Lal Singh Dil’s autobiography ਦਾਸਤਾਨ / داستان is a collection of significant memories and events in the life of the Punjabi poet laureate. He was deeply inspired by the egalitarian conception of Islam and Communism (Maoism). He was jailed and thrashed for his worldview during the Naxalite uprising. While in jail, a policeman told him that if Dil’s party comes to power, the police will be at the service of his party, the police force being the slaves of those in power.

In his ‘underground time,’ he travelled extensively in Uttar Pradesh and worked as a casual labourer on the farms. He was amazed by the lack of casteism amongst Imams and Sayyids and other Muslims, a Dalit will drink water from the same glass as an Imam. This spirit of equality inspired him to convert to Islam. He talks about the influence of Islam on the religion of his ancestors and how Ali was an inspiring figure in those ancestral beliefs. His ancestors never converted to Islam and yet always lived in the shadow of the given religion. He converted to Islam and died after being an Imam for a very long time.

He wrote poems in Punjabi and later Urdu. He was the bard of the working classes and castes in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, who lived amongst them. He tried a lot to earn a better living, but never managed to move up the social ladder. His battle was for socialism and equality, where Brahminism is defeated and its symbols are destroyed like the past in Mao’s China. He wrote about the inequalities of caste and described the events of caste-based violence. He had difficult family ties, and a very violent childhood, not very different from average Punjabi children. He was not very easy for his friends too. Even then, they found ways to help him. Punjabi author Prem Prakash gathered all his scattered writings and notes about his life and impressions of the world and gave them some order to present it as a biography.