Singh, Sujan was born in 1909 at Dera Baba Nanak, Gurdaspur and died on 21st April 1983 in Amritsar, Punjab. He spent his early childhood in Bengal with his father who was a contractor there. After the death of his father when he was just 11 years old, he

AMRITA SHERGIL (1913-1941), colourful and innovative painter of modern India, was born on 30 January 1913 in Budapest, Hungary. Her father, Umrao Singh Sher Gil, scholar and savant, learned in Sanskrit as well as in Persian, came of an old Sikh family of the village of Majitha, in Amritsar

GURDIAL SINGH DHILLON (1915-1992), parliamentarian, diplomat and statesman, was a scion of the Bhangi Sardars who had ruled over the central Punjab during the latter half of the eighteenth century. Born at Sarhali, in Jalandhar district of the Punjab, at his ndnke, mother`s village, on 6 August 1915, the

Kanwal, Kesar Singh is a femous short story writer of this period who has pursued the same tendency of reforming certain evils of our society. By going through the stories of his collection Prem Dian Tahngha one feels that no doubt in his aim he is one with other short

SURSURI The moon abides in the forehead of Shankra (Shiva) and batnes in Sursuri (Ganges). (Dhanasari Trilochan, p-695) If the water of Sursuri becomes wine, the saints even then do not drink it; the impure wine and other waters, when they mix with the waters of Sursuri, they do

Singh, Takhat, an eminent poet, was born in 1914 and died in 1990. He entered the field of Punjabi poetry via Urdu in which he commands a considerable reputation. As a consequence of his training in Urdu, he has written mostly ghazals. In fact, he has brought the ghazal

ASCETICISM, derived from the Greek word askesis, connotes the `training` or `exercise` of the body and the mind. Asceticism or ascetic practices belong to the domain of religious culture, and fasts, pilgrimages, ablutions, purificatory rituals, vigils, abstinence from certain foods and drinks, primitive and strange dress, nudity, uncut hair, tonsure.

GURDIT SINGH, BABA (1861-1954), patriot of Komagata Maru fame, was born in 1861, into a Sandhu Sikh family of Sarhali, a village in Amritsar district. Gurdit Singh`s grandfather had served in the Sikh army as an officer but his father, Hukam Singh, was a small farmer of moderate means.

Lal Singh (pen-name Kamla Akali), was the founder of the travelogue genre in Punjabi literature and an essayist of renown. His travelogue Mera Valayati Safar Nama (My Travel to England) has been acclaimed by the reading public. Sailani Des Bhagat, another travelogue, describes the return from Japan of two

SWARAN SINGH (1907-1994). Tall and wiry, Sardar Swaran Singh, was born on 19 August 1907 in a farming family of the village of Shankar in Jalandhar district. He was married to Charan Kaur (1925). The family laid much store by education. One of the two sons was sent up to

THAKUR SINGH SANDHANVALIA (1837-1887), one of the founders of the Singh Sabha and a scion of the Sandharivalia family, who masterminded the campaign for the restoration of Maharaja Duleep Singh to the throne of the Punjab, was son of Lahina Singh, who in the reign of Maharaja Ranjit Singhenjoyed