Manohar Singh Gill: An Officer of the People
Punjab and Punjabi Diaspora
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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…
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Life In Dacoit Land
Read more here →: Life In Dacoit LandThe Illustrated Weekly of India | July 30, 1972 The Punjabi farmers migrated to Madhya Pradesh in 1947.They cleared forests and cultivated the land – all the time having to contend with dacoits. In recent weeks a great deal has been written in the press on the surrender of dacoits in the northern districts of…
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Udham Singh: The Patriot Who Avenged The Jallianwalla Bagh Massacre
Read more here →: Udham Singh: The Patriot Who Avenged The Jallianwalla Bagh MassacreFor The Illustrated Weekly of India | January 30, 1972 The day of reckoning came after 21 years. Sir Michael O’Dwyer left the Punjab as Governor in 1921, censured for having condoned the killing of over 375 innocent men and women by General Dyer. Sir Michael was shot by Udham Singh on March 13, 1940.…
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The Old Men of Southall
Read more here →: The Old Men of SouthallThe Tribune (Magazine Section) | June 13, 1971 “There they sit”! cried my guide excitedly as we spied a group of old men sitting on a park bench in Southall. His voice had the thrill of one who had spotted a covey of partridges in a Punjab field during a winter shoot. “They are here…
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A House In Chandigarh
Read more here →: A House In ChandigarhPublished on August 9, 1970 In Chandigarh you can’t avoid the topic. The conversation invariably turns to house building. “In which sector have you built your house”? Someone asks. “I haven’t built one”, l answer. “Oh, l suppose, you are still at the planning stage”. He asks looking a little anxious. “I am afraid I…
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Baisakhi in England
Read more here →: Baisakhi in EnglandThe Illustrated Weekly of India | April 12, 1970 Easter was the first holiday of 1968. And so the people of this affluent society gave themselves up to an organised, single-minded pursuit of leisure. Ten million cars on the roads, traffic queues miles long with police in helicopters trying to unsnarl them, hundreds of fatal…
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A Punjabi in Cambridge
Read more here →: A Punjabi in CambridgeThe Sunday Tribune | February 23, 1969 l heard of him as soon as I arrived in Cambridge. The one and only Mr. Singh. We met a few days later. It was not difficult. He stands out even when surrounded by mini skirts and long-haired intellectuals. Introduction was no problem. I just went up to…