Surjit Patar

Surjit Patar is a poet and writer from Punjab, India, who writes in Punjabi. He was born in the village of Pattar Kalan in the Jalandhar district on 14^TH January 1945. He received his undergraduate degree from Randhir College in Kapurthala, followed by a Master's degree from Punjabi University in Patiala and a PHD in Literature from Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar on the topic "Transformation of Folklore in Guru Nanak Vani." He eventually went into academia and retired from Punjab Agricultural University in Ludhiana as a Professor of Punjabi. He is married to Bhupinder kaur patar and has two children: Manraj Patar and Ankur Patar.

In the mid-sixties, he began writing poems. His pen name came from the village where he grew up. "Candles," "Birkh Arz Kare," "Lafzaan Di Dargah," "Hanere vich sulagdi Varanmala," "Hawa Vich Likhe Harf," "Hanera Jarega Kiven," and others are among his poems. He is also an accomplished translator and screenwriter. Surjit Patar has written the dialogues for the Punjabi films "Shaheed Uddham Singh" and "Videsh," which is a Punjabi remake of “Heaven on Earth.”

He has also translated many works and written teleplays about Punjabi poets spanning from Sheikh Farid to Shiv Kumar Batalvi.

He is the president of Chandigarh's Punjab Arts Council. He formerly served as President of the Punjabi Sahit Akademi in Ludhiana. Many honors have been bestowed upon him, including the Sahitya Academy Award, Padam Shri Award, the Bhartiya Bhasha Parishad, the Gangadhar National Award for Poetry, and the Kusumagraj Literary Award-2014.