Bulle Shah

Amrita Pritam

Amrita Pritam (August 31, 1919–October 31, 2005) (ਅਮ੍ਰਿਤਾ ਪ੍ਰੀਤਮ, , अमृता प्रीतम, ) was an Indian writer and poet, considered the first prominent woman Punjabi poet, novelist, and essayist, the leading 20th-century poet of the Punjabi language, who is equally loved on both the sides of the India-Pakistan border

She is most remembered for her poignant poem, Aaj Aakhaan Waris Shah Nu (Today I invoke Waris Shah - "Ode to Waris Shah", an elegy to the 18th-century Punjabi poet, an expression of her anguish over massacres during the partition of India. As a novelist her most noted work was Pinjar (The Skeleton) (1950), in which she created her memorable character, Puro, the novel was made into an award-winning film, Pinjar in 2003 .

When the former British India was partitioned into the independent states of India and Pakistan in 1947, she migrated from Lahore, to India, though she remained equally popular in Pakistan throughout her life, as compared to her contemporaries like Mohan Singh and Shiv Kumar Batalvi.

In 1956, she became the first woman to win the Sahitya Akademi Award for her magnum opus, a long poem, Sunehray (Messages) , later she received the Bhartiya Jnanpith, one of India's highest literary awards, in 1982 for Kagaz Te Canvas (The Paper and the Canvas). The Padma Shri came her way in 1969 and finally, Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian award, in 2004, and in the same year she was honoured with India's highest literary award, given by the Sahitya Akademi (India's Academy of Letters), the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship given to the "immortals of literature" for lifetime achievement .

Biography

Formative Years

Amrita Pritam was born in 1919 in Gujranwala, Punjab, now in Pakistan , the only child of a school teacher, a poet and a scholar of Braj Bhasha, Kartar Singh Hitkari, who also edited a literary journal . Besides this, he was a pracharak -- a preacher of the Sikh faith. Amrita's mother died when she was eleven. Soon after, she and her father moved to Lahore, where she lived till her migration to India in 1947. Confronting adult responsibilities, and besieged by loneliness following her mother's death, she began to write at an early age. Her first anthology of poems, Amrit Lehran (Immortal Waves) was published in 1936, at age sixteen, the year she married Pritam Singh, an editor to whom she was engaged in early childhood, and changed her name to Amrita Pritam . Half a dozen collections of poems were to follow in as many years between 1936 and 1943. Though she began her journey as romantic poet, soon she shifted gears , and became part of the Progressive Writers' Movement and its effect was seen in her collection, Lok Peed (People's Anguish) (1944), which openly criticized the war-torn economy, after the Bengal famine of 1943.

Partition

Some one million Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs died from communal violence that followed the partition of India in 1947, and left Amrita Pritam, a Punjabi refugee at age 28, when she left Lahore and moved to New Delhi. Subsequently in 1948, while she was pregnant with her son, and travelling from Dehradun to Delhi, she expressed anguish on a piece of paper as the poem, "Aaj Aakhaan Waris Shah Nu" (I ask Waris Shah Today); this poem was to later immortalize her and become the most poignant reminder of the horrors of Partition . The poem addressed to the Sufi poet Waris Shah, author of the tragic saga of Heer and Ranjah and with whom she shares her birth place , the Punjabi national epic:

Aj aakhan Waris Shah nun, kiton kabraan vichchon bol, Te aj kitab-e-ishq daa koi agla varka phol Ik roi si dhi Punjab di, tun likh likh maare vaen, Aj lakhaan dhian rondian, tainun Waris Shah nun kaehn Uth dardmandaan dia dardia, uth takk apna Punjab Aj bele lashaan bichhiaan te lahu di bhari Chenab

Today, I call Waris Shah, “Speak from your grave” And turn, today, the book of love’s next affectionate page Once, a daughter of Punjab cried and you wrote a wailing saga Today, a million daughters, cry to you, Waris Shah Rise! O’ narrator of the grieving; rise! look at your Punjab Today, fields are lined with corpses, and blood fills the Chenab

Amrita Pritam worked until 1961 for All India Radio. After her divorce in 1960, her work became more clearly feminist. Many of her stories and poems drew on the unhappy experience of her marriage. A number of her works have been translated into English, French, Danish, Japanese and other languages from Punjabi and Urdu, including her autobiographical works Black Rose and Revenue Stamp (Raseedi Tikkat in Punjabi).

The first of Amrita Pritam's books to be filmed was Dharti Sagar te Sippiyan, as ‘Kadambar’ (1965), followed by ‘Unah Di Kahani’, as Daaku (Dacoit, 1976), directed by Basu Bhattacharya. Her novel Pinjar (The Skeleton, 1970) was made into an award winning Hindi movie by Chandra Prakash Dwivedi, because of its humanism: "Amritaji has portrayed the suffering of people of both the countries." Pinjar was shot in a border region of Rajasthan and in Punjab.

She edited “Nagmani”, a monthly literary magazine in Punjabi for several years, which she ran together with Imroz, for 33 years; though after Partition she wrote prolifically in Hindi as well . Later in life, she turned to Osho and wrote introductions for several books of Osho, including Ek Omkar Satnam , and also started writing on spiritual themes and dreams, producing works like Kaal Chetna (Time Consciousness) and Agyat Ka Nimantran (Call of the Unknown) . She had also published autobiographies, titled, Kala Gulab (Black Rose) (1968), Rasidi Ticket (The Revenue Stamp) (1976), and Aksharon kay Saayee (Shadows of Words)

Acclaim

The first woman recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1956 for Sunehray (Messages), Amrita Pritam received the Bhartiya Jnanpith, India's highest literary award, in 1982 for Kagaj te Canvas (Paper and Canvas). She received the Padma Shri (1969) and Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian award, and Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, India's highest literary award, also in 2004. She received D.Litt. honorary degrees, from many universities including, Delhi University (1973), Jabalpur University (1973) and Vishwa Bharati (1987)

She also received International Vaptsarov Award from the Republic of Bulgaria (1979) and Degree of Officer dens, Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Officier) by the French Government (1987) . She was nominated as a member of Rajya Sabha 1986-92. Towards the end of her life, she was awarded by Pakistan's Punjabi Academy, to which she had remarked, Bade dino baad mere maike ko meri yaad aayi..; and also Punjabi poets of Pakistan, sent her a chaddars, from the tombs of Waris Shah, and fellow Sufi mystic poets Bulle Shah and Sultan Bahu .

Personal life

In 1960, Amrita Pritam left her husband, and lived the last forty years of her life with the renowned artist and writer, Imroz, who also designed most of her book covers . She died in her sleep on 31st October 2005 at the age of 86 in New Delhi, after a long illness. She survived by her partner Imroz , daughter - Kandlla; son- Navraj; daughter-in-law- Alka and her grandchildren - Taurus, Noor, Aman and Shilpi.

Her story cannot be completed without the name of Sahir Ludhianvi . She was involved with him when she asked her husband for divorce. But Sahir then had a new woman in his life. Amrita grew closer to Imroz, whom she had known for many years and they were together for the rest of her life. Their life together is also subject of a book, Amrita Imroz: A Love Story”.

Works

In her career spanning over six decades, she penned 28 novels, 18 anthologies of prose, five short stories and 16 miscellaneous prose volumes.

Novels

Pinjar (The Skeleton)
Doctor Dev
Kore Kagaz, Unchas Din
Sagar aur Seepian
Rang ka Patta
Dilli ki Galiyan
Terahwan Suraj
Yaatri
Jilavatan (1968)

Autobiography

Rasidi Ticket (1976)
Shadows of Words (2004)

Short stories

Kahaniyan jo Kahaniyan Nahi
Kahaniyon ke Angan mein
A Stench of Kerosene

Poetry anthologies

Amrit Lehran (Immortal Waves)(1936)
Jiunda Jiwan (The Exuberant Life) (1939)
Trel Dhote Phul (1942)
O Gitan Valia (1942)
Badlam De Laali (1943)
Lok Peera (The People's Anguish) (1944)
Pathar Geetey (The Pebbles) (1946)
Punjabi Di Aawaaz (1952)
Sunehray (Messages) (1955) - Sahitya Akademi Award
Ashoka Cheti (1957)
Kasturi (1957)
Nagmani (1964)
Ik Si Anita (1964)
Chak Nambar Chatti (1964)
Uninja Din (1979)
Kagaz Te Kanvas (1981)- Bhartiya Jnanpith
Chuni Huyee Kavitayen

Literary Journal

Nagmani, poetry monthly.

Excerpts

Cigarette and Poetry

There was a pain I inhaled it Quietly Like a cigarette Left behind are a few songs I have flickered off Like ashes From the cigarette.

I will meet you yet again

I will meet you yet again How and where I know not Perhaps I will become a figment of your imagination and maybe spreading myself in a mysterious line on your canvas I will keep gazing at you.

Legacy

In 2007, an audio album titled, 'Amrita recited by Gulzar' was released by noted lyricist Gulzar, with poems of Amrita Pritam recited by him , a film on her life is also on the anvil .