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In life, so too in its chronicling. The long-awaited release of Khushwant Singh's autobiography has, somewhat fittingly, followed a plot as complex, controversial and entertaining as the man whose life it documents. Due for publication in 1995, the most compelling and sensational portions of the book were published as pre-release extracts. The chapter that appeared in India Today, "With the Gandhis and the Anands", provoked Maneka Gandhi into obtaining a legal injunction against the book's publication, claiming it was an invasion of her privacy. Years of legal wrangling later, the courts finally cleared the way for Khushwant to have his say; en famille, so to speak-the book's co-publisher, Ravi Dayal, is his son-in-law.

TRUTH, LOVE & A LITTLE MALICE: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY By Khushwant Singh Viking/ Ravi Dayal Price: Rs 450 Pages: 432

Be that as it may, this book represents every publisher's fantasy. No autobiography in recent times has been awaited with as much tongue-hanging anticipation. India's literary eminence grise has a reputation for not pulling his punches, a varied career that allowed him to rub shoulders (and much else) with the high and mighty, his irreverence for authority, and, of course, his public persona of a Scotch-swilling Sardar obsessed with sex and voyeurism. The fact that the juicier portions of this book have appeared earlier is a dampener, but Khushwant on Khushwant is too irresistible a subject to affect its overall literary and commercial impact.

As his self-styled swansong, it does him proud. His hugely prolific writing career means that many aspects of his life and the constant parade of eminent people who affected its direction, one way or another, are a matter of record. Yet, such is his skill as a writer-simple, lucid, unpretentious-that oft-known episodes are given a new lease of life. The infamous battle in the prime minister's house when Mrs Gandhi ordered Maneka to leave and the hysterical drama that followed. His first encounter with Nehru in London where, as public relations officer, he faced the embarrassment of seeing the British papers awash with photographs of Lady Mountbatten receiving the Indian prime minister well past midnight dressed in a negligee, and numerous other incidents of less import but equal enjoyment.

He is unsparing about Krishna Menon, his boss at India House in London. His relationship with Menon was prickly at best, but Khushwant's accounts expose Menon as an unscrupulous scoundrel, a congenital liar and a womaniser. There are similar encounters, if less personalised, with other stalwarts of the time, Maulana Azad, Sardar Patel, Morarji Desai, but easily the most engrossing is his fascinating relationship with the Gandhi family which gave him a rare insight into the late prime minister ("she was petty and vindictive and enjoyed snubbing people who assumed she was their friend"), her attitude towards Sonia, Sanjay, Maneka and Rajiv, and the antagonism between Rajiv and Sanjay.

In fact, apart from his account of his early years in Delhi and Lahore, much of the book is a string of episodes, encounters and anecdotes relating to his roller-coaster career in law, diplomacy, UNESCO, journalism and as a best-selling writer and parliamentarian. From revelations about his personal life-his first sexual encounter with a prostitute, his thorny relationship with his late wife, how he finds writing "a pain in the arse" and other insights into his illustrious family and friends, this book has been well worth the wait.

Adding to the literary merit is the fact that Khushwant, while writing it, was overcome by a strong sense of mortality. At 80-plus, he felt he had very little time left to live, and the output reflects the angst. Particularly outstanding are his reflections on religion, on the Akalis and his encounters with Longowal and Bhindranwale, with the former confessing that the militant, bin Laden-like preacher was being used as the Akali's "lathi" against the Centre. Perhaps the best parts are the accounts of his early life, as a pampered son of a prominent, affluent father, maybe because this is one aspect of his life that is least known. No space is enough to do justice to this book. It is, after all, the telling of a life less ordinary.