Kamla Kapur Shares Excerpts From 'Singing Guru'

By 1 2 1 News Reporter

Chandigarh 10^th May:-- A well-known US-based Indian author, Kamla K. Kapur, shared the excerpts from her forthcoming book on Guru Nanak's life and travels at the Chandigarh Literary Society (CLS)'s 'Meet the Author' programme.

Kamla Kapur informed that The Singing Guru-Legends of Guru Nanak, Founder of the Sikhs, for the first time re-imagines Nanak's life and travels, weaving together facts, legends, fantastic folktales, myths, and some of his most beautiful songs, preserved in the Sikh holy book, the Granth Sahib. 

The story, a long narrative interwoven with smaller stories linked together in an overarching theme, is told from the point of view of the central character, Mardana.  Historically, Mardana was Guru Nanak's musical accompanist, servant, and traveling companion on their many journeys. 'The Singing Guru' is being published in USA by Mandala publishers, informed Kamla Kapur who was born and raised in India and later studied in US, where she has penned and published some of the critically acclaimed books including Ganesha Goes to Lunch: Classics from Mystic India, published in USA by Mandala, which Jaico published later retitled as Classic Tales from Mystic India.  Her another popular book Rumi's Tales from the Silk Road, Pilgrimage to Paradise, has been published in US by Mandala and by Penguin in India in 2009, besides books of poetry, As a Fountain in a Garden (Tarang Press, 2005) and Radha Sings (Dark  Child Press, 1987).

Welcoming her Ms Sumita Misra, Chairperson of the CLS, said that Kamla is a prolific playwright, author and poet who brings in the fusion of Indian and American culture and has beautifully interwoven and reimaged Indian spiritual classics. In 1977 Ms. Kapur won The Sultan Padamsee Award for two of her plays:Kamia, and Zanana, and on 4th May the Hindi rendition of 'Kamia', translated and directed by Padmashri Ram Gopal Bajaj, was staged at National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA) at Mumbai.

Her plays have been produced by reputed theatre companies in US and India, and in 1985 The New Mexico Arts Division selected her as the Playwright in Residence for two years in 1985. Her poetry and short stories have also been published in several literary journals in north America Ms. Kapur divides her time living in the remote Himalayas and in San Diego, California, with her husband, the artist and author Payson R. Stevens.