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Punjabi films: hope on the horizon
Read more here: Punjabi films: hope on the horizonThe Tribune | April 15, 1980 The Punjabi film industry will today receive formal recognition when the State Governor Mr Jaisukhlal Hathi, gives away the first ever State awards. The selections were made by a jury headed by Dr M.S. Randhawa. According to the jury, although State awards could only be given to Punjabi language…
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Captains of the sea
Read more here: Captains of the seaThe Tribune | April 10, 1980 Punjab is a dusty plain a thousand miles from the sea. The only water it knows of are the five sluggish meandering rivers that sustain its people. Even these are valued only for their irrigation potential. The Punjabi does not sport with them as do the Europeans with their…
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Remembering Bhagat Singh
Read more here: Remembering Bhagat SinghThe Tribune, Chandigarh | March 22, 1980 On a mild September day in 1971 I motored to a small fishing village on the east coast of England. I was in search of Shiv Singh Johal, a friend of Udham Singh, who was said to have in his possession Udham Singh’s last letters from jail. I…
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Chandigarh’s Hyde Park
Read more here: Chandigarh’s Hyde ParkThe Tribune | November 26, 1979 He stands defiantly on the traffic island leading to the Punjab Secretariat. He wears a yellow turban and a military great coat, over which he carries a sword. A steel chakra in his hand, a distant and aloof look in his eyes, he occasionally walks with a proud and…
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A step towards cultural revival
Read more here: A step towards cultural revivalThe Tribune | November 12, 1979 Mr Parkash Singh Badal will today lay the foundation stone of the Punjab Arts Council building near the Rose Garden in Chandigarh. This will be an important step in the cultural revival of the State. Ever since 1966, when the miracle wheat seeds came to Punjab, we have all…
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Ludhiana redeems a promise
Read more here: Ludhiana redeems a promiseThe Sunday Tribune, Chandigarh | November 4, 1979 Today the Chief Minister of Punjab will unveil in Ludhiana a 10 ft. high bronze statue of Major Bhupinder Singh, M.V.C., of Hodsons Horse, who gave his life for the country in the Sialkot sector in the 1965 war. For me, personally, it is the fulfilment of…
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A Sikh from Norway
Read more here: A Sikh from NorwayThe Tribune | September 27, 1979 He walked into the plush office of a refrigeration company in New Delhi and asked to see the managing director. His request was simple. Could they please build him a cold store in his native Jullundur? The managing director was surprised. The man who sat opposite him was a…
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A Punjabi Tamilian
Read more here: A Punjabi TamilianThe Tribune | April 26, 1979 In a country obsessed with the activities of politicians, big and small, the death of a bureaucrat in distant Madras should be a matter of no importance to the people of Punjab. Yet Jeet Singh Bhangoo, former Transport Commissioner to the Government of Tamil Nadu, deserves notice, howsoever briefly…
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Chandigarh Footlights
Read more here: Chandigarh FootlightsThe Tribune | March 4, 1979 At Cambridge University, achieving high academic results is not the main purpose of life. The students are there to savour the unique intellectual and social atmosphere of the place and to endeavour to develop their talents and faculties to the fullest extent possible. Some want to be artists, others…
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First flower of freedom
Read more here: First flower of freedomThe Indian Express | October 6, 1978 Chandigarh: Glorious tributes have been paid to Le Corbusier by many great architects of the world. The great American Architect, Louis Khan, once said, “I came to live in a beautiful city called Le Corbusier”. On seeing Chandigarh in 1960, Paul Rudolph, a famous architect, remarked: “It is…
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Memories of an Amritsar Man
Read more here: Memories of an Amritsar ManThe Tribune | October 24, 1977 I grew up in the shadow of Amritsar, or Ambarsar, as we say in that part of Punjab. My village lies just a mile away from Tarn Taran. For us, living in a small hamlet of less than 200 families, Tarn Taran was “shehr”, the city. No one ever…
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The Other Punjab
Read more here: The Other PunjabThe Sunday Tribune | September 4, 1977 This is not the only Punjab there is. There is another one – the original one – that lies some thousands of miles away in the Northwest, across a series of mountain ranges. The historian always has known about it. The people of Punjab, a mixture of Aryan,…
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Kalapani
Read more here: KalapaniThe Sunday Tribune | March 20, 1977 I first heard of Kalapani as a boy in an Amritsar village. It was a place familiar to every Punjab villager, for that is where you were bound to be sent, if you were unfortunate enough to kill a neighbour, in a sudden fit of anger. When the…
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The Aliens
Read more here: The AliensThe Tribune (Magazine Section) | October 24, 1976Republished in The Statesman | January 2, 1977 We were standing at the bar sipping pints of bitter. The pub was rather special. Indian owned and Indian patronized, “The Oxford” stood in the seedy harbour front area of Southampton. The area around it was peopled by working class…
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Southall Revisited
Read more here: Southall RevisitedThe Illustrated Weekly of India | July 11, 1976 The author, visiting Southall after eight years, finds the immigrant community in Britain greatly transformed. I first visited Southall in 1967. Being a former Deputy Commissioner of Jullundar, I was keen to see this new “canal colony” in the West that sent back such a steady…
