an English civil servant who converts to Islam to escape persecution (but is still raped), the dynamic, inventive and shrewd Punjabi entrepreneurs who won the British contracts to build Lutyens's Delhi (Sir Sobha Singh, the writer's father, was one such person), to an angry young Hindu youth whose sister was abducted and raped in Pakistan, and has been disposed-of from Western Punjab during the Partition of India, looking for some work ends up signing up with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and takes revenge by inflicting violence upon Delhi Muslims, and accidentally becoming witness to perhaps the most important and decisive event in the country’s history—the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. The novel ends with the terrorized narrator watching his Sikh neighbours mercilessly burnt alive by people angered due to the killing of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh guards. Writing Singh claims it took him almost twenty-five years to complete this novel. He dedicates it to his son Rahul Singh and Niloufer Billimoria. 'History provided me a skeleton', he jokes, 'I covered it with flesh and injected blood and a lot of seminal fluid into it'. Some parts of the novel were also published in the Evergreen Review and The Illustrated Weekly of India. Urdu translation This novel was Urdu translated by Irfan Ahmad Khan, Lahore, Pakistan. Singh himself allowed Khan to recover royalty of his unauthorised publications from the publishers of Pakistan. The Urdu translation publications were in October 1998, April 1999, January 2000, May 2000, February 2005. References 1990 novels Indian historical novels in English 1990 Indian novels Novels set in Delhi Novels by Khushwant Singh Sikhism in fiction 1984 anti-Sikh riots Cultural depictions of Indira Gandhi LGBT literature in India