The jail notebook of freedom fighter Bhagat Singh will soon be available in the form of a coffee table book produced by the Gurgaon-based grandson of his younger brother Kulbeer Singh.
Bhagat Singh's notebook was handed over to Kulbeer after the 23-year-old revolutionary was executed by the British in Lahore Central Jail with his comrades Rajguru and Sukhdev on March 23, 1931. It has been with the family since then and Yadvinder Singh Sandhu, Kulbeer's grandson who heads a trust and organisation which work in the education sector, thought of having it published in a glitzy coffee table book format.
The revolutionary's jail notebook was first published in Hindi in the early 1990s and again towards the end of that decade. It was published in Punjabi a few years ago. The 288-page coffee table book will have a scanned version of the original manuscript and a printed version of the text on facing pages.
"The original diary and notes, as handed out to my ancestors, have been carefully preserved and protected all these years," Sandhu told mediapersons in Chandigarh on Saturday.
{{/usCountry}}"The original diary and notes, as handed out to my ancestors, have been carefully preserved and protected all these years," Sandhu told mediapersons in Chandigarh on Saturday.
{{/usCountry}}"The endeavour is to share this rich literary heritage of Shaheed-e-Aazam with more people. Though manuscripts of Bhagat Singh ji have been in the public domain for years, it's all there in bits and pieces," said Sandhu.
There is no effort to describe or explain the writings in order to keep the originality of the script intact, he said. "The book is ready, the cover has been finalised and we are shortly going to have it released at a national-level function," Sandhu said.