Class 11

Character Sketch

Peace and contentment graced the author’s grandmother, which made her beautiful. To Khushwant Singh, his grandmother was like the winter landscape in the mountains, an expanse of pure white serenity. The author felt that his grandmother could never have been pretty or had a husband or had ever played games during her childhood. He had always seen her old & has described her to be so old that she could not have grown older.

She was short, fat and slightly bent. Her face was a criss-cross of wrinkles running from everywhere to everywhere. The old lady always wore spotless white and moved about the house with one hand resting on her waist to balance her stoop and the other telling the beads of her rosary. She was religious to the core and never missed her prayers. Her lips constantly moved in inaudible prayers. It was only when the author returned from abroad after five years that she broke her routine of praying.

With a compassionate heart she used to feed the stray dogs in the village and then took to feeding the sparrows in the city. Though she did not like the city life, she tried to adjust to it. She felt lonely and isolated because she could not accompany the author to school in the city or help him in his studies. She was heartbroken when she came to know that no religious teaching was imparted in the city school. For her music was not meant for gentlefolk, therefore she stopped talking to her grandson when she came to know that he was going to take music lessons at school. As the author grew, he became more and more independent and his interaction with his grandmother became almost negligible. But she did not express her anger or dislike for it, she just resigned herself to being alone. Her way to show her disapproval was to become silent.

She kept her composure when the author decided to go abroad for higher studies. When the author returned after five years, she went to receive him at the station. Her happiness could be judged from the fact that she missed her prayer that day and gathered all the women in her neighborhood to celebrate the homecoming of warriors (the author). After this she took ill because of overstraining herself and declared that her end had come. Amidst the protests of the family and before they could do anything, she breathed her last.

Her bond with the author was a unique one. Though not very vocal or expressive, the grandmother was filled with affection & love for her grandson. Her relationship with him could be understood from the fact that she waited for her grandson to return from abroad to breathe her last.

Justify the title

The story ‘The Portrait of a Lady’ is a warm and heartfelt tribute of Khushwant singh to his grandmother. It is a picture perfect of a serene & dignified lady whose beauty is projected through her spirituality and her ability to keep her composure during times of conflict. Khushwant Singh has woven the whole story around the lady who gave him motherly affection when his parents were away. He talks about the change that occurs upon his grandmother when they shift from their village to the city. The closeness between the two in the village almost ended in the city as the author went to school, then university and later abroad for higher studies. Like a dignified lady, she accepted her seclusion and to fill that emptiness started feeding the sparrows. As narrated by Khushwant Singh, she was an embodiment of grace, contentment and dignity, the attributes which perfectly defined her as a lady. Thus, the title is justified.