Think and grow rich in Punjabi

It happened one night a few years ago: Barj Singh Dhahan was about to retire for the day after putting his aged mother to sleep in a cozy quilt. Vancouver gets very cold, Dhahan repeated to himself as he looked back and stood still, trance-like, near her feet. The pause was fleetingly familiar: when his bebe would sip water midway a story she narrated to her kids each day in Nawanshahr's Dhahan village. "What should I do with the stories?" Dhahan asked himself. He was sleepless.

"I learnt the idiom of Punjabi language through my mother's stories. Like my mother, every person has a story; some express in words. My attempt is to preserve stories written in my mother tongue and to recognize new writings," says the founder of Dhahan Prize that celebrates Punjabi fiction. He was in Chandigarh recently.

Her left for Vancouver in 1967 when he was 10 years old. Today Dhahan has businesses in real estate, gas stations and restaurants. 

He is concerned that Punjabi youth settled abroad do not know their language. He tossed his idea to his friends and relatives and, in 2011, the idea of instituting an award that would honour Punjabi literature germinated.

"For a global reach, we decided to award writers in both Gurmukhi and Shahmukhi scripts. Punjab cannot be divided culturally. West and east Punjabs are united through the common denominator of suffering," says Barj.

So, Dhahan Prize was born in 2014 in association with the Department of Asian Studies of the University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver. It has been instituted on the lines Giller Prize, founded in 1994 in recognition of excellence in Canadian fiction. Named after Barj's native village Dhahan, the prize encourages new writing by awarding $25,000 CDN (about Rs 13 lakh) annually to one of the "best books of fiction" published in either scripts. Two second prizes of $5,000 CDN (about Rs 2.5 lakh) each are also awarded, with the provision that both scripts are represented among the three winners. It is the highest award in terms of prize money. "The aim is to have an endowment of $3 million CDN (Rs 15.25 crore) so that we don't face financial problem later," says Barj.

There are about 2.9 crore Punjabi speakers in India and 7 crore in Pakistan, according to the website of Dhahan Prize. "Punjabis in Canada have been conversing in their mother tongue for 120 years. Today, at least seven high schools in Vancouver offer Punjabi as a second language. One can get services in Punjabi in banks and government offices. And there are signs in Punjabi at airports."

As per Canada's 2011 census, Punjabi is the third most common language in British Columbia, behind English and Chinese. In Canada, it is fifth most commonly spoken language with 4.6 lakh Punjabi speakers across the country. In Metro Vancouver, 17.7% of immigrant language speakers converse in Punjabi at home.

Barj is committed to paying back to his community. He sees a change, a small one though. "Pakistani writer Fauzia Rafeeq is learning Gurmukhi and my elder sister is learning Shahmukhi. And my Muslim friend's children raised in Canada are learning Punjabi after Dhahan Prize gained popularity," he says.