Translated by Suresh Sethi

Pash, original name Avtar Singh Sandhu, is one of major poets of the so-called jujhar ( naxalite militant) trend in the Punjabi literature of 1970s. He was born in Talwandi Salem, Jalandhar, on 9 September 1950. At the young age of 21, he was tried on a framed up murder charge because of his active sympathies with the Maoists and was in prison for about two years. After his acquittal he became active in Punjabi Maoist front organisations and edited a literary magazine Siar . He was awarded one year fellowship by Punjabi Sahit (Literature) Akademi in 1985. The following year he was in California and worked at a gas station and produced a tract for Anti-47 Front. He was murdered by the Sikh terrorists in his village on 23 March 1988. His works include Lohkatha (1970), Uddian bazan magar (1973) and Sade y samiyan vich (1978). His unpublished poems were posthumously brought out under the title Khilre hoey Varkey (1989) followed by his journals and letters. A selection of his poems in Punjabi in the Persian script Inkar was published in Lahore in 1997. His poems are included in many anthologies published in Indian languages.