a characteristic Khushwant-style bawdy humor, can be appreciated truly only by the denizens of Delhi, who have grown up reading his novels, articles and jokes. But I highly recommend reading this masterpiece from the author of The Train to Pakistan. Only true Khushwant Singh fans can appreciate the untying of the Pyjama Cord of History that he has attempted in this novel (like his heroes who invariably open the heroine's pyjama cords).

He has dealt with subjects which I had no idea exhisted in Delhi. I understand this book is out of print. A have a copy available practically as new. I would like to sell if a good offer is given.

The book starts early in this millenium, and with each alternate chapter proceeds through the centuries until the present time, alternating with chapters based in the present. The chapters dealing with the past are fanstastic especially if you know the city of Delhi and have curiosity about its history. The story is told from the viewpoints of various characters, with different styles, and is really a marvelous read.

unfortunatley the parts dealing with the present (or within the last 50 years) are rather lame. Only the first and the last chapters that tell of the present are must reads. The rest are quite forgettable and quite disturbing to the sensibilities of many.

But despite this, the book has to be read by anybody who is interested in how India took its present shape over the centuries. If you don't care about the History of India, skip it.

Umrao Jan Ada is perhaps one of the most enigmatic, and forgotten female figures in South Asian literature. To date, the question of her existence, her beauty, her scholarly abilities and her poetic gifts remain a mystery. The book is an account of Umrao's life, documented by a close friend and supposedly dictated by Umrao. While the novel offers no twists and turns shuttling the reader into a "what happens next?" frenzy, it is a remarkable and very effective attempt to capture the essense of what it meant to be a courtesan in royal india. The novel weaves Umrao's story with a delicate sprinkiling of poetry, royal societal dynamics, as well as an indepth glance at a long since forgotten profession. I highly reccommend this novel to any enthusiast of Royal India, Indian poetry, and South Asian studies in general. For poetry enthusiasts, and for those readers who are well versed in Urdu, the Urdu version of this book is remarkable.

A courtesans life told as no other than Ruswa could tell it. He uses the very flower of the urdu language to his advantage. It is the passion, pleasue and glory of mughal India and her incomparable courtesans.

Khushwant Singh's Train to Pakistan brings about the human implications and intensity of the event which is merely a historical event for most of us who have not witnessed it-Partition of India.The novel traces the growth of the town of Mano Majra-from the peaceful abode of hindus and musilms to a battlefield.The spirit of revenge forces people to plan massacre of their own brothers and sisters with whom they had lived amicably for years.However,in a stirring climax which ensues,its love which triumphs and saves scores of muslims from being butchered.
Khushwant Singh's exquisite portrayl lends life to the characters and makes the novel all the more interesting and realistic.One can actually hear the rattle of train across the river bridge,the arrival of monsoon-a perfect setting for rural India.

I thought this book was terrific. I read it on a long airplane flight and could not stop turning the pages. I don't read a lot of fiction, but I was really engrossed in this novel. It found it very powerful and moving. I knew next to nothing about India and was basically ignorant the Sikh religion and the events surrounding the 1947 partition of the country. The book has a large cast of vividly drawn characters I really cared about and was heart-poundingly suspenseful. I also learned a lot. It's not in the least sentimental and is very much a "man's book." I recommend it very highly.

To get some insight on the people behind the muslim-sikh-hindu troubles in India and Pakistan, this is a must-read. It is a brilliant story told in a way that gives the reader an excellent inside on the human factor during the time of the separation and liberation of India and Pakistan. A stranger, a non-religious muslim who has spent most of his life in England, a modern thinker, comes to a small village on what was to be the border between Pakistan and India. In this village, sikhs and muslims live in peace. But in the world around them, the troubles start. In this small village, hell soon breaks loose. In the centre of it all is a young couple from different religions, whos fate together is made impossible from this sudden outbust of sectarianism on both sides. It's a marvellous book.

A nautch girl's freedom to choose her lover can never have been unambiguous, as Mirza Mohammed Hadi Ruswa's novel on Umrao Jan, the famous courtesan of Lucknow, amply suggests. Ruswa himself described the circumstances under which Umrao Jan Ada came to be written: one evening, at a gathering of his friends where poetry was being read and discussed, a woman from the next door apartment was heard to voice her appreciation of a couplet that Ruswa had recited. Ruswa then had a word with her; she was persuaded to join the group, where she recited a verse whose last lines were:

"Who will listen to the tale of my woeful heart? Far and wide have I wandered on the face of this earth And I have much to impart."

At Ruswa's prompting, Umrao related her life to him over several sittings, and those narratives Ruswa committed to writing; it is in Umrao's words, that the narrative was to find shape. Umrao had a large hand in the characterization of her own life. She had a command over words and her easy facility with poetry won her a following among the aristocratic literati of Lucknow: with her couplets she stole their hearts. Kidnapped by a ruffian who sought to exact revenge for the term he had served in jail on the strength of testimony given by her father, Umrao was brought to Lucknow, and eventually sold into the establishment of Madame Khanum Jan. It was at this house of prostitution that she was to live out the greater part of her life; it was there that she was transformed from Ameeran to Umrao. Luckily, her education was entrusted to a scholar who combined his refined tastes and not inconsiderable learning with a real affection for Umrao. "From the shapeless log of wood that I was," Umrao was to say, "he chiselled out a civilised being"; it was the Maulvi who endowed Umrao with the confidence that allowed her not merely to sit with cultured company but to "command the respect and attention of wealthy aristocrats". Most significantly, the scholar nurtured her interest in poetry until it had "developed into a passion", and that was the passion with which she was to etch the story of her life indelibly onto the social and cultural imagination of Lucknow.

As Khushwant Singh and M. A. Husaini, whose endeavors have brought Umrao Jan Ada to readers of English, point out in their introduction, Umrao Jan Ada conveys "a flavour of all that was Lucknow -- its language, its poetry and music, and the way of life of its citizens". This was the city that perfected the culture of the social grace and where everyone aspired to be a poet. The very decadence of Lucknow not merely aristocratic but inimitable.

Umrao Jan undoubtedly evokes some of the ambience for which Lucknow was renowned, but it is the complex characterization of Umrao and the life that she led which makes the novel memorable and significant. In Ruswa's rendering of Umrao, the courtesan is most candid about her profession: though it may well be a woman's desire to be loved, a desire that swells as she grows older, it is not given to a whore to live out this desire. A tart's only friend is her money; she is no one's wife, and if she is foolish enough to give her love to some man, she does so at the considerable risk of jeopardizing her livelihood. When Ruswa interrogates Umrao about the place of love in her life, she is quite forthright in her pronunciation of the view that in her profession "love is a current coin. Whenever we want to ensnare anyone we pretend to fall in love with him." As she adds, no man ever loved her, nor did she ever love any man.

While Umrao's relations with the Nawab Sultan appear to belie her own profession of indifferent engagement with men, her surrender could not have been complete lest her very livelihood should have been endangered, for where was the man who would openly risk his lot with her? A 'respectable' man had a home to which he could return, and a wife to embrace, but what was the net of safety around Umrao? Whatever her fame as a singer of laments and as a dancer who could en-trance men as much by the style and substance of her poetic deliveries as by her movements, she would perforce be judged by the refinement of the pleasures that were hers to offer in bed. God might well forgive streetwalkers who repent, Umrao was to reflect, but "good women never" do so. They are "suspicious and contemptuous of women who go astray", for "however lovely a character" these good women may have, and however good housekeepers these women might be, they find to their great chagrin that men "will fall for a street woman who may have nothing in the way of looks, and may be wanting in all other qualities as well". Loathed by "good women", and reduced ultimately by their patrons and clients to tools of their pleasure, what could these courtesans, howsoever beautiful and talented, hope for by way of some secure place within the socio-economic and cultural fabric of Indian society?

Umrao emerges finally as a woman with formidable reservoirs of strength, almost ponderously reflective, as she slips into old age, about the strange twists of destiny that carried her from the confined world of the hearth to a realm where, though the regimes of power were just as portent, she could experience herself as an agent. It is this wild horse of ambiguity that Umrao Jan, the novel as much as the character, rides with admirable candor

This book exemplifies the plight of the South Asian Society in the 21st century. It is an excellent overview and depicts something which can be related to anyone living in South Asia. Very Well Done Khushwant Singh!

Dedinetly this book is not upto the mark of "Train to Pakistan" or "Delhi". Except here and there Singh's touches of human relationship(Mohan with his father, his Haridwar experience with his father, with Molly Gomes and before Mohan's death) and the "short story like" end(that is the reason, it qualifies for the 1 star rating), you can read the rest in Penthouse letters.

This book tells us a story of man and his women, but I can feel the love of a son to his father. I can find sex in this book, meanwhile it tells me I must love my father. Yes, Father is more important than a woman.

I bought this book on a recent trip to Delhi and found it vaguely fascinating. I couldn't believe that one of Indias most respected writers, historians and political thinkers was indulging in erotic fantasy.

Mohan Kumar is a middle aged divorcee who embarks on an erotic odyssey. The book is probably quite accurate with regard to the social mores inherent in middle class Indian society which dictate that sexual relationships with unattached contemporaries of similar social standing are largely taboo.

Poor Kumar has to resort to advertisements in national newspapers to recruit live-in companions who will be handsomely remunerated for their services ( By Indian standards )

Kumar's relationships with a veritable range of Indian women from different parts of the subcontinent are initially fulfilling but lead ultimately to disappointment.

As the protagonist who brings women to his luxurious lair one may get the feeling that he uses women.But a closer examination of the individual encounters leaves one with the feeling that it is Kumar who is being exploited by the womenfolk in question, mainly for money and sex.

Eventually, there is a salutory lesson on the risks of unprotected sex, certainly timely in the context of Indias ever burgeoning problems with HIV.

The narrative uses some interesting devices in terms of switching from the first person to the third person and flits niftily from one period of Kumars life to another.

The book also provides familiar insights into every day life in Delhi for those familiar with this sprawling and increasingly exciting Indian metropolis