English version of ‘Khooni Vaisakhi’ presented

Jamil Khan, Senior Reporter

The work on the audio version of Khooni Vaisakhi by Nanak Singh has started and hopefully will be completed soon, said Navdeep Singh Suri, Indian Ambassador to UAE while addressing a gathering in Gurudwara Dubai on Saturday.

The book presentation was attended by scores of people from different walks of life including prominent Indian businessmen. The event was organised and hosted by Surender Kandhari, Chairman of Gurudwara Dubai to celebrate the ‘Year of Tolerance’ and the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev Ji.

In his speech, the Indian Ambassador Navdeep Singh Suri, who translated the Punjabi poem written by his grandfather Nanak Singh, has described the journey behind his lengthy task of translating the Punjabi poem into English and challenges he faced. He also highlighted the findings of the lost poem for 60 years and how it was traced by his father in 1979.

The long poem written in Punjabi narrates the political events in the run up to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919 and its immediate aftermath, first published in 1920 and immediately banned by British government.

The copies of the poem were confiscated and destroyed and no one knew about any surviving copy including the family of Nanak Singh (1897-1971). He was widely regarded as the father of the Punjabi novel and wrote an astounding fifty-nine books and received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1962.

Navdeep Singh Suri recently completed the English translation and published into a book form and also included the original text and background information.

During the presentation, he read out many sections in Punjabi and English of the book for audience and also answered their questions.

“The poem in its original form is so complete and describes the whole story related to Jallianwala Bagh massacre that with good musical touch and singer it will mesmerize the listeners,” he said.

He further said that on the centenary of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, people want an official apology from the British government beyond just ‘saying sorry.’