English (Core) · Ch 1 — The Portrait of a Lady
About the Author and the Text
About the Author and the Text
Khushwant Singh (1915-2014) was one of India's best-known writers in English — a novelist, historian, short-story writer, editor and newspaper columnist, famous for his sharp wit, plain honesty and warm humour. Among his best-loved works is the novel Train to Pakistan.
'The Portrait of a Lady' is an autobiographical sketch — a tender, real-life word-portrait of the writer's own grandmother. Rather than telling a plotted story, Khushwant Singh paints her character and traces the changing shape of their friendship across the different stages of his life:
- their close, loving days in the village, where she took him to a school attached to the temple;
- the quiet drifting apart once the family moved to the city and he began an English school;
- the further distance at university and when he went abroad for five years; and
- her serene, prepared death, mourned in a strange and moving way by the sparrows she had fed for years.
Through this gentle account the author shows how deep the bond between a grandmother and grandchild can be, how modern education can quietly open a gap between generations, and how a simple, devout life can be truly beautiful.
Notice these expressions in the text. Infer their meaning from the context.
- the thought was almost revolting — the idea felt so unlikely and distasteful that it was almost sickening to imagine
- an expanse of pure white serenity — a wide, calm stretch of pure whiteness that breathed peace (her spotless white clothes, silver hair and quiet face)
- a turning-point — a moment that changes the whole course of things
- accepted her seclusion with resignation — quietly and without complaint accepted being cut off and left alone
- a veritable bedlam of chirrupings — a truly noisy, chaotic uproar of birds chirping all at once
- frivolous rebukes — playful, light-hearted scoldings not meant seriously
- the sagging skins of the dilapidated drum — the loose, drooping stretched membrane of the old, worn-out drum