Turbans And Tales: An Education in the Sikh Identity And Culture

This week on Tuesday evening, Creative duo Amit and Naroop were one out of four speakers selected to talk at the community heritage project ‘Journey From Home’ event exploring experiences, feelings and shared stories of South Asian soldiers during the First World War, which was held at The National Archives, London. Amit and Naroop, two talented Creatives, Photographers, Directors and today Authors were selected to speak alongside other reputable names such as Amandeep Madra OBE (United Kingdom Punjabi Heritage Association), Paula Kitching (historian and author) and Kiran Sahota (Believe in Me)  who all share a passion for stories on the history of South Asian soldiers.

The Creative duo shared stories from their soon to be released book, “Turbans and Tales”, which has been in the making for four years, following on from the global success of their recognised project called, ‘The Singh Project’.

‘The Singh Project’ stemmed from a personal project of 34 images the duo photographed and wanted to share which portrayed a collection of impactful and powerful images of Sikhs wearing turbans who had beards.  The images were captured to break the stigma and taboo of a generalised Sikh man wearing a turban, they wanted to share a diverse range of Sikh individuals in turbans portraying identity and style from all professional backgrounds which included magicians, boxers, entrepreneurs, well-known personalities and doctors.

The new release “Turbans and Tales” is a photographic book with 245 pages celebrating the powerful identity of Sikhs;

“This is a book showcasing Sikh identity, it is a book for everyone to read and be proud of what they look like and who they are.“ said Amit and Naroop about their book.

The book combines a deep passion for portrait photography with the interest of the Sikh identity; each of the portraits are accompanied with the words from the subjects: their tales about stories of their experiences, what their turban means to them, how it makes them feel, how people perceive them, why their identity is important and more.

“Turbans and Tales” is due to launch on the 24th January and will be available in Waterstones and it is available to pre-order online at Amazon.

Creative Photographer Director duo, left to right Amit Amin, Naroop Jhooti