Parabjot Kaur Singh

When Parabjot Kaur Singh was a child, her grandfather taught her everything she was going to need to know.

A professional author who writes exclusively in Punjabi, her grandfather immigrated to Canada in 1994. He instilled in Singh the importance of preserving their mother tongue, teaching her how to read and write the language, and nurturing her budding talent. She fell in love with it in the process. “I developed this love for literature because my family environment revolved around it,” she says. “I grew up in that atmosphere, it was instilled into me and I enjoyed it. So, I took it up from there.” In many ways, Singh has made it her life’s work to preserve the language for kids growing up in her community and beyond. Her first book, Chewie, The Budgie – a bilingual storybook for children, written in both Punjabi and English and featuring illustrations from local PunjabiCanadian artist Jarnail Singh Artist – was written to do just that. “What happens is that a lot of times kids from multilingual, or even bilingual, backgrounds tend to focus on English,” she says. “Slowly they forget their mother tongue.” She used both languages for Chewie, the Budgie to make the story more relatable and make exploring Punjabi accessible and comfortable.

“I feel I wanted to promote Punjabi because of my love for language and literature, and I wanted to preserve that as well. Because I feel very close to the Punjabi language, I wanted to honor that as well by writing it.” Singh got her start as a writer while studying English at Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU). In fact, her time at university allowed her to explore the things she loves most – language and writing –as she got involved with the Department of Language and Cultures as well as the Creative Writing Guild, which nurtured her interest in the craft and where she forged relationships with other writers. She wrote during her undergraduate years, and some of her poems were published in the PULP, KPU’s literary arts magazine. Through the Department of Language and Cultures, she connected with Punjabi professor Dr. Ranbir Johal. Singh took up tutoring with the Surrey Learning Centre at KPU, working with students who were taking Punjabi courses and worked as a conversationalist for Punjabi courses taught at KPU. While tutoring, her relationship strengthened with the Punjabi language and she continues to volunteer for events organized by the Department of Language and Cultures regularly. Singh says she had originally planned to take journalism as a practical way to utilize her love of writing but was quickly steered away from that route once she arrived on campus. “Obviously, KPU has a good journalism program at the undergrad level,” she says, “but by exploring and taking different courses, I realized that my core strength actually lies in literature. That’s why I chose to study English. “I found the professors at KPU who taught English to be very inspiring. I learned a lot from them. I developed a keen interest in Canadian literature by taking courses with Dr. Shelley Boyd. And Dr. Aislinn Hunter helped me hone my creative writing skills. This made me stay there.” She says KPU always felt like a deeply creative place, with writers and poets holding court or live music flowing through the halls, depending on which campus she was at. She met many of the writers-in-residence that came through campus, several of which made an impact on her.

One was Gurjinder Basran, a B.C.-based writer who chronicles the experience of Punjabi-Canadians, and whose journey as a writer impacted her greatly, inspiring her to try becoming a writer herself. The other was Dr. Surjit Singh Pattar, a Punjabi language poet who inspired Singh to write poetry. “It’s a very nice, tight-knit community. There’s a lot of opportunities at KPU, whether it’s related to academia, whether it’s related to work experience or whether it’s related to volunteer experience. So with KPU, I think, I flourished, because I was able to find myself and connect with the community there as well.” She graduated with her bachelor of arts in English with a minor in psychology in 2016. Since then, she’s been involved with the Dhahan Prize, an internationallyacclaimed award for Punjabi writers, coorganizing the Youth Award launched by the Dhahan Prize for students studying Punjabi in B.C. schools. She’s also an executive member with Punjabi Language Education Association, coorganizing the International Mother Language Day each year. All of this, by the way, is outside the scope of her day job as a high school teacher with the Surrey School District where she teaches Punjabi and English courses. There couldn’t be a better fit for her skill set.

“I contribute to the school environment from my heart,” she says. “Punjabi classes organize and celebrate cultural events such as Diwali and Vaisakhi as a school. Teaching feels very rewarding to me when I learn that I’ve made a positive difference in students’ lives.”