Manmohan-Gursharan story revisited in Punjabi

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 21

Three years after Daman Singh, the writer-daughter of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh revealed the life story of her parents to the world, the biography penned by her has returned to the stands as a Punjabi translation.

“Manmohan te Gursharan: Ik Ankahi Dastaan”, the translation of Daman Singh’s original, “Strictly Personal”, was launched by the former PM at his residence this evening.

Present at a short private ceremony (the family wanted it that way) to mark the release were Gursharan Kaur, Daman Singh, translator Deep Jagdeep Singh and publisher Gurmannat Singh of Lahore Books, Ludhiana.

Notwithstanding its low-profile launch, the translation is expected to be well received among the Punjabi-speaking readership for the range of topics it covers.

Deep Jagdeep Singh notes, “For years, the Communists have mostly attacked the former Prime Minister’s economic theory of reforms politically. I hope this translation helps the Punjabi intelligentsia understand Dr Singh’s theory better and then engage with it at a more academic level. The chapter which deals with the 1991 economic reforms that Dr Singh ushered as the then Finance Minister was the most difficult for me to translate and also the most significant.”

Deep Jagdeep, who studied B Com from Panjab University in distance education mode, says capturing the nuances of Dr Singh’s economic theories in Punjabi language was a humongous task for want of terminologies in the language.

“I must confess that I got this prestigious project because of my love for Punjabi, my mother tongue. But the problem is that Punjabi lovers don’t get to study their chosen subjects in the language of their choice. Even today, professional subjects are taught in English in both PU Chandigarh and Punjabi University Patiala. When I had to translate the component on the former PM’s economic reforms into Punjabi, I was at a loss for the correct terminologies. I somehow managed,” the translator told The Tribune today.

Other important chapters in the translation capture the early life of Manmohan Singh, a boy from a non-descript village who rose to become PM and whose path of economic liberalisation still guides the Indian growth story.

“I particularly enjoyed translating the story of Dr Singh and his wife Gursharan Kaur’s companionship through sun and shade. Gursharan Kaur is a woman of many talents and a gifted classical vocalist. She is also someone the former PM always consulted through periods of struggle in his life. The book throws a lot of light on those details of Dr Singh’s life,” says the translator.

The work also speaks of Manmohan Singh’s Lok Sabha election loss from South Delhi in 1999 after his wife Gursharan advised him not to contest.

Daman Singh, the biographer, had in 2014 around the launch of the book, described her father’s election loss as a huge personal blow to her.