Patwant Singh was a truly multi-faceted personality. He was the polished face of the Sikhs in the later decades of his life. Patwant Singh was born in New Delhi, the city in which he died on August 7, 2009. In the 1980s I lived near his house because my mother, Inderjit Kaur, was Chairman, Staff Selection, Commission. She and my father, Giani Gurdit Singh, and sometimes I too, would meet Patwant Singh at his house. He was a good house-proud person and I have great memories of that time in the early 1980, when I was still studying.

Incidentally, I also have the honour of being a co-author, with him and Khushwant Singh, of a book that is just been published—Women, Many hues, Many shades.

Please click here to read my obituary of this great writer, perceptive thinker and truly an aesthete.