Book: 'Sikhs Unlimited'; Author: Khushwant Singh; Price: Rs.495; Publisher: Rupa

Did Chandigarh lose out to Bangalore as the e-capital of India due to then prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao's insistence that since Punjab had the benefit of the Green Revolution the next revolution should go to a southern state?

According to Gurujot Singh Khalsa, one of the pioneers of the off-shoring and back office processing business in India, he started his initial venture in northern India, but real time data transfer between India and the United States could begin only after the first satellite earth station was set up in Bangalore in December 1993.

Khalsa's HealthScribe company was the first commercial subscriber to use its facilities for data transfer. Later, his other company First Ring became the first to do voice transfers, which set off the trend for the call centre business.

This anecdote is related in a book titled 'Sikhs Unlimited', and Gurujot Khalsa is one of the Sikhs profiled in the book. Punjab lost out to Bangalore as even the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee did not take seriously Khalsa's proposal to jointly set up an earth station in Mohali in 1991, according to him.

The book maps the lives of Sikhs living aboard, celebrating the achievements of the Sikh diaspora that has excelled in diverse fields - from the arts to theatre to entrepreneurship.

The author of the book, Khushwant Singh (not to be mistaken for the venerable old man in a light bulb though the author was inspired by his well-known namesake) chose to spend time with his subjects, living in their homes to be able to draw personalised portraits of each of them.