Jasdeep Singh

Writer, translator, researcher, curator, and technologist

Jasdeep Singh spends a lot of time with the written word — translating between Punjabi and English, thinking about cinema, and following the political and cultural life of Punjab. In his view, translation is close reading, and he translates literature between Punjabi and English, including poetry, prose, and essays for outlets like Outlook and academic volumes like the Routledge Handbook of Punjab Studies. His forthcoming book, Anhey Ghorhey Da Daan — Screenplay and Other Writings (October 2026), brings together Gurvinder Singh’s screenplay based on Gurdial Singh’s novel alongside writings by Abbas Kiarostami, Gurdial Singh, Waryam Sandhu, Jasbir Mand, and Amarjit Chandan, translated into Punjabi and edited by Jasdeep Singh. He also presents research on cinema and digital culture at academic conferences, and hosts a weekly reading of sixteenth century Punjabi poet Madho Lal Shah Hussain.

This carries over into film and performance. He has spent the past decade working across script development, dialogue writing, casting, and assistant direction on award-winning Punjabi cinema with director Gurvinder Singh, including Rehmat, Adh Chanani Raat, Infiltrator, and Alms for a Blind Horse. He also worked on script development and dialogue writing for Hanere De Panchi (Birds in the Dark), directed by Shashank Walia, and contributed Punjabi dialogue writing to Mira Nair’s Amri. His writing has also gone to the stage — he contributed to Sufi Kathak dancer Manjari Chaturvedi’s dance theater production O Jugni Punjab Di. He curates the Kirrt project, an online gallery hosting stories and photographs of Punjabi labourers, artisans, and artists, along with film screening programs at venues like the Kochi Biennale and Vadehra Art Gallery, and was part of the farmers protest newsletter Trolley Times.

Alongside this, he works as a technologist — 15 years on the Performance and Security Engineering team at basware.com, designing secure systems for banking integrations and leading threat mitigation and DevSecOps efforts. This technical background feeds into his digital archiving work, including a nationwide digital archive of protest movements built with IIIT Hyderabad.

He is available for independent commissions in translation, script and dialogue writing, film curation, and digital archiving.

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