Beyond Identity

Books are written with a twofold object – to entertain and to inform. Books of fiction with Sikhs as central characters are uncommon with the result that a majority of the huge book-reading public is denied the chance of learning who the Sikhs are, how they live and what issues concern them and their existence. We now have a book that fills this gap. This novel starts with a young college student in Punjab and then traces the trajectory of his life over the next 33 years, through travels in foreign lands with a false identity, to spectacular rise and prosperity, then to tragedy and denouement and a return in disgrace to poverty in Punjab. This is the story. But this is a serious book about Sikh identity and the Sikh homeland quest. This book is the author’s vision statement for the Sikh people, looking far into the future. This book may raise some eyebrows, but it calls for serious debate. It is an imaginative, futuristic and provocative book. It will set people thinking The Book encourages the reader to think beyond the stereotype solutions to the world-wide problems of Sikhs. As a work of fiction it describes how Ranjit Singh’s happy college life is tragically changed by the 1984 militancy in Punjab and the disturbances in Delhi. He survives by relocating to London with a new identity. The storyline follows him across three continen5ts, two love affairs, careers in the media and in the United Nations and his work for a major think-tank. The ever-present dread of discovery of his true identity shapes the parabolic trajectory of his life from suffering and flight to love and success to denouement and heartbreak. As a study of identities, minorities, assimilation and multiculturalism, Ranjit’s roller-coaster emotional journey is interspersed with his passionate search for an idea to ensure that the identity of the Sikhs, the fifth largest community in the world, continues to prevail. The dilemma before these proud people is that they do not want to lose their history, culture, rituals, language and religion in an era of globalization, conformism and mass-culture. But even as Diaspora minorities they do not want to be accepted as equal players in the future world market place where opportunities for development, prosperity and will-being will abound. The cerebral Ranjit gradually feels his way through various options to resolve this quandary before coming up with stunningly original and modernistic solution.