Giani Sohan Singh Seetal

Sohan Singh Seetal, also spelled Sheetal and Sital, was a Punjabi dhadi, poet and novelist. He was born Sohan Singh Pannu on 7 August 1909 at Kadiwind (Qadiwind) in tehsil Kasur, now in Pakistan, to Khushal Singh and Dyal Kaur. He matriculated and took the Gyani degree, farmed, then began to write, and later set up his own press to earn a living. He died on 23 September 1998 aged 89. A dhadi darbar was held in his memory at Tarn Taran in September 2025, and The Tribune's report names him Dhadi Giani Seetal.

Key moments

• Poet and dhadi: Rekhta's profile says the themes of his vars are Sikh religion and history, the Gurus, warriors, shaheeds and the Ghallugharas. His book Seetal Kirnan sold over 1.5 lakh copies, which Rekhta says brought him fame as a dhadi.
• After 1947: he turns to fiction and, according to Wikipedia, writes over twenty novels, among them Dive di Lo, Mul da Mas and Badla, set mostly in the countryside of central Punjab. He also writes a historical series that includes Banda Singh Shahid.
• 1974: his novel Jug Badal Gaya wins the Sahitya Akademi Award for Punjabi. It follows a Punjab landlord, Lakha Singh, whose property and relatives are lost in the Partition of 1947. It was translated into English as Time Has Taken a Turn by Tejwant Singh Gill in 1998.
• 23 September 1998: he dies.

What he is remembered for. He is remembered as a writer who worked in two forms at once, the printed novel and the dhadi var sung to a gathering, and as one of the voices that carried Sikh history and the memory of the Ghallugharas to Punjabi audiences who did not read history books.