|
Meet the Minds event brings
together authors, readers
WSN Network
 CALIFORNIA: The
Sikh Foundation International hosted 4 local Bay Area authors who
have written books on Sikhs & Sikhism: Ms. Pushpinder Singh, Dr. R.K
Janmeja Singh, Dr. Gurnam SS Brard & Ms. Jessi Kaur covering
subjects from children’s literature, religion and culture.
The event was
attended to full capacity & much appreciated by the diverse group of
interested people, from university officials, professors, editors,
lawyers, engineers, academicians and other individuals who care
about books and their role in our communities.
The meeting was
opened by Dr. Narinder Singh Kapany who wanted to stimulate a
conversation and introspection among the audience as to the reasons
which stand in the way of books by our authors reaching a much wider
audience than they are now.
Ms. Pushpinder
Singh, author of many publications for children, most popular been
“The Boy with Long Hair”, this book is based on her personal
experience and has been accepted by the California Department of
Education. She also talked about 2 of her upcoming books –“Games of
Punjabi Children” and “The American Myth”.
 The underlying
theme that her writings wish to communicate is the commonalities
between all people and the urgency to foster understandings so that
no child is ever hurt, no matter what the ethnic background or
denomination.
Dr. RK Janmeja,
fondly known as Meji Singh, author of “A Sikhs Paradigm for
Universal Peace”, talked about his experiences teaching young
children about Sikhism. Which eventually lead him onto his quest for
the true meaning of Gurbani and being a Sikh. He also gave us the
exciting news about one of his plays been adapted for a feature film
and also his upcoming book “Sikhi Revisited”.
Dr Gurnam SS
Brard, throughout his professional life was a physicist and it was
only in his retirement years that he decided to ink his amazing
journey which started from the feudal
Punjab of the
early 20th century. His book, “East of Indus: My memories of Old
Punjab” is a treasury of a way of life long gone which is written as
an ethnographic autobiography.
Ms. Jessi Kaur,
author of the recently released book” Dear Takuya: Letters of a Sikh
Boy” was inspired by the need for a book which Sikh’s could present
to their non-Sikh friends to convey the essence of Sikhism and the
meaning of being a Sikh. The warmth with which this book was
received has encouraged her
to start working on her next project which is based on the
experiences of a young boy living here in the west.
 Ms. Sonia Dhami
and Mr. Gopal Singh made the audience aware of all the changes that
were been done to improve the Sikh Foundation website (www.sikhfoundation.org)
and to create resources for parents and children to expose them to
the richness and beauty of Sikh Art, heritage, religion & culture.
During the
question answer session, Dr. Gurinder Mann was intrigued by the
“fossilization” of thoughts and value systems and compared them to
those in the
Punjab
of today. Mr. D.S Sra very warmly expressed his pleasure at been
a part of this
important event and hoped more such meetings would be organized,
which will encourage the community members to bring in more books
into their homes.
Dr Avtar Singh
stressed upon the need for educating the community as a whole on the
essence of Sikhism.
17 December
2008
|
Read Also