KHUSHWANT SINGH AND M.A. RAHMAN CHUGHTAI

KHUSHWANT SINGH AND M.A. RAHMAN CHUGHTAI
RECOGNITION OF EACH OTHER

The spirit of Lahore

Khushwant Singh and wife Kanwal with Manzoor Qadir and wife
Khushwant Singh and wife Kanwal with Manzoor Qadir and wife

There used to be a lot of visitors at home at the studio of M.A. Rahman Chughtai. Even after partition a lot of Sikhs used to frequent the place. The story writer Satyarti was one of them. Another was Khushwant Singh who came to visit Chughtai with his wife. The Sikhs always considered M.A. Rahman Chughtai a Punjabi representative in a Bengal dominated art environment in India.

I remember I wrote a letter to Khushwant Singh when I started my research and he wrote back to me with a reply. The same letter I addressed to Ganda Singh too. The Sikhs related to me as they related to the artist himself.

The Illustrated Weekly of India carried many articles on M.A. Rahman Chughtai. The strangest coverage was a central spread on the book Amal-Chughtai and Dr Allama Iqbal during the 1971 war days. We will take it out of our archives and put it on one day. The man knew no boundaries. Sir Abdul Qadir and Manzoor Qadir were great friends of M.A. Rahman Chughtai and strangely Manzoor Qadir was a great friend of Khushwant Singh. As foreign minister of Pakistan, Manzoor Qadir did things and somehow or the other, at times the discussion of Chughtai artist came between the two stalwarts of their countries.

Khushwant Singh called himself a SON OF A GUN and in all ways he was not merely a Sikh but a GRAND PERSONALITY of our times. May God bless his soul!

A spirited man
A spirited man

3 thoughts on “KHUSHWANT SINGH AND M.A. RAHMAN CHUGHTAI”

  1. Sir, A wonderful photograph with an enlightening Article. Thank you.
    Would you like to share the letter to you from Late Khushwant Singh.

  2. A local resident claim a romantic EPISODE of Khushwant Singh and Amrita Sher Gil in Lahore. Who knows the truth?

  3. Khushwant Singh is now an Icon. But long before he aquired this status he was immersed in the eternal light of the great Chughtai to attain this position.

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