Uncle Khushwant as I called him - Khushwant Singh, gone at 99. Author and editor, secularist and agnostic (or would atheist be more correct?), sparing no one with his sometimes caustic comments and acerbic wit. He supported Indira Gandhi's Emergency, sided with Maneka (and then fell out with her), returned his Padma Bhushan in protest over Operation Blue Star and then was awarded the Padma Vibhushan. Son of one of Delhi's richest men, the contractor who built Lutyens' Delhi - Sir Sobha Singh -  he himself was totally unspoilt: to the end of his life, careful with his money to the point of being beyond frugal, spending little or nothing on himself.

He wrote short stories and novels, the best known of which was probably Train to Pakistan. At one time, editor of the now defunct (but then much-read!) Illustrated Weekly of India, which started him on his famous column. I remember when he took up that editorship: he asked Bennett Coleman & Co (the owners) for nothing by way of perquisites - no fancy penthouse on Malabar Hill, no car. Just one benefit: to be able to fly to Delhi as often as he wished. He went back and forth every week-end.

He was an old family friend, known to my parents from Lahore, part of my childhood and my growing up. He once asked me a question which really made me ponder: why, he queried, why is it that women are more religious than men? I was  sixteen at that time and could give him no answer then, and probably could not, even now. But he made me think, which was of course the entire intention of his asking.

Himself to the last, he wrote not that long ago about his impending death in a truly characteristic way: "I wish to be buried with just a tree planted over my grave — no tombstone, nothing. If you live close to the sea, go for burial at sea. It saves wood."

Good-bye, dear Uncle Khushwant. You made a difference. You will be missed.