I am nearing some kind of completion of the database and starting to think about exactly how to articulate to the wider web-world exactly why this page has been set up.
 

Over the years I've engaged in a strange ritual. Every few days a story hits the Indian newspapers and either I send this onto an ever growing email list of friends, supporters, practitioners and the generally interested or they send it to me. The story is usually something rather depressing on another cultural landmark or historical monument being torn down in the name of progress. The email is sent, a short period of communal hand-wringing and head shaking ensues and inevitably the thread ends there. Occasionally a good-news story on Punjab's fabulously rich and beautiful heritage pops up and similarly we can feel good for a short while.

The work done by excellent journalists at The Tribune, The Daily Times (Pakistan) and occasionally the BBC is extremely short lived, the article has a half-life of a few days and then is lost to our fading memories.

Over the years I have kept these articles and emails. Some of them have affected me deeply: Peter Pophams article " Brummies bodge Sikhs' holy shrine" is one of the articles that really sticks in the mind and blew the cover to the international world of the horrendously bodged re-guilding of the Harimandir in preparation for the 1999 celebrations. However, again for most people the work of The Independent Newspaper was lost a few days after it was published.

This site attempts to give this work some permanence on the net and act as a repository for this work.

This site will also, I hope act as a place where practitioners can publish their thoughts, articles and finds on Punjabi heritage. I also hope that with the use of RSS/XML feeds punjabheritage.org becomes the place on the net consolidating and sharing news on the state of our Punjabi heritage