Darshan Singh \'Awara\', (1906-1982)started writing verse under the impulse of the struggle for freedom in the early twenties. The tone and diction of these poems were nationalist revolutionary and they were first published in a volume named Bijii di Tarak (The Lap of Lightning). It was confiscated by the British

GILL, TEJWANT SINGH THE most promising moderncritic is Tejwant Singh Gill (1928 -). His viewpoint is rather para-Marxist, but he is cautious enough not to lose his dialectic materialist moorings. In his essay, "Lekhak Te Raj Satta" (The Writer and the State) included in his collection titled Punjabi Sabhyachar,

Shah Mohmmad is rightly acclaimed as the national poet of the Punjab in the nineteenth century at least. Though he is said to have composed a kissa, i.e. a narrative poem of love as well, he is best known for his celebrated composition: Jangnama Singhan te Frangian. With the

LACHHMAN SINGH GILL (1917-1969), Akali politician and chief minister of the Punjab for a brief term, was born at Jagraon in Ludhiana district. He started life in 1937 as a government contractor. He entered politics via the Shiromani Akali Dal of which he became a member during the Punjabi

POTHI, popular Punjabi form of the Sanskrit pustaka (book), derived from the root pust (to bind) via the Pali potlhaka and Prakrit puttha. Besides Punjabi, the word poihi meaning a book is current in Maithili, Bhojpuri and Marathi languages as well. Among the Sikhs, however, polhi signifies a sacred book,

SARDUL SINGH CAVEESHAR (1886-1963), politician, newspaper editor and author, was born at Amritsar in 1886, the son of Sardar Kirpal Singh. He studied up to M.A. level, but left college in 1909 without taking the degree. In 1913 he launched an English journal, Sikh Review, from Delhi. He came

Sarna, Mohinder Singh born in 1923 at Rawalpindi, he joined the Indian Audits and Accounts Service after his B.A. (Hons.) and retired as Accountant General (Central Revenues) in 1981. He started writing at the age of twenty, and his first collection of short stories Father de Admi (Men of

Singh, Mohan, better known as \'Divana\', is a versatile writer, a research scholar, a critic, a linguist, a short story writer, an essayist, a dramatist, a poet, a free thinker and literary giant, who, apart from Punjabi, writes in English, Hindi and Urdu also. He started his career at

TEJA SINGH, PROFESSOR (1894-1958), teacher, scholar and translator of the Sikh sacred texts, was born Tej Ram on 2 June 1894 at the village of Adiala in Rawalpindi district, now in Pakistan. His father`s name was Bhalakar Singh. At the age of three, Tej Ram was sent to the village

AKALI, THE, a Punjabi daily newspaper which became the central organ of the Shiromani Akali Dal, then engaged in a fierce struggle for the reformation of the management of the Sikh gurdwaras and a vehicle for the expression of nationalist political opinion in the Punjab in the wake of the

Baba Bohar (The Old Banyan Tree) is a poetic play, a long monologue. A tree personified is in conversation with the children who are playing under it; it starts with the contemporary situation in Punjab and goes back to elaborating its glorious past from the time of the Sikh Gurus

FATEH SINGH, SANT (1911-1972), who enjoyed wide religious esteem among the Sikhs (sant, lit. a holy man) and who during the latter part of his career became a dominant political figure, was born, on 27 October 1911, the son of Bhai Channan Singh, a resident of Badiala in present