The Camel Merchant of Philadelphia (Stories from the Court of Maharaja Ranjit Singh)

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In 1801, the young scion of a petty fiefdom in Punjab was conferred with the title Maharaja of Punjab. The young man, whose name was Ranjit Singh, went on to carve out a kingdom for himself that stretched from the borders of Afghanistan in the west to the boundaries of the British Raj in the east. It included the lush hills and valleys of Kashmir, the barren mountains of Ladakh and the fertile plains of his native Punjab. The British valued him as an ally who would keep their western frontier safe, and while they coveted his kingdom, they did not dare engage in military adventures in Punjab during his lifetime.

The Camel Merchant of Philadelphia-an examination of Ranjit Singh and his rule focuses on a wide array of characters that populated his court. All these stories combine to present a nuanced and complex image of Ranjit Singh through his interactions with these characters. The work humanizes the monarch and presents him as the brilliant man he was, without attempting to gloss over his flaws and foibles.

Sarbpreet Singh, a writer, playwright, podcaster and commentator, is the author of Kultar's Mime (2016), The Camel Merchant of Philadelphia (2019), Night of the Restless Spirits (2020) and The Story of the Sikhs: 1469-1708 (2021). His latest book, a novel titled The Dancing Sufi of Lahore (2023), reimagines the life and times of the Sufi Shah Hussain. He is also the author of Jujhar Cheema, an adaptation of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, set in the Punjab of the early 1990s. His Story of the Sikhs Podcast, which has listeners in ninety countries and is currently in its fourth season, has an expansive sweep that has drawn comparisons with the work of Ken Burns, an American film-maker known for his Academy Award-winning documentaries. Singh's work has been featured on the BBC and National Public Radio and his commentary has appeared in several newspapers in the US, India and Pakistan. Singh is also the founder of The Gurmat Sangeet Project, a non-profit dedicated to the preservation of sacred Sikh music.

The Camel Merchant of Philadelphia came into being quite serendipitously. Growing up in Gangtok, Sikkim, far from Punjab, the Sikh homeland, I did not have much of an understanding or appreciation of Sikh history. There were hardly any Sikhs in Sikkim; other than a few army officers and civil servants who would be posted there occasionally, there were literally two Sikh families in Gangtok! My high school history books mentioned Sikhs only in passing and I never really learned about Maharaja Ranjit Singh or his empire.