BALIJIT
Urmilla Anand Memorial Award Winner-2023

"Noon is the story of a marginalized rural family hidden in some dark corner of the Punjabi society…"

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About his story 'NUNE'

Balijit

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Born on 15th March 1962 in village Lakhmipur of Ropar, Balijit's given name was Baljit Singh.  Balijit did his higher education in M.A. (English Literature) from Punjab University Chandigarh.  He was still doing his M. A. when he got the appointment letter as a clerk with the Electricity Board, Patiala. Later, he held various government jobs in Punjab until his retirement in 2022. 

 
Balijit considers Bhushan Dhyanpuri as his mentor. In 1979, Bhushan had joined Ropar College as a lecturer and had

asked the students to write a story in Punjabi for a college competition. Balijit was a first year B. A. student then. Borrowing the name of Shiv Kumar's book 'Main Te Main', that he had stolen from the library, Balijit wrote a story by the same name which was declared as the best.

His first story to be published in a magazine was ‘Shudai’, published in Sirjana in 1990.  After this, editors of all magazines including Amrita Pritam, Raghbir Singh Sirjana, Ram Saroop Ankhi continued to reject his writings for many years until 2001.  Balijit says that he has also written lot of poetry, but that has rarely been published.

In 2002, he wrote the story ‘Bhuriyaan Akkhaan Da Sek', when he was forty years old. Prem Prakash published this story in his magazine with a special note.  During the next ten years, Balijit wrote 20 stories and published two collections of stories, 'Sau Gallan' and 'Ibartaaan'. After a gap of 13 years, in 2022, a new anthology of his stories 'Uchchian Awaazan' has been published that includes 'Nune', the one selected as the best story of year 2022 for the Urmila Anand Memorial Award.