In 1893 at age 18, Dhani Ram Chatrik found employment at Wazir Singh's press and met Vir Singh, who advised him to learn lithograph engraving, and who inspired him to write poetry in the Punjabi language. The Wazir Hind Press was the main press publishing literature for the Singh Sabha movement, and Vir Singh would purchase it after Wazir Singh passed after illness. Thusly, he would begin a long association with Vir Singh, which would lead to contact with acclaimed writers, an 11-year career with the Press, and subsequently writing for the Khalsa Samachar, in which Chatrik would hone his poetic skills. His contact with Vir Singh turned him into an ardent admirer of the Sikh faith, influencing his syncretic poetic style that reflected composite Punjabi culture. Language politics Singh argued that Sikhism was a unique religion which could be nourished and sustained by creating an awakening amongst the Sikhs of the awareness of their distinct theological and cultural identity. He aimed at reorienting the Sikhs' understanding of their faith in such a manner as to help them assimilate the different modernising influences to their historical memory and cultural heritage. At the time, Sikhs were often persecuted by the British, often being pressured or threatened into assimilating into mainstream culture. Acts such as publicly shaving off the heads and beards of religious Sikh officials were performed to humiliate and demean the Sikh religion. Amidst all this political discontent, Singh sought to revitalize the Sikh culture and religion through peaceful means, by writing a myriad of novels, epics, and poems. With the fall of the Sikh Empire and the modernization of Christian, Muslim, and Hindu movements of proselytism, the Sikh faith began to wane until scholars and theologians of the religions, Singh being a leading one, began revitalizing life into Sikhism through their works of literature. Works Bhai Vir Singh began taking an interest in the affairs of the Singh sabha movement. To promote its aims and objects, he launched the Khalsa Tract Society in 1894. The tracts produced by the Khalsa Tract Society introduced a new style of literary Punjabi. The Khalsa Tract Society periodically made available under the title Nirguniara, low-cost publications on Sikh theology, history and philosophy and on social and religious reform. Through this journal, Singh established contact with an ever-expanding circle of readers. He used the Nirguniara as a vehicle for his own self-expression. Some of