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ABOUT AUTHOR
KHUSHWANT SINGH IS A SENIOR PROMINENT

INDIAN NOVELIST CUM JOURNALIST. HE WAS
BORN ON 2 FEBRUARY 1915 AT HADALI IN
BRITISH INDIA THAT IS NOW A PART OF PUNJAB
IN PAKISTAN. A SIGNIFICANT POST-COLONIAL
WRITER IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE,
KHUSHWANT SINGH IS KNOWN FOR HIS CLEAR-
CUT SECULARISM, HUMOUR AND A DEEP
PASSION FOR POETRY. HIS ASSESSMENT AND
COMPARISON OF SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL
TRAITS OF PEOPLE FROM INDIA AND THE WEST
IS FULL OF OUTSTANDING WIT.
Khushwant Singh
THEME
In The Portrait of a Lady by Khushwant Singh, we have

the theme of innocence, friendship, love, connection,
kindness, selflessness, respect and acceptance. The
image of the grandmother emerges from the portrait
of a lady is very religious. She believes in teaching
scriptures and about God in school. She had
tremendous mental stability, and that’s why she
accepted the separation. The Portrait of a Lady is the
story of the author. He describes his relationship with
his grandmother over the years. He pens down her
daily activities and how she evolved as a character as
time passed by. He explains her appearance, which
helps create an image in the reader’s mind. After the
return of the author, the grandmother celebrated his
homecoming for an entire night and consequently fell
ill. However, she could not recover from her illness,
and she died chanting the name of God, with the
rosary in her hand.
Summary
The writer recalls his Grandmother as short, healthy and

slightly bent. Her hairs were silver in colour and were
scattered messily on her wrinkled face. She used to walk
around the whole house in white clothes. She kept her one
hand resting on her waist and the other hand was telling
the beads of her rosary.
The writer thinks of her as not very pretty but constantly

beautiful all the time. He compares her calm face with the
winter landscape. During their lengthy stay in the village,
Grandmother woke him up from the bed in the early
morning, plastered his wooden slate, organized his
breakfast, and sent him to the school. The temple was
connected to the school. She sat inside and studied the
sacred texts while the children learned the alphabet.
On their way back to the home she used to give the stale
chapattis to the street dogs. A turning point in their
beautiful relationship arrived when they went to live in a
city. Despite the fact that they shared a room, their
relationship started to grow apart. Now, the writer used to
go to the city school on a school bus and studied subjects
like English, Physics, mathematics and many more subjects
that his grandmother could not understand at all.
His grandmother could no longer go to school with him to

send him. She felt upset that there was no teaching about
God and scriptures at the city school. Instead, he was given
music lessons, but she said nothing. She thought music was
dreadful. It was just good for prostitutes and beggars,
according to her. It was not intended for gentlemen.
When the writer went to a university, he got a separate

room in his house. The common link of the relationship
between the grandson and the grandmother was broken
now. Grandmother rarely talked to anyone in the house
now. The writer’s grandmother quietly accepted her
loneliness. She was constantly occupied with her spinning
wheel and reciting prayers and she hardly ever spoke to
anyone. She took a break in the afternoon. Her daily routine
consisted of breaking bread into pieces and giving it to the
birds. The birds would perch on her legs, head, and even her
shoulders.
When the writer was leaving on a trip abroad for his further
studies, his grandmother did not get disturbed at all. Rather
she went to the train station to say goodbye, but she didn’t
say anything and merely kissed his forehead. Her lips were
moving in prayer, her thoughts were consumed by prayer
and her fingers were busy reciting the storey of the beads
on her rosary. Seeing her grandmother at this old age, the
writer was thinking that it might be his last meeting with his
grandmother. But when he came back home after a
duration of 5 years, his grandmother was there to welcome
him back and he saw her celebrate his return.
The next morning after the return of his grandson she got
Ill. Although the doctor told them that it was a slight fever
and would go away very soon, still she could foresee that
her time to leave this world was near. She did not want to
waste her time talking to someone. Her fingers were busy
reciting the storey of the beads on her rosary.
She went to her bed praying and telling the beads till her
lips stopped moving and the rosary fell down from her
lifeless hand. Her body was discovered on the floor,
wrapped in a red shawl after she died. To grieve her death,
thousands of sparrows flew in and sat dispersed around her
body. All the sparrows flew away without making any noise
when the dead body of the old lady was carried away for
the last rites.
Conclusion
To sum up, in the portrait of a lady summary, the

writer and his grandmother had a beautiful bond
between them and loved each other a lot. The story
tells us how beautiful a relationship can become
between a grandson and his grandmother.

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ABOUT AUTHOR

KHUSHWANT SINGH IS A SENIOR PROMINENT

In The Portrait of a Lady by Khushwant Singh, we have

The writer recalls his Grandmother as short, healthy and

The writer thinks of her as not very pretty but constantly

His grandmother could no longer go to school with him to

When the writer went to a university, he got a separate

To sum up, in the portrait of a lady summary, the

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