Shimona Sharma & Damini Sharma
The North News
Chandigarh, November 19
When 18-year-old author Shaurya Prabh Sharma sits down to talk about his debut book Panjab INC., he returns repeatedly to one moment — a conversation with his father. “It started very simply,” he tells The North News. “We were discussing the political situation in Punjab, and I said something like: I don’t feel like a typical Punjabi. My father looked at me and said, Think twice before you say that. You need to study your roots.”
The remark stayed with him. “I went home that day and began reading about Punjab’s entrepreneurial history. Because I study entrepreneurship myself, it immediately resonated. It felt like a part of my past that I had somehow overlooked.”
That impulse became the foundation of Punjab INC., a book that traces the region’s commercial instincts across centuries — from itinerant traders to the globally dispersed Punjabi business families of today.
‘Traders carried more than goods — they carried stories’
In the book, Shaurya places traders at the centre of Punjab’s historical narrative. “Their contribution is unique,” he explains. “They were the ones who travelled, who saw the world, who carried information long before newspapers or telegraphs existed.”
His opening chapter, titled Traders and Invaders, explores how merchants often moved along the same routes as conquerors. “As invaders came, traders came with them. They brought accounts of events, new ways of doing business, stories of other markets. That’s what drew me to them — they were witnesses as well as participants.”
But the book is not merely about traders, he emphasises. “It’s about Punjab’s entire entrepreneurial journey — how these instincts travelled from one generation to the next. The traders are one part of that larger story.”
‘Gen Z needs to step away from social media — just a little’
For a teenager who has written a serious historical work, Shaurya laughs easily at the question of what advice he would give to his peers.
“My friends joke that I’m more of a millennial than Gen Z,” he says. “But if there’s one message I have, it’s this: step away from social media once in a while. Instagram was created by a businessman — the app exists to hold your attention and make money off it.”
He is quick to clarify that he doesn’t dismiss digital habits altogether. “I’m not an avid reader myself, so I understand visual learning. But the moment you break out of the social-media loop, you start paying attention to conversations around you. You notice ideas. You learn from people. That shift really matters.”
‘History troubled me — but it also shaped the book’
Writing Punjab INC. at 18 came with its own challenges, and Shaurya doesn’t pretend otherwise. “Fact-checking became a huge task,” he says. “I didn’t set out to write a history book, but the subject naturally pulled me in that direction.”
He found himself navigating conflicting accounts, oral histories and personal diaries. “At one point it felt overwhelming,” he admits. “But eventually I realised: history is built on what people record, what they remember.”
The final manuscript, he says, reflects that understanding. “I read everything I could, but the book is written through my own interpretation. It’s my attempt to make sense of the stories that have shaped Punjab’s entrepreneurial spirit.”
