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More Malicious Gossip
This selection of Khushwant Singh's prose is like the man himself: blunt, perceptive, incorrigibly provocative, often amusing but always bubbling with life. The book includes candid portrayals of public personalities such as Zail Singh, Rajiv Gandhi, Nani Palkhivala, Rajni Patel and Nargis Dutt. There are also vivid portrayals of public personalities such as Zail Singh, Rajiv Gandhi, Nani Palkhivala, Rajni Patel and Nargis Dutt. There are also vivid portraits of places such as Delhi, Amritsar, Goa, Lucknow, Bhopal and Hyderabad. Then there are his musings on such issues as communalism, terrorism and bride burning, still as vivid today as when the pieces were first written.
- GenresNonfictionIndia
280 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
9 people are currently reading
51 people want to read
About the author
Khushwant Singh
298 books1,428 followersKhushwant Singh, (Punjabi: ਖ਼ੁਸ਼ਵੰਤ ਸਿੰਘ, Hindi: खुशवंत सिंह) born on 2 February 1915 in Hadali, Undivided India, (now a part of Pakistan), was a prominent Indian novelist and journalist. Singh's weekly column, "With Malice towards One and All", carried by several Indian newspapers, was among the most widely-read columns in the country.
An important post-colonial novelist writing in English, Singh is best known for his trenchant secularism, his humor, and an abiding love of poetry. His comparisons of social and behavioral characteristics of Westerners and Indians are laced with acid wit.
An important post-colonial novelist writing in English, Singh is best known for his trenchant secularism, his humor, and an abiding love of poetry. His comparisons of social and behavioral characteristics of Westerners and Indians are laced with acid wit.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
December 10, 2022
A collection of articles about people, places, ideas and more. Some articles are well written, some are criminally short, some are utterly biased, some are candid and some are malicious like the title itself. Khushwant Singh doesn’t shy away from being himself which is clearly visible from the topics he highlighted in his articles. Quite a good read I will say.
February 6, 2017
I liked this anthology less than malicious gossip. Perhaps the newness of the concept wasn't there anymore. Still many of the pieces were very good.
The two most memorable articles were on Charles Sobhraj and on Death and dying. In the Sobhraj one, the midway digression into a hilarious anecdote of another daredevil - Daniel Walcott, an American gunrunner, is superb. The other piece on death is quite philosophical, with a lot of lovely quotes and thoughts.
Among the rest, the ones on terrorism, communalism, bride-burning etc are short but thought provoking.
The two most memorable articles were on Charles Sobhraj and on Death and dying. In the Sobhraj one, the midway digression into a hilarious anecdote of another daredevil - Daniel Walcott, an American gunrunner, is superb. The other piece on death is quite philosophical, with a lot of lovely quotes and thoughts.
Among the rest, the ones on terrorism, communalism, bride-burning etc are short but thought provoking.
August 11, 2025
tharkee elitist boodha
April 1, 2018
More Malicious Gossip.
Khushwant Singh.
Harper Collins India.
2012 edition. Pp- 280.
Originally published in 1989, this book here is a collection of some of the best written by Khushwant Singh.
In these pages, you'll know the people that Mr Singh had met in his life, people worth being characters themselves and you'll know of the places, both common and strange that he's been to and you'll know the (sensitive) issues Khushwant Singh strongly and proudly opinionated upon.
And you know what else you'll find? Not surprisingly at all, you'll find the fine charm and wit and humour and satire and much more that Mr Singh has been ever famous for.
If you've, like me, grown up reading his articles in the newspaper, this book is for you. It's like a sweet reminder of all the times I picked up my scissors to cut out his articles (anywhere I found them) and keep them in a folder to go back to. This book is exactly the nostalgia that the folder of collected articles brings with it.
For me, this book has been more than a book and I hope if I borrow Amazon's description of it, I'd do a little justice explaining it to you all-
"This selection of Khushwant Singh's prose is like the man himself: blunt, perceptive, incorrigibly provocative, often amusing but always bubbling with life."
For now, a 4 on 5.
Till next time! Happy reading you all!
#bookstagramindia #bookstagrammer #bookstagram #bookreview #khushwantsingh #moremaliciousgossip #htbrunch #htbrunchbookchallenge #BrunchBookChallenge 15 down @htbrunch.
Also available on Wordpress, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Amazon.
Khushwant Singh.
Harper Collins India.
2012 edition. Pp- 280.
Originally published in 1989, this book here is a collection of some of the best written by Khushwant Singh.
In these pages, you'll know the people that Mr Singh had met in his life, people worth being characters themselves and you'll know of the places, both common and strange that he's been to and you'll know the (sensitive) issues Khushwant Singh strongly and proudly opinionated upon.
And you know what else you'll find? Not surprisingly at all, you'll find the fine charm and wit and humour and satire and much more that Mr Singh has been ever famous for.
If you've, like me, grown up reading his articles in the newspaper, this book is for you. It's like a sweet reminder of all the times I picked up my scissors to cut out his articles (anywhere I found them) and keep them in a folder to go back to. This book is exactly the nostalgia that the folder of collected articles brings with it.
For me, this book has been more than a book and I hope if I borrow Amazon's description of it, I'd do a little justice explaining it to you all-
"This selection of Khushwant Singh's prose is like the man himself: blunt, perceptive, incorrigibly provocative, often amusing but always bubbling with life."
For now, a 4 on 5.
Till next time! Happy reading you all!
#bookstagramindia #bookstagrammer #bookstagram #bookreview #khushwantsingh #moremaliciousgossip #htbrunch #htbrunchbookchallenge #BrunchBookChallenge 15 down @htbrunch.
Also available on Wordpress, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Amazon.
February 20, 2019
'More Malicious Gossip' is divided into three parts, viz, ‘With malice unspared’- personality portraits, ‘Going places’- travelogues and ‘Musings’- essays.
The first part describes the lesser known facets of people admired and hated. Their lives, careers and their real self have been described (read exposed) in a very to-the-point manner. The people included are Lord Mountbatten, urdu poet Faiz ahmed Faiz, dacoit turned MP Phoolan Devi, criminal Charles Shobhraj, actors Nargis Dutt and Ingrid Bergman, and Mughal ruler Aurengzeb, amongst others. Whatever he writes is his unbiased and frank point of view. He bashes politicians openly and cuts them to size. He describes how an innocent village lass Phoolan became a notorious dacoit, how Faiz Ahmed Faiz (who also happened to be his senior in college) was unhappy with the way Pakistani government worked and was looped into the dirty game of politics, how Shobhraj cleverly escaped from prison, and many other things. This part 1 is immensely readable.
The second part is travelogues. Khushwant Singh has traveled around the world and his writings on places are also quite interesting. He describes places like Syria, Germany and various Indian cities like Konark, Hyderabad and Goa.
The third part is Musings, essays and his thoughts and opinions on various things like disturbance in Punjab, family planning, dowry deaths, God and religion. This part is also extremely interesting. Here you’ll find naked truths and unbiased contemplation of matters we come across everyday but rarely stop to ponder upon.
The first part describes the lesser known facets of people admired and hated. Their lives, careers and their real self have been described (read exposed) in a very to-the-point manner. The people included are Lord Mountbatten, urdu poet Faiz ahmed Faiz, dacoit turned MP Phoolan Devi, criminal Charles Shobhraj, actors Nargis Dutt and Ingrid Bergman, and Mughal ruler Aurengzeb, amongst others. Whatever he writes is his unbiased and frank point of view. He bashes politicians openly and cuts them to size. He describes how an innocent village lass Phoolan became a notorious dacoit, how Faiz Ahmed Faiz (who also happened to be his senior in college) was unhappy with the way Pakistani government worked and was looped into the dirty game of politics, how Shobhraj cleverly escaped from prison, and many other things. This part 1 is immensely readable.
The second part is travelogues. Khushwant Singh has traveled around the world and his writings on places are also quite interesting. He describes places like Syria, Germany and various Indian cities like Konark, Hyderabad and Goa.
The third part is Musings, essays and his thoughts and opinions on various things like disturbance in Punjab, family planning, dowry deaths, God and religion. This part is also extremely interesting. Here you’ll find naked truths and unbiased contemplation of matters we come across everyday but rarely stop to ponder upon.
July 8, 2017
straight from Khushwant Singh's heart.
February 5, 2016
More of the same, in more than one way, as the Malicious Gossip before this, with some new parts. There is a part with description of places and there are reviews in another one.
Khushwant reviews Nirad Chaudhary's book in one piece, for example, abusing Hinduism and India generally, with a lazy glee. Lazy because he gives excerpts and little if anything else. Glee is obvious in how very copiously he quotes the abusive, negative, and so forth.
Both of these guys being completely ignorant of their nation of origin, and dismissive of most of anything not taught in their curriculum designed by Macaulay's program to manufacture brown sahibs that would smash India to bits without Brits having to do it, pretty much like the Madras corps used to defeat Indian freedom fighters and Indian soldiers and policemen to subdue Asia so that pretty much all Asia hated Indians, this piece offers anything new only in that these two should be quite so thoroughly ignorant of nation of their origin and culture thereof, but then again this simply means that the two of them either ignored their own roots or disparaged them at heart, preferring to follow the paleface (as natives of another continent called them) invaders. Most Indian know better.
One clue to this author is in another piece where he describes Syria generally and Damascus to begin with. He takes care to point at the locals looking very like Europeans, being quite specific about their golden hair and light skins and so forth. This is very typical of his own origin of deep in region now in Pakistan and bringing up surrounded mostly by Muslim local neighbours, which inculcated values in him more of Muslim than Indian original culture.
Still, there are some interesting bits, from his sheer accessibility to hoi polloi, not because they are interesting by themselves or their inaccessibility makes them so, but because often connections emerge that one was unaware of.
And more than anything else these pieces are strong evidence of how women are maligned generally for no reason other than that they are women and convenient to attack - this guy gossips, and how!
Khushwant reviews Nirad Chaudhary's book in one piece, for example, abusing Hinduism and India generally, with a lazy glee. Lazy because he gives excerpts and little if anything else. Glee is obvious in how very copiously he quotes the abusive, negative, and so forth.
Both of these guys being completely ignorant of their nation of origin, and dismissive of most of anything not taught in their curriculum designed by Macaulay's program to manufacture brown sahibs that would smash India to bits without Brits having to do it, pretty much like the Madras corps used to defeat Indian freedom fighters and Indian soldiers and policemen to subdue Asia so that pretty much all Asia hated Indians, this piece offers anything new only in that these two should be quite so thoroughly ignorant of nation of their origin and culture thereof, but then again this simply means that the two of them either ignored their own roots or disparaged them at heart, preferring to follow the paleface (as natives of another continent called them) invaders. Most Indian know better.
One clue to this author is in another piece where he describes Syria generally and Damascus to begin with. He takes care to point at the locals looking very like Europeans, being quite specific about their golden hair and light skins and so forth. This is very typical of his own origin of deep in region now in Pakistan and bringing up surrounded mostly by Muslim local neighbours, which inculcated values in him more of Muslim than Indian original culture.
Still, there are some interesting bits, from his sheer accessibility to hoi polloi, not because they are interesting by themselves or their inaccessibility makes them so, but because often connections emerge that one was unaware of.
And more than anything else these pieces are strong evidence of how women are maligned generally for no reason other than that they are women and convenient to attack - this guy gossips, and how!
May 21, 2014
Not as candid and humorous as to be expected from the late KS , but just an "okay" read .... the chapters on places like Hyderabad and Orissa are probably the only ones which i found a tad readable !!!
September 15, 2015
Don't go by the name of this book. It is a compilation of Khushwant Singh's published articles on various people and places he has come across in his long life. Written in his characteristic anecdotal style, the book is a good read unless you picked it up for some malicious gossip.
May 21, 2016
This was my first book by Khushwant Singh. Expectations were high. Out of the three parts of the book, I found the fist one on people / personalities extremely boring. I found the second one on places interesting and the last one on some musings okay.
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December 21, 2010good read.....
March 2, 2012
Interesting.
August 8, 2016
Well, I have nothing to review this book for.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews