ਪੰਜਾਬੀਆپنجابیاPunjabia

The Parallel Reader

Two hundred and fifty years of readers before you started the same way — one stanza at a time.

A Punjabia signature

Read Heer without leaving the poem

Reading literature in a language you're learning usually means two books, three tabs, and a dictionary. The Parallel Reader folds them into one page: the original verse on the left, a faithful English translation on the right, and every single word tappable — meaning, both scripts, transliteration, and a note on what the poet is doing.

  • Switch the original between Gurmukhi and Shahmukhi, mid-sentence
  • Show or hide transliteration and translation as you improve
  • Tap any word for its meaning — save it to your personal vocabulary list
  • Poetic and historical annotations under every stanza
Open Heer — Waris Shah, 1766

In the Reader now

The editions

Each one gives the original in both scripts, a translation you can hide, and annotations under every stanza. The Reader was built to hold the whole qissa tradition; these are the ones that are ready.

Ready to read

annotated · both scripts
Heer — Waris Shah, 1766 The opening of Punjab’s greatest qissa, in an annotated, tap-every-word edition. Original and English side by side; save the words you don’t know. 20 min · interactive Tere Ishq Nachaya — Bulleh Shah The great Sufi kafi of love as a dance the lover cannot refuse, in the same edition — Gurmukhi or Shahmukhi beside the English. 8 min · interactive

Being prepared

not yet readable
Sohni Mahiwal · Mirza Sahiban · Sassi Punnun The other great romances, in the same annotated edition. The Reader is built to hold them all. in preparation Folk tales & children’s stories Prose shelves for gentler long-form reading — including Dulla Bhatti, told for young readers. in preparation

Reading a poem in a script you are still learning is meant to be slow. If the letters are the part that is stopping you, take the Gurmukhi journey or the Shahmukhi one first — and if it is the sentences rather than the letters, grammar, gently is six short guides long.