India, Aug. 24 -- Jalandhar has a long relationship with the arts, including music and literature, and this monsoon it is on top of the charts with two of Jalandhari writers chosen for the Dhahan Literary Award 2025 and the third winner is novelist Mudassar Bashir of Lahore for his novel "Goyal". This prestigious award was instituted in 2013 by the Canada-Indian Society for excellence in Punjabi fiction being written in India and Pakistan written either in Gurmukhi or Shahmukhi scripts of the language shared by the two Punjabs. What warms the hearts that the two Jalandhari writers are old friends and theirs' has been a soulful journey with words, be it Parwana penning novels featuring Punjab and the struggles of the its people or Rasulpuri probing the heart of short fiction and creating stories that deeply touch the soul. Now coming to the region of Doaba, that nurtured these writers. They grew up in the rich mango growing area in the land stretching between the Satluj and Beas. The glory of Doaba is summed up in the line of a song sung by Sukhvinder Singh: 'Ni ambiyan nu tarsengi tu chhad ke Des Doaba' (You will pine for raw mangoes on leaving the region of Doaba). Yet migration was a way of life in this culturally rich region compelled by small land holdings, debts and of course the Punjabi spirit to travel. which led to the forming of the Ghadar Movement by expatriates from the US and Canada although the planned mutiny against British rule failed in 1915. However, it was in 1947 that saw the bloodiest migration from Doaba when the Muslim neighbours fled during Partition riots, even though they formed a larger percentage of the population as against the Sikhs and the Hindus. It is this scenario that becomes the subject of brutal riots and exit of the Muslim neighbours in his latest novel "Rowlyan Vele" (Times of Slaughter) which is shortlisted for the award. The device the writer chose for this novel is very contemporary. He sees the horror through a YouTuber's lens by interviewing those who suffered and witnessed the tragedy of Partition on their own souls. The young YouTuber goes for the search of survivors of the great divide in their late 80s or 90s and comes across a woman called Sodhan who is considered half-crazy by her village folks. The old woman recounts: "There was a sizable presence of Muslims in my parents' village. The moulvi would assemble a procession of Muslim girls and we Hindu girls would also merrily join them and parade in the streets. One group would say "Ik jalebi teil mein' and the other group would shout back "Saare Hindu jail mein!" She said: "When we reached home our mothers would scold us that why were we raising slogans with the Muslims?" What seemed like a game to the little girls soon turned into fire, loot and destruction." Thus the YouTuber moves from village to village, gathering memories and an old man in his 90s starts recounting how things changed in a matter of days. "We started hearing that a country called Pakistan would be created for the Muslims, and the Hindus and Sikhs would live in Hindustan." Thus the camera moves from one village to the other gathering ashes of the recall of the great divide. Parwana says: "Partition affected Punjab on both sides like never before. Over a crore Punjabis were uprooted from their homes and became refugees, Over 10 lakh were killed, over a lakh women were subjected to mass rapes and lakhs of children were orphaned. This tragedy was caused by crude vision of politics as greed for power is such that even human corpses can be crushed to gain it." From the blood stains of 1947 we come to Punjab today with an independent single working woman, earning a good salary, who chooses to overcome her loneliness with an electronic device called Alexa Smart Speaker till a delivery man earning a hard living with foresight and skill upsets the apple cart. The reader is left wondering who to empathise with the lonely self-sufficient women he visits or the man who at times even has to deliver his body. The title of Bhagwant Rasulpuri's collection of short stories shortlisted for the Dhahan award is "Delivery Man". My acquaintance with Rasulpuri dates back to a few decades courtesy my young dear friend late Des Raj Kali who started penning the truth of the long-oppressed class of dalits in Punjab, ironically a state dominated by Sikh religion which did not recognise caste. However, the reality remained very different from the teachings of the Sikh Gurus or the constitution of India framed by BR Ambedkar. These young writers were probing this reality and Rasulpuri showed a special talent in telling these stories with rare finesse. I recall reading his story on the life of a Dalit woman with a heavy heart and translated it into a collection of Punjabi short stories titled "Stories of the Soil" in 2010 and this particular story still 'Kasurwar' (The Sinful) still comes to haunt me now and then. Another classic story by the writer was 'Rehmat Masih Mattu di Jiwani' in which we see Masih of the Valmiki community as a spirited character in his journey of survival. In "Delivery Man" he travels further to view the changing social order, not primarily the downtrodden or female, struggling with loneliness and more and the changing social order, where the delivery man has to ignore the news of his father's passing away as he has to deliver his body that night to a well-off woman living alone. Rasulpuri has been active in the world of Punjabi literature with a new perspective to offer in each. The leading story writer of Punjabi, late Prem Prakash, said of his long contribution from 1990: "For many years his stories have been debated upon. The reason was that his stories always had something new to offer and over the years this writer who talks less has emerged as a storyteller to reckon with. So, bouquet to all three writers of Punjabi who have made it to the Dhahan award from Jalandhar to Lahore. Rasulpuri says in general bonhomie: "It matters not who gets the highest award from three of us shortlisted for we are all in it together with stories to put in the minds of the readers and the Punjabi language is dear to all be it here or across the border". Stories indeed are as necessary to the soul as food is to the body....