CLASS-12 SUBJECT- ENGLISH AUTHOR- KHUSHWANT SINGH Introduction ‘Portrait of a Lady’ describes a special bond between grandmother and grandson. Khushwant Singh narrates how the relationship develops over the years, and changes as the grandson grows up and the grandmother grows older. Solitude and silence fill the grandmother's days as she distances herself from the real world. She now prefers the company of the gods and the birds. She enters a world of her own and is content with herself.

1. CLASS-12
PANORAMA
CH-2 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY
By Khushwant Singh
-SUKHWANT KAUR

2. Khushwant Singh was an Indian
novelist, lawyer, politician and
journalist. He studied at St. Stephen’s
College, Delhi and King’s college,
London. He joined the Indian Foreign
Service in 1947. As a writer, he is best
known for his keen secularism, sarcasm
and love for poetry. He served as the
editor of several literary and news
magazines as well as two newspapers.
Khushwant Singh was awarded with
Padma Bhushan in 1974, Padma
Vibhushan by the Government of India
and Sahitya Akademi Fellowship by
Sahitya Academy of India. ‘The Mark of
Vishnu’, ‘A History of Sikhs, The Train to
Pakistan, Success Mantra, We Indians
and Death at my Doorstep are some of Khushwant Singh (February 2, 1915 – March 20, 2014)

3. THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY
• Khushwant Singh draws here an interesting portrait
of his grandmother. He presents her as a tender, loving
and deeply religious old lady. Singh says that his
grandmother was an old woman. She was so old that
her face was wrinkled that at the present it was
difficult to believe she would ever had been young and
pretty. Her hair was white as snow. She had a little
stoop in her back. She could be seen reciting her
rosary all the time. The author says that "she was like
the winter landscape in the mountains and expanse of
pure white serenity breathing peace and
contentment."

4. The Portrait of a Lady
The chapter ‘The Portrait of a Lady’ is the story
of the author and his grandmother. The
grandmother was an old woman with a
wrinkled face. The author had always seen her
like this, for the past twenty years. She
appeared to be so old that he could not imagine
her being ‘young and pretty’, someone who had
a husband. She was short, fat and slightly bent.
The author had seen his grandfather’s portrait-
an old man with a turban and a long white
beard covering his chest. To the author, his
grandfather didn’t seem like a man who could
have a wife and children, but someone who
could have lots of grandchildren. His
grandmother used to move around the house in
‘Spotless White’ with her one hand resting on
her waist and her other hand counting the
beads of her rosary.

5. In the initial days, the author and his
grandmother had a good relationship. She
used to wake him up and get him ready for
school. She used to pack the things required
(wooden slate etc.)by him for the day and
walked him to school everyday. She used to
visit the temple that was attached to the
school. She had a routine of reading the
scriptures. The author along with other
children sat on the verandah singing
alphabets and morning prayers. They both
used to come back home together with stray
dogs roaming around them as his
grandmother would carry the stale chapattis
to feed them
Wooden slate

6. Soon, the parents of the author who went to the
city to settle in and called them. As they reached
the city, his relationship with his grandmother
took a turn. Though they shared the room, there
bond grew apart. He started going to an English
medium school, she no longer accompanied him
to his school, and there were no longer stray
dogs who roamed around them while walking
back home. She, however, used to ask him about
his day and what he had learned. She didn’t
understand anything as everything was in
another language which she could not
understand. She didn’t approve of the new
syllabus that he was studying because she
thought that they did not teach him about God
and the scriptures. They saw less of each other.

7. As the days passed, he grew older and
soon went to the university. He had his
own room and this made their relationship
sour. She stopped talking to everyone and
spent her whole day sitting at her
spinning wheel, reciting prayers and
moving beads of the rosary with one
hand. However, she loved feeding
sparrows in the verandah at dawn.
Breaking bread into pieces and feeding it
to the birds was her daily routine. The
birds would sit on her legs, her head,
some even on the shoulders.

8. Soon, the author decided to go abroad
for further studies. She came to the
railway station to leave him off. She was
not sentimental, continuously recited her
prayers, her mind lost in the prayers, and
she kissed him on the forehead. After
five years, as he returned home, she was
there, came to pick him at the station,
was still the same as she had been five
years ago. She clasped him within her
arms and didn’t say a word. She still
used to feed her sparrows.

9. One day, she didn’t recite
her prayers but instead
collected the women of the
neighbourhood, got a drum
and started singing. The next
morning, she was ill with
mild fever. The doctor said
that there was nothing to
worry about but she was
sure that her end was near.

10. She didn’t want to waste her time
talking to anyone in the family anymore
but spend her last hours in reciting her
prayers laying on the bed. She died and
so her body lay on the bed, lifeless. As
they prepared for her funeral, they saw
all the sparrows sitting in the verandah
around her, mourning her death.

11. THANKS FOR WATCHING
I HOPE MY PRESENTATION WAS HELPFUL