Garland Around My Neck is the riveting story of a rare humanist whose passionate concerns gave dignity and hope to thousands of men and women. In the annals of twentieth-century Punjabi – or the whole of India for the matter - there are few who embodied the range, resoluteness and regions self-discipline in life as Puran Singh (1904-92) did. A barefoot colossus who strides the century – or at least 88 years of it – he left a legacy of concern and compassion for not o­nly Indian’s neglected social strata, but also for the environment: from the vanishing tree cover to the increasingly polluted air and water, and for animals o­n whom he lavished the same love.