Dr. Dhillon's interpretation of these timeless folk tales is unquestionably the best i have ever read. As a former student of his, i have had the honour and pleasure of actually having witnessed him tell one of his stories to an audience of which i was a member and i can only say that hearing him tell one of his stories completely eclipses the pleasure of reading it. I would recommend this and any of his other books to everyone.

I recently purchased this book and was amazed by the mesmerizing beauty of the stories. Specially, Heer-Ranjah and Sohni-Mahiwaal totally captivates you. These are true stories and the folk-lore from Punjab (North India). I had heard about the stories from my elders when I was a kid and even got to see the movies, but I believe nobody has done more justice to the tales than the author Harish Dhillon. This book is a must buy for younger generation from India living abroad and for people from from all walks of life for these love stories cross all boundaries of race, color and creed.

For Darshan Singh Tatla, Operation Bluestar--the Indian Army's 1984 storming of the Golden Temple in order to flush out the militant leader Bhindranwale and his followers--was the 'crucial' (p 210) event that transformed Sikhs' understanding of their identity: 'From a self-confident religious community, the Sikhs rapidly acquired many characteristics of a persecuted minority' (p 1). In particular, argues Tatla, the threat of an overly centralised and overtly Hindu India practising 'ethnocracy' (p 36) rather than democracy led the one million-strong Sikh diaspora to take up the role of popularisers-and chief fund-raisers-for Khalistan. Their reaction to Operation Bluestar also 'enabled them to redraw a strict definition of Sikh identity, highlighting the religious tradition and collective symbols of the community instead of the geography, language and cultural traits' (p 210). Tatla adds that support for Khalistan fed on the alienation which many Sikhs living abroad had long felt but rarely articulated.

Tatla's excellent work underscores the 'situational' (p 210) nature of ethnic consciousness. Why then does he only grudgingly admit that, for the Sikh diaspora, 'a broader loyalty towards India probably still exists' (p210)? With the return of peace to Punjab and the entrance of the Akali Dal (the main Sikh political party) into the recent national coalition government of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, support for Khalistan has become a slogan rather than a belief.

The Sikh DIASPORA, is a very thourgh and excellent written book, not only for academics alike but for our future generations, Tatla explains fully within context to the reader, a past, present and future look of Sikh movements, an excellent book and well contributed to the series of Diasporas around the world.

As a Sikh born in the UK and not really involved in the politics of india, this book was an eye opener and brought home the feeling of relatives and family who went through a hellish existance back in Punjab. We were only feed the India regimes views and the British presse's (Mark Tully views) which now come out to be baised aganist the Sikhs and the freedom fighters. It just shows how dirty policitcs is and how people abuse power. I will be more interested in the views of my relatives and friends then the press. I feel I have let down my Sikh brothers and Sisters in the hour of need, but I pray to God that their dream of Freedom will come true one day.

God Bless you all Bal

A well written account of the events that occured in Sikh Punjab over the last 15 years. Well documented cases of the mass killing of Sikhs by India, backed up by firm evidence.

A must for all those who have an interest in the Sikhs

When Cynthia Keppley Mahmood narrated some of her experiences with the Sikh Militant during the fieldwork to one of her students, he remarked, "These people are magnificent." After reading the book, many readers may feel the same way while others may disagree depending on which side of the fence they stand - victim of terrorism or victim of injustice that leads to terrorism.

Although Mahmood makes it very clear in no uncertain terms about her disagreement in regards to the route the Sikh militants have taken up to seek justice, she still manages to bring together a very unbiased and objective account. This book sheds light on the history and politics behind what led to the disaster of 1984 in India. And then the aftermath is recounted by the eye witnesses and victims now settled in the US.

Inder Malhotra, one of the most distinguished journalists of that time, compared Sant J.S. Bhindrawale to Khoemini and Frankenstien but this first hand accounts of people who grew up with, lived with, and fought with Bhindrewale show a different picture. After reading this book, it is up to the reader to decide which account to believe.

Finally, a version that tells the story on behalf of the militants, their justifications, and their ideology. The first hand accounts of people who were directly involved and affected during the Blue Star operation are extremely moving and shows the image in different light than what one has seen before. The bravery of Sikh men, women and even children is amazing. The illustrations, some provided by the international documentation of human rights violation in India, are tremendously moving.

This is a read that will take a while due to its poignant nature, but worth the time to understand the depth and dimensions of this problem

Growing up as a Sikh in America I was far removed from the atrocities perpetrated on the Sikh community in India. I distinctly remember as a child watching my parents and family desperately calling India to relatives to ensure their safety. Then in 1994 on my first visit (after 13 years), I discussed the topic of the November 1984 riots with some of my relatives. I found their accounts to just as harrowing. What I found more disturbing was the censorship of the issue there. No books were written or at least could be obtained in India. To my surprise I came across this book one day on Amazon and decided to get it. I found the book to be intelligent, meticulously researched, and above all engrossing. Although I am far from an extremist I can understand the extreme position of the these "freedom fighters" Cynthia Manmood presents interviews dispersed with her opinions many of which her subjects, I'm sure would disagree with. Recommended book for anyone interested in current Indian history as well as Sikh history.

By far one of the best books I have ever read. This book is not for just Khalistanis, but for everyone who wants to know the truth. It is written by a non sikh and a non indian for that matter giving it a bi partisian view of the punjab situation past and present. It is a well written and easy to read book.

At times this book was so intense that I had to put it down so I would not over flow with emotion. This is not for the weak of heart, there are eye witness stories of militants and survivors of tragdey.

I have read other books on the punjab crisis but non come close to the one on one interviews that Cynthia has given. These stories will grip your heart and turn it around. Stories of brave Sikhs IN OUR TIME! Many times people think that the days of Baba Deep Singh are gone, but after reading this book you will know there are countless of those kinds of Sikhs, who are upholding what Sikhi really is, while we live in luxury and just proclaim our selves as sikhs with high heads. There heads pay for our heads tanding tall today.

We have been humiliated by the Government of India, and the only reason that we can even walk with our respect today is because of what the freedom fighters in punjab did for us.

Many times you will see non-sikhs wearing a kara, I once asked one of my south indian friends, why do you wear a kara, and his response was, this is the sign of bravery. What bravery? today we wear a kara and proclaim to be brave, and this comes from the lives others have given.

So many people dont know the truth, and even some of our own sikhs choose not to know the truth because they are fearful that it might make them uncomfortable in there 'comfortable' life styles. How can we live easily while the rest of our people suffer? This makes people take the easy way out, and decide, its better if i dont know, then to be made to feel guilty.

I think i have gone off on a different direction, but back to the book. If you know english, and are someone who proclaims to be a sikh, then you owe it to those people who died, to at least READ about them, and what they went threw.

They have given their today, so that Sikh Panth could have a prosperous future.

Put down the TV Remote and pick up this book.

For the sake of humanity READ THIS BOOK...

Please join our group: Khalistan@egroups.com or email me at Khalistanee@hotmail.com

The mission of the group is to inform people about Sikhs Struggle for Khalistan, and Injustice done to Sikhs and other minorities by INDIAN Govt.

Beginning in 1928 and referring back to the memories of the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh, Shauna Singh Baldwin's Partition-novel _What the Body Remembers_ integrates the political history of India, especially the effervescing religious factionalism, with the personal histories of two Sikh women--riddled with as much anxiety as the national history.

The novel offers a sensitive vignette of displacements, refugee dilemmas, and dispossessions interlaced with the specifically gendered violence performed on the bodies of women-drawn from recent feminist research studies. Notably, the story brings together women from Punjab and Bengal-the two provinces that were divided in 1947-fleeing from Lahore and places both in a situation of equal vulnerability on grounds of gender more than religion.

Besides the Partition atrocities that constitute the epic of the modern Indian nation-state, the novel touches upon various other subjects of topical interest: the socialization of young women, the devaluation of women in marriage as baby-making machines, the maltreatment of girl-children, the unlivable situation between co-wives, and the problem of dowry.

The characters of the men in the novel merited some more elaboration. The end seemed a little rushed. The Epilogue, however, is superb. The almost-clinical prose multiplies the psychological trauma of the event. As a narration of Sikh histories from the last few decades before Indian Independence, and especially the histories of women caught in the violence of Partition, Shauna Singh Baldwin's novel is a valuable addition to the growing literature on the Partition of India.

"It was the moment when his beard scratched her cheeks and his falcon eyes looked directly down upon her, held her eyes until he must have seen how very small his face was, how very tiny, reflected in her gray eyes. And in that long, long moment, she knew Sardarji expected her to lower her eyes before him."

Satya recalls, in Shauna Singh Baldwin's book What the Body Remembers, the single moment when she knew what her husband wanted but that she could never do: lower her gaze in front of him. It is this quality of hers to look him in the eye and tell him the way it is that also eventually separates him from her. That and the fact that she could not bear him a son.

With the 1947 Partition of India as the backdrop, WTBR is a loving portrait of the Sikhs - the community of people from the Northwest corner of India. Baldwin has used research and her own experiences as a Sikh to draw the three main characters: Sardarji, his wife Satya, and her nemesis Roop, the young girl Sardarji marries secretly so she could give him a son. They linger in your mind long after you close the book. Using minute layers of details of Roop's life as the ground, Baldwin has drawn Roop's character, her longings, her fears, her courage, and most importantly, her endurance. Satya and Roop, the two women married to Sardarji, so different in their personality and character, yet live under the same fear and belief: the fragility of their security. From different levels of prosperity and status they each see with clarity the ease with their lives can be blown all away at the slightest show of free will, of disobedience. It is a story lived by many women in all cultures. The Sikh women in Baldwin's story surprise us with the strength they show in adversity, the way they bend without breaking when their world falls apart and reshapes in permenantly altered states.

A wealthy Sikh engineer takes a young village girl as a second wife. His first wife, a fierce, beautiful woman who runs most of his properties, has not given him children. The relationship between these three stretch from the final days of Britain's Indian Empire, through the brutal and bloody partition of India, and into, the reader suspects, the next life. 'What the Body Remembers" works on several levels. The characters are fully drawn, and live in a believable, richly imagined. English-minded Sardarji (he even has a name for the little British voice that reminds him what is and is not done) can put aside his European teaching when it suits him to take a second wife. Brilliant and manipulative, first wife Satya is his political conscience and his connection to his ancestral lands. Unformed sixteen-year-old Roop, brought on the scene to produce children, will discover the strength of her weakness and may save her family from destruction following the terrifying birth of Pakistan from India.

As a political lesson, the novel is also fascinating reading. The characters in "What the Body Remembers" are Sikhs, the religious segment left out in the splitting of the subcontinent into Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. Who can they rely on when the bloodshed of Partition begins?

This is the kind of book that pulls you in quickly, and does not release you from its spell until the last page. Another wonderful novel about India for those who want to spend more time in the country is Vikram Seth's "A Suitable Boy"-1,100 pages of pure joy.

The psuedo-autobiography is very good at keeping the reader educated of indian terms and traditions. However, there is too much description and not enough action to keep the reader's attention. Also, since the novel is old, the language is archaic and thus does not seem to interesting to today's audience. However, 1850s British India is a fascintaing time and place, and this novel does present the times well, though through the lens of a European mercenary rather than a British officer.

The book is nicely written and is informative. It starts with a brief history of Sikhs, the long drawn roots of the movement, how it turned into terrorism, to the army operation and its aftermath. As pointed out in the book political leadership of the time was more to blame - Government did "too much too late". Too much because they acted too late which closed all the moderate options. Too late because a movement of small issues was allowed to grow into terrorism. The struggle for power and its wrath, once again, is well established. The dastardly act of few in power after the assassination of Mrs. Gandhi is brought out without wavering. And how the government machinery stood observer to inhuman killing of innocent people. The book carefully brings out controversial accounts, but not consistently. The book fails to paint the right picture of extent of terrorism - loots, killing of individuals, sects and groups, and attacks on government machinery with bombs and arms supplied from outside the country. Things can be argued one way or the other about the army operation. Everything is fair in love and war! The fact remains that army operation was inevitable and the Congress party, SGPC and Akali Dal were all equally responsible. While the first one created the problem, the other two supported and all the three used the propagators apart from the outside worlds, which helped in kind and cash both.

I will have to say that it is not a complete account of the movement. It fails to account for all the forces that supported the movement, financial, political and moral. Origin of Sikhs is not mentioned at all.

i want to review the articles "role of pnjab in making of pakistan" in this book.

Brian McAndrew and Zuhair Kashmeri have done exhaustive and difficult research to compile alternative explanations for the Air India disaster that killed 329 Canadians in 1985.

Evidence never released to the public by CSIS or the RCMP is provided in this book that legitimately exposes the role of the Indian government in this heinous crime. A must read for those seeking the truth about Air India.

Ms. Butalia's more than 250 page book could be told in 20, rest is jibberish about "her" feminism, newly found sikhi, and in general absolute irrelevant non-sense.
The books core is interviews with about 5 survirors, the interviews are badly done, they are really monologues. It's a shame that they told their most touching stories to her and she squandered these in her own confusion. She forgot that she is because someone didn't yield and let her be what she is, her femimism and sikhi and all. That the history shouldn't be explained but told and understood. I would recommend not reading anythings from quackpots like her and her promoter Mr. Rushdi. These people are just as dangerous as the people with guns who shoot without caring about the target.

Urvashi Butalia is citizen and activist in India, the world's largest democracy. This book is a "must read" for those interested in the intersection of faith, ethnicity and identity in the Indian subcontinent in particular and in the world at large.

It is one of the few outstanding books on recent Indian history which integrates gender into the narrative to provide witness to the horror and pain of the subcontient's partition into India and Pakistan from the standpoint of one family, Butalia's own.

Part family biography, part oral history, this remarkably even-handed book deserves to be made into an epic movie.

Besides loss of property and loss of life, two of the subcontinent's many ethnic groups, more than all the others, underwent a sort of psychic dismemberment with partition that they have never really got over.

The Punjabis in the north, who lost west Punjab to Pakistan (and it is fair to say, west Punjab lost east Punjab to India) and the Bengalis of the east who saw east Bengal become East Pakistan, later Bangladesh, and West Bengal become a major state of the new Indian Union.

Urvashi, or someone with her exceptional gifts, needs to round out this narrative by doing a sequel on what happened in Bengal at Partition.

Having researched the whys and wherefores of the India/Pakistan Partition quite a bit, I have been surprised by how little has been heard from the people who lived through it (compared to other historical cataclysms such as the Holocaust, World Wars, etc.). Most books on Partition tend to concentrate on the "big picture", with a few anecdotes thrown in as an afterthought. This book provided by far the best account of how the Partition affected real people and real lives. The sections on the impact of Partition on women, children and the untouchables are especially powerful. Highly recommended, even for people who may not be familiar with this monstrous tragedy. You can't help but be moved by the first-hand accounts of such intense pain and suffering. Those interested in the human aspect of Partition should also watch "Earth", a great Indian movie on this subject.