AmardeepSinghRanghar

Jagsaw, What does India's economic and social problems have to do with a book that is aimed to document the abandoned Sikh legacy across Pakistan? What makes you assume I am an Indian? What makes you think this work is just about a jolly trip to foreign lands to take photographs? Tracing the vestiges of the community and documenting it for posterity requires more than just sitiing on the computer, like you are doing and typing comments without having even opened the book, which to you is only worthy to be made into a table on which you want to drink your coffee. What kind of criticism is that, without even knowing what the work is about? You are amusing indeed. It's unfortunate that such arrogance radiates from your words. I had no desire to revert after my last note but your assumptions above made me think that you should be informed not to assume things. Good human traits have nothing to do with Western or Eastern worlds. Please understand that.

Jagsaw, try undertaking a project of this magnitude, where you have to travel across a country, undertaking personal risk to conduct research and then sacrifice your Corporate job for 2 years to document the research, and then after publishers, distributors and payment companies have all taken their share, see how much return an author gets!!!! You can only criticize, without appreciating the passionate effort that someone has put in towards documenting the vestiges of the community as they stand 7 decades after partition. If ever you will write in your life, only then you will appreciate that for the author, this is not just Seva at break-even but an out of pocket expense. I don't wish to comment anymore on this thread for people who can only see the value of such a work to be worthy to be used as their coffee table. Surely a little bit of humbleness in your words would help you go much far in life. Thanks and no more from me on this forum where members like yourself are so arrogant. Good bye.

Thanks much for your wishes. The plan is to delve further into the remaining vestigaes of the Sikh legacy across Pakitsan. Also in some time the entire content of this high quality book is to be bought to the mass market by using black and white images as then the paper quality and printing costs will srop down significantly. I don;t plan to do any videos as that is not my skill set. I am a writer and a photographer. In my estimate, 80% of the land that belonged to Ranjit Singh;s territory is now in the geography of Pakistan.

Jagsaw Singh, If you do not know aything about publishing of illustrated books, then I request ask the questions to increase your awareness, versus coming up with such a graphic descriptive language. Art paper is the normal paper for coffee table / illustrated book printing. This is not a text print alone but is a photographic work. When a 4 color print of pictures is to be adopted then the paper has to be this quality at minimum. This is a book with 523 pictures interspersed with 50,000 words of text and 14 maps. Hence the 130 gsm art paper is the lowest weight dimension of the color print paper that has been used to present the 4 color print quality of the photos. As I have said, this book has 500 pages. Normally coffee table books come only in 200 - 300 pages, so essentially 2 books are being packed into one. The weight of the book is over 2.6 Kg, which is very heavy. The pricing includes wroldwide shipment, which is at USD 25-USD 30 for a 3 kg packet to UK or USA (including packaging), that mean the book actual sale price is USD 80. Now got to amazon.com and search for illustrated similar quality illustrated coffee table books, which are all less than 300 pages and compare their prices with the price of LOST HERITAGE and you will hopefully appreciate that this book is being retailed at a very reasonable price. Links of the books at amazon can be seen below. Surely in sometime to come this book is planned to be printed in a cheaper quality paper, but that will change its dimension and the photo quality will drop substantially, probably being only in black and white, only then can the the price come down by 50% but that will happen only in the future. When the book is launched in India, it will be retailed through amazon.com India website at around USD 80, as the worldwide shipping will not apply. At this point the pre-orders are being accepted through www.lostheritagebook.com for worldwide shipments only, outside of India. Go to following liks as sample to increase your understanding of what one means by illustrated books in which 4 color photo printing is used and their pricing. Compare the priicng of these books that half less than 300 pages with that of LOST HERITAGE that has 500 pages. http://www.amazon.in/Gurdwaras-India-Around-World-Patwant/dp/B0095HGGMK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1443140979&sr=8-1&keywords=patwant+singh+Gurdwara http://www.amazon.com/Warrior-Saints-Centuries-Military-History/dp/0956016855/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1443140416&sr=8-1&keywords=amandeep+madra http://www.amazon.com/Golden-Temple-Amritsar-Reflections-1808-1959/dp/0956016812/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1443140416&sr=8-3&keywords=amandeep+madra http://www.amazon.com/Warrior-Saints-Centuries-Military-Tradition/dp/1860644902/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1443140416&sr=8-2&keywords=amandeep+madra

It is printed on Art paper, coffee table books are not more than 250 pages and in this book one is packing 500 pages, like 2 coffee table books in one. Printed costs of this type hardbound cover itself is very expensive. That is why it seems expensive. The cheaper version is planned once this high quality print stock is sold, so the seed capital is recovered. At that point we plan to print in normal dirty paper in black and white photos, which should bring it less than Rs. 1000. Till then this lot will be premium priced.

This is the author of the book "LOST HERITAGE : The Sikh Legacy in Pakistan". I am really amused at the short sightedness of the members of this forum who without having opened a single page of the book, have jumpred to conclusion that this is a personal journey. Rise above Jatts, Bhappas, rich, poor, urban, non-urban, etc denominations that people are assuming. This book is about exploration of the community's Sikh legacy as I could discover by travelling across Pakistan over 30 days. My research was not a personal search for my family's legacy but was for our community's legacy, to uncover which, 30 days are too short. It would require years of work to document the community's legacy and I am only providing what I was able to experience. As for the comment that this is Potohar centric work, ignoring the canal colonies. Well are you not able to see the canals areas covered? What about the dots that show the research done in Multan, Sahiwal ((Montgomery), Pakpattan, Sheikhupura, Gurjranwala, Eminabad, Narowal????? Why do the forum members ignore that it also delves into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Pakistan Kashmir? I hope with this clarification, your self created doubts are put to rest that this is a passion driven research into the vestiges of the Sikh community, notbiased by the myopic divisions of Bhapa, Jatt, Kattri, etc. Rise above my friends and delve into the book before passing such strong judgments. Scan the entire homepage of the books website to acquaint yourselves. www.lostheritagebook.com

'LOST HERITAGE - The Sikh Legacy in Pakistan" a book to be released in Dec 2015, offers a narrative in 500 pages, interspersed with over 517 photographs of the very detailed exploration of the remnant Sikh legacy across Pakistan in the states of West Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Pakistan Administered Kashmir. Visit the books website at www.lostheritagebook.com