Kashmiri poet Naseem Shafai

Poet of a Lost Paradise

Nirupama Dutt

Lal Ded, Habba Khatoon and Arnimal - Kashmir has had a rich tradition of women poets. Ded was a 14th century Sufi poet, Khatoon sang beautiful verses during the 16th century and Arnimal was known for her songs in the 18th century. But later years saw women poets lose their prominence. Surprisingly, during the insurgency years of the 1990s, some brave new women poets emerged in Kashmir. Among them, Naseem Shafai, 49, made her mark; she is the first woman poet who started writing in Kashmiri. (Ded, Khatoon and Arnimal belong to the era of oral literature). Shafai - a college teacher - has seen violence at close quarters: militants shot at her journalist husband. But this did not stop Shafai from writing against the violence unleashed by the militants and by the Indian security forces. Her poetry expresses what her state has suffered in the past decade and a half.At the recent South Asian women writers' meet in New Delhi, organised by the Women's Initiative for Peace in South Asia, Shafai spoke of the need for a humanist approach towards the Kashmir issue.Q: As a poet, how do you view the turmoil that Kashmir has been going through for so many years? A: It is heartbreaking to see my beautiful land reduced to a battlefield in the past decades, with militants on one side and the security forces on the other. For centuries, invaders passed through Kashmir. But Kashmiris have witnessed the worst during the recent years.The loss of what we consider simple joys finds its way into one of my poems: "Not impossible/But difficult it has become/ For the two lovers/ To walk on the banks of the Dal Lake/ Into the moonlit night". Q: What do you think are the reasons for this violence?A: Kashmir has become a pawn in the power game between India and Pakistan. Both countries want the land of Kashmir but no one seems to be bothered about the Kashmiri people, who have suffered so much in these times. The suffering of women has been the greatest. Never before were there so many widows and orphans in Kashmir. Women have been sexually abused both by militants and security forces. And one of the saddest events has been the large-scale migration of the Kashmiri Hindus out of the state.Q: Do you think the Kashmiri Muslims could have stopped the large-scale migration?A: How could they have stopped it when they were not sure of their own safety? In fact, many Kashmiri Muslims too had to migrate because their businesses were ruined and their safety was threatened. And those who live there live under threat. I have borne the violence in my own life. My husband, Zafar Miraj, who is a journalist, became a target for the militants in 1995. He was shooting a feature for a television channel when he was shot twice in the abdomen. It was a miracle that he survived. Soon after, he went into depression and it took many years to bring him out of that. Our only son - then studying in Class 9 - moved to Delhi to the home of our Kashmiri Hindu friends. He lived there for three years to finish school. The communities of Kashmir were very well knit. What is amazing is that all this violence has not been able to cause a rift between them.Q: What is the way out?A: I am against all forms of violence, be it a mere slap or a gunshot. The real problem is of Kashmiri identity. We have been ruled by the Mughals, the Sikhs and the Dogras. We have never really had our say, for we have been very peace-loving. But this does not imply that we are willing to erase our identity. Let those who want our land speak to us in our language and know what we want. Personally, if someone went to so much trouble, I would give away the space reserved for my grave as I do not own any land. We live in a rented home.Q: As a poet did you have to struggle to make a place for yourself? A: We have had a glorious tradition of poets but they all belonged to the oral culture. I was the first woman to start writing poetry in Kashmiri. (Before her, some women wrote poetry, but only in Urdu.) I started writing when I was in my early 20s. I got encouragement from my husband, his family and my Kashmiri teacher. However, I cannot say the same about the male poets, who rarely had a word of praise for me. But I continued to struggle and my first anthology of poems - Dar Cemutzrith (Open Window) - came out in 1999. I was able to open the window of opportunities. Now there are a number of young women writing in Kashmiri and that makes me very happy.Q: What do you usually write on? What do you think are your strengths as a woman poet? A: I usually write on women's lives. Women always have a richer storehouse of vocabulary that they inherit from their mothers and grandmothers. Whenever I used new words and expressions in my poems, my teacher would ask where I learnt them from. Women also bring to poetry or other genres of literature a whole new area of experience and vision. These have been my strengths too. Q: What is your dream for Kashmir, once described as `paradise on earth'? A: Yes, it was described as paradise on earth and so it was. But now it is described as paradise lost. My generation has seen a lot of violence and bloodshed. We have seen our dreams blown to smithereens. I hope and pray that this will not be the Kashmir that will pass on to the coming generations. I am a college teacher and it wrenches my heart to see pain and fear written on young faces. My prayer for them in verse is: "My prayer goes to them. I'll sing them psalms/ May the new moon ever/ Shine in their sky."
April 25, 2004, Women's Feature Service

Little Magazines in Punjabi

Small but sincere efforts

Nirupama Dutt

Preetlari, Punjab`s monthly magazine, turned 70 in October. To celebrate the long journey of this magazine, functions were organised in different towns and villages of Punjab. Preetlari has been a front-runner to the `little magazine movement` of alternative publishing in Punjab. Today over 100 different `little magazines` are printed across the state, publishing poetry, fiction and stories on social issues in Punjabi.


Poonam Singh, the editor of Preetlari (which means chain of love in Punjabi), says, "The magazine has seen many ups and downs but we have come through. Its survival is not just the survival of the written word but also the values of a secular and composite culture that the magazine has stood for."

Preetlari was started by Gurbax Singh, a US-returned civil engineer in 1933. He also established a cultural colony in Preet Nagar, a village equidistant between Amritsar and Lahore. The best talents of the time - film actor Balraj Sahni, fiction writers Upendra Nath Ashq and Kartar Singh Duggal, playwright Balwant Gargi and poets Mohan Singh and Sahir Ludhianvi - were associated with it.The first blow to this model village, which Singh wanted to develop into another Santiniketan, came when the country was partitioned in 1947. Preet Nagar was reduced to a far-flung border village, too close to the barbed wire. Although the dream of a commune fell apart, Singh transferred his dreams to Preetlari. He continued to publish the magazine in Punjabi, but the English, Urdu and Hindi editions were discontinued. Singh`s writer son Navtej helped him in this venture.But after Singh`s death, and the untimely death of Navtej, the editorship of the magazine, which was already suffering a financial crunch, passed on to Navtej`s young son, Sumeet. The young man made an effort to involve writers and restore the lost glory of the magazine. However, Sumeet was just 30 when militants led by Jarnail Singh Bhindrawale gunned him down in February 1984.A shutdown seemed imminent, but Sumeet`s brave wife Poonam, only 26 then, took on the role of the editor and lashed out against the fundamentalists. She refused to hold a religious ceremony for her husband`s funeral, saying, "If religion means violence and killing of innocent people then we have nothing to do with it."Looking back at those dark days of terrorism in Punjab, Poonam, now 44, recalls: "The situation made me bold and courageous. I got moral support from my mother-in-law, Mahinder Kaur, and assistance in arranging advertisements and marketing from my younger brother-in-law, Ratikant Singh." Poonam and Ratikant started bringing out the magazine like crusaders and Poonam was one of the few to take a stand against the militants in those days."I was trained as a theatre actress and had no experience of writing and editing. However, I gradually learnt these skills. I felt the magazine had to continue not just to support the family but also to uphold the values of secularism dear to most Punjabis. We were not prepared for another partition. Sumeet`s blood had been shed and we were prepared to shed ours."It was at this time that Poonam and her brother-in-law started the `Save Preetlari Fund`, to which Punjabis responded in a big way sending big and small contributions. Subsequently, Poonam married Ratikant. The couple has three children. While the editorial and business work of the magazine has shifted to Chandigarh (where the couple has settled), it is still printed and published from Preet Nagar.Preetlari inspired several other writers to start `little magazines` in Punjabi. In fact, the tradition of these magazines is so dynamic today that despite financial losses, publishers and editors continue to publish them.In Ludhiana, fiction writer Surinder Kaile has been bringing out a monthly magazine Anu (atom) for the past two decades. Anu is roughly the size of a human hand and publishes only poems and short stories. In Barnala, fiction writer Ram Swarup Anakhi has been bringing out a quarterly magazine-Kahani Punjab - which is dedicated solely to the Punjabi short story.Poet Parminderjit publishes a very popular bi-monthly from Amritsar called Akhar (a letter of the alphabet) with a wonderful selection of poetry.From time to time, enthusiasts bring out magazines printed on inland letters!Sahitya Akademi award winning fiction writer Prem Prakash, who edits Lakeer (line), a quarterly literary journal published from Jalandhar says, "My first short story was published in Preetlari. In a way, the magazine acted as a catalyst." However, with the rise of Naxalite movement in Punjab, the young breed of writers disassociated themselves with Preetlari (which did not subscribe to the Naxalite ideaology) and started several small magazines.Poonam acknowledges that the Naxalite movement did prove to be a setback to Preetarli, but adds, "The magazine however managed to retain its place and still has the widest circulation at home and abroad." While other magazines do not have a print order of more than 500, Preetlari touches the 5000 mark."As the magazine has completed its seventieth year, our effort is to strengthen the magazine and also publish books. The tradition must continue and thrive," says Poonam.Preetlari has also inspired poet and novelist Amrita Pritam (now 84), who founded Nagmani (The Serpent`s Gem), along with her partner, artist Inderjit Imroz, in 1961. The monthly magazine, published from New Delhi, discovered young writers over two generations and translated some of the world`s best literature in Punjabi.Published on a shoestring budget, Nagmani had a very artistic layout with Imroz designing the cover and doing the sketches inside. The only advertisements allowed were literary in nature and these were few and far between. It survived over three decades purely on subscriptions. But two years ago, due to Pritam`s poor health, Nagmani was forced to shut down. Sahitya Akademi award winning Punjabi poet Manjit Tiwana, who made a debut in the magazine says, "It was one magazine free of all bias. If the poems or stories were good, they would be published. Its closure of is a big loss to the world of Punjabi letters."Recently however, Sidhu Damdami, a journalist, started Sankh, another Punjabi magazine, to fill the vacuum created by the closure of Nagmani. "I belong to a village near Bathinda in Punjab and I grew up reading Nagmani. It was here that we were introduced to writers like Nirmal Verma and others. I was also first published in it and I still preserve the letter of acceptance - for my short story - which Pritam wrote. Nagmani also acted as a social monitor recording change in society and particularly the man-woman relationship."Pritam, who is bed-ridden says, "We brought out the magazine as long as we could. I get sad letters from readers and contributors. But there is no need to be sad. More magazines will come up."

November 17, 2003, Women's Feature Service

Krishna Sobti

A total commitment to writing

Nirupama Dutt

WHENEVER an unbiased literary history of the Twentieth Century is written, it will be remembered as the century of the woman writer. Even though the literary woman dates back to the ancient times, it is this century that saw the woman writer come into her own and wield the pen with a confidence that was long denied to her. And this is a phenomenon that cuts across countries and cultures. And this is not to be judged by just numbers but the quality and the literary merit of their writings. These were writers who could break through the given sexist politics of literature and make a place for themselves as writers who happened to be women.In India, this century sees the rise of the woman fiction writer. We have Asha Purna Devi (Bengali), Ismat Chughtai and Qurratulain Hyder (Urdu) and Krishna Sobti (Hindi) as the pioneering writers in their respective languages who paved the way for many other writers to follow. The importance of Krishna, lies merely not in the fact that she chose a language, which spreads over a large region of the country. Or that she came from the then Hindi-speaking state of Punjab, but the fact that she could tell a story like none other conscious of the history of the century that she was born to. It is the very pulse of the times that she has captured through the everyday people and their lives. And this, while experimenting with language and coming out a winner always.Of course, to Krishna's credit go many firsts. Her novel Zindaginama, a work of epical scale set in the pre-Independence Punjab which was to be partitioned by the Radcliffe Line to be drawn across it in 1947. The writer who began with a short story first published in 1944 and written a number of novels till she penned Zindaginama was finally given the recognition of being a formidable talent. For creating Zindaginama, Krishna dipped into her childhood and adolescence spent in the ancestral haveli in Gujarat , a part of Pakistan, to relive the rich experience of the lives of the peasants and the landlords. This celebrated writer of a large body of fiction was born in 1925 in Gujarat in West Punjab. She had her early education in Delhi, Shimla and Lahore with fond holidays in the villlage where she built a storehouse of fragrance and memory. However, partition with its bloodshed and migration intervened and her aristocratic family lost many of its holdings. Krishna had to take the post of governess to Tej Singh, the then Maharaja of Sirohi, Mount Abu. Two years later she took up the post of Editor, Adult Literacy, Delhi Administration. It is said that any language has only a writer or two whose writings appear as a 'happening' but Krishna has had the unique distinction of having each of her books welcomed or criticised as a major event. This, not because Krishna was a sensationalist. Krishna remains one of the most serious of writers always but with the courage to write what others may choose to sidetrack. This was more so the case with the powerful women characters she etched. " The writer has to take the second place after etching out the character. Then a spiritual space has to be given to the character to chart out the course of her/his life," says Krishna.Krishna had made a name for herself in short fiction when her first novel came out in 1958. This was Daar se Bichuri and it told the story of a Pasho who is forced out of her flock and bought and sold like cattle in the strife-torn climate of the Afghan wars. It cuts across religion and culture and written in the decade that followed the Partition of the country in which hundreds of women of women were abducted raped, abused and killed because they belonged to the other religion. Thus Pasho's story is the story of every woman and she yet survives to nurture the child she has given birth to. The story was told with great linguistic economy, an art Krishna was to master, as she moved from novel to novel. This made it more powerful and just the stark description of the events that take place in Pasho's life were enough to send shock waves through people. Pasho was to be the forerunner of the amazing Mitro of the second and much-celebrated novel Mitro Marjani which came out in 1966 and is today hailed as a modern classic. Mitro created an instant stir for it spoke of female desire in no uncertain terms and that too of a married woman in the joint-family framework of a lower middle-class Hindu family. It created aninstant stir. It was translated into Russian, English and Punjabi. Many decades later, Mitro still continues to be a subject for debate. The intensity of emotions she evokes in those who love her and those who hate her is that which would be directed toward a real woman in flesh and blood who dares to tread the forbidden path. This again is a victory of the writer whose characters are so true to life.Interestingly, years later feminists were to criticise Krishna for making Mitro choose the family. What is pertinent here is that Krishna has never worked in the feminist frame-work as we understand it. Krishna is too major a writer to be taken in by any such trap. The novel comes in the Sixties when feminism as a movement was yet to take shape. Then it was the case of a movement needing writers to support it and thus feminists groups turning to the writings of say an Ismat or a Krishna who have an existence that goes much beyond the ism. The writer herself says, " Mitro Marjani was not a writer's story. It was Mitro's story. I was amazed at the surprises she gave me at every turn. Brought up by her mother outside the walls of patriarchy, Mitro is her mother's daughter who can voice her desires and get away with it. She has no inhibitions about talking of things tabooed by tradition without being offensive. She really impressed me." Krishna's other novels like Yaron ke Yaar,which speaks the language of the clerks in a government office in Delhi and unravels corruption in public life; Teen Pahar, a charged romantic narrative set in the tea gardens in the Darjeeling hills of a woman abandoned for another; Surajmukhi Andhere Ke, which sensitively explores the problem of child rape in which the victim survives to come to terms with her own desire; and Ai Ladki, a remarkable dialogue between a dying mother and her single daughter; Dil-O-Danish,which dwells on the dichotomy of two women and a man set in the cultural climate of Delhi of the early Twentieth Century; and the most recent Samae Sargam, a story of old age; are all milestones which mark a remarkable journey which seems to converge to the centre point of Zindaginama, a saga of love, life and strife told with a truly great flourish. In each of these works she sharpens her style with care to authenticate the situation portrayed. Zindaginama established her instantly as one among the greats. Suffused with the ethos and ambience of pre-Partition rural Punjab, this novel is a visual and dramatic recall of early memories in episodic form. Nand Kishore Naval has referred to it as the most comprehensive, sympathetic and sensitive treatment of the peasant since Munshi Premchand. The narrative flow in the novel is symbolised by the 'the river of life' and the narrative voice is depersonalised. Of this novel which is a gift to the very earth that she was born of, Krishna says, "One fateful morning I woke up with echoes of the Azaan in my ears, and before my eyes stood one minaret of a mosque. I knew then that I was committed to carrying the eternal echo of this voice through the century—Allah-O-Akbar." In this saga of life the experiments with language reached their climax with Krishna incorporating Punjabi dialects into the narrative in Hindi and suffusing the language with a new life. Poet Ashok Vajpayee says of this novel, " The test of a great writer is that she/he take the language where it has never been before. And Krishna passes this test with distinction." Krishna also writes under the pen name of Hashmat and has published Ham Hashmat , a compilation of pen portraits of writers, friends and unforgettable characters. Hashmat for her is not merely a pen name but aspiritual double. "We both have different identities," she elaborates, "I protect and he reveals. I am ancient, he is new and fresh. We operate from different directions. Among the folks Hashmat writes about are taxi driver Jagga Singh, a nameless waiter of La Boheme restaurant, and leading literary contemporaries like Bhisham Sahni, Nirmal Verma, late Srikant Verma, Namwar Singh and many others.Krishna is a zealous guardian of her freedom as a writer and as an individual. In her own words, " I have always been my own person. It is easier to exaggerate or simplify the difference between people. My biological history says I am a woman. History and individuals cannot ignore each other. I believe that your individuality embraces our innermost uniqueness. And this individuality could be qualitatively different from person to person. And this individuality could be qualitatively different from person to person, not necessarily from male to female. I am a writer who happens to be a liberal, middle class woman. I need to have my freedom for the smooth flow of my creativity. I see in myself a creative writer who has total commitment to her creativity and art." Krishna's life and writings stand testimony to the beliefs she upholds. A very gifted writer reporting on the unreported history of love, loss, of battles won and battles lost. Writing in a climate rife with the hierarchies of literature, Krishna has yet been an influence and inspiration for hundreds of readers: both men and women. And what is it that makes her tick? Krishna says: "Writing for me, is the main activity of my life, not an alternative. In spite of this, I have not written anything in reaction. If I am sad, angry or happy, I do not go near my writing." Here is a writer deeply rooted in the integrated human experience who believes in combining both male and female elements creatively in the content.A writer who confronts, discovers, defines and redefines with the help of memory. A wordsmith if there ever be one with memory, imagination, experience and study going into making her a great writer of the times.
posted by Rooted

Munir Niazi

A complete poet of our times

Nirupama Dutt

A baby boy born in the obscure village of Khanpur near Hoshiarpur on April 9, 1928, had to migrate to the promised land of Pakistan when he was still 19 and his family settled down in Sahiwal. The trauma of displacement, in the mass migration from and the struggle to start afresh imprinted itself on his sensitive soul. The pain, however, was channelled into poetry and he was to be acknowledged as one of the greatest poets of the classical tradition, equally proficient in Urdu and his mother tongue, Punjabi. Many renowned sang his ghazals singers Mehdi Hasan made his famous verses very popular by lending his voice to them:*Kaise kaise log hamare jee ko jalane aa jaate hain**Apne apne gham ke fasane hamein sunane aa jaate hain*(All kinds of people come to scorch my heart by telling me their tales of sorrow)He was Munir Niazi, equally loved for his poignant verses on both sides of the Indo-Pak border, who passed away of a cardiac arrest at Lahore the day after Christmas at the age of 78. With his passing away, we have lost one of the finest poets to the classical tradition who at the same time contributed immensely to modern poetry in both Urdu and Punjabi. Calling up from Lahore, poet and columnist Zahid Masood said: "The people of Lahore were deeply grieved to lose their favourite poet. He was what can be called a complete poet. His verse, of course, will always live with us." Haryana Urdu Akademi border: " After Faiz, he was the topmost poet of Pakistan who wrote ofsorrow but also of hope. He was equally loved for his poetry in India."It was not easy to emerge as a major poet in times when Faiz Ahmad Faiz was towering over the sub-continent in Pakistan and in India there were poetslike Firaq Gorakhpuri, Kaifi Azmi and Sahir Ludhianvi to reckon with butMunir worked the magic with his poetry. Today he is regarded as atrendsetter with his unique diction, style and thought. Niazi penned 14collections of poetry in Urdu and Punjabi. For his literary achievementsMunir Niazi was awarded Kamal-e-Funn Award for the year 2002 by Pakistan Academy of Letters and the President's Award for Pride of Performance in1992 and Sitara-i-Imtiaz in 1998. His works include Dushmanoon KeyDarmiyan, Mah-e-Munir, Aghaz-e-Zamastan, Main Dobara and AikMusalsal. Pakistani poet Neelama Naheed Durrani, who met him a day before his death,laments: In spite of his greatness, his poetry fetched him little money.Sadly, he was promised Rs 2000 for his famous ghazal, Us bewafa ka shahrhai aur ham hain dosto, sung by Nasim Begum for the Pakistani film Shaheed, but was paid only Rs 200." Poets, in all times, have never written formoney and so it was with Niazi. His verses were dictated by passion and thereality of the society. One got to hear him in person when he came toparticipate in a mushaira at Ambala in the Eighties and won many a heart byreciting his famous Partition poem in Punjabi:Kujh unjh vi raahan aukhian san, Kujh gal vich gham da tauk vi si, Kujh shahr de log vi zalim san, Kujh sanu maran da shauq vi si(The path was somewhat difficult and sorrow was resting on the chest/ The people of the city were somewhat cruel and we too had a death wish)Some three years ago one met him again at the World Punjabi Conference atLahore. He had aged and was ailing. Married twice, he had no child but manyadmirers. He spoke passionately about poetry saying: "Poetry comes from theheart and its test is that it must touch other hearts." Well, this was atest that the poetry of Niazi never failed for it appealed alike to themasses and the classes." Urdu Akademi Chairman Kashmiri Lal Zakir voiced similar sentiment on this side of the border: " After Faiz, he was the topmost poet of Pakistan who wrote of sorrow but also of hope. He was equally loved for his poetry in India."It was not easy to emerge as a major poet in times when Faiz Ahmad Faiz was towering over the sub-continent in Pakistan and in India there were poets like Firaq Gorakhpuri, Kaifi Azmi and Sahir Ludhianvi to reckon with but Munir worked the magic with his poetry. Today he is regarded as a trendsetter with his unique diction, style and thought. Niazi penned 14 collections of poetry in Urdu and Punjabi. For his literary achievements Munir Niazi was awarded Kamal-e-Funn Award for the year 2002 by Pakistan Academy of Letters and the President's Award for Pride of Performance in 1992 and Sitara-i-Imtiaz in 1998. His works include Dushmanoon Key Darmiyan, Mah-e-Munir, Aghaz-e-Zamastan, Main Dobara and Aik Musalsal. Pakistani poet Neelama Naheed Durrani, who met him a day before his death, laments: In spite of his greatness, his poetry fetched him little money. Sadly, he was promised Rs 2000 for his famous ghazal, Us bewafa ka shahr hai aur ham hain dosto, sung by Nasim Begum for the Pakistani film Shaheed , but was paid only Rs 200." Poets, in all times, have never written for money and so it was with Niazi. His verses were dictated by passion and the reality of the society. One got to hear him in person when he came to participate in a mushaira at Ambala in the Eighties and won many a heart by reciting his famous Partition poem in Punjabi: Kujh unjh vi raahan aukhian san, Kujh gal vich gham da tauk vi si, Kujh shahr de log vi zalim san, Kujh sanu maran da shauq vi si (The path was somewhat difficult and sorrow was resting on the chest/ The people of the city were somewhat cruel and we too had a death wish)Some three years ago one met him again at the World Punjabi Conference at Lahore. He had aged and was ailing. Married twice, he had no child but many admirers. He spoke passionately about poetry saying: "Poetry comes from the heart and its test is that it must touch other hearts." Well, this was a test that the poetry of Niazi never failed for it appealed alike to the masses and the classes.

Kulwant Singh Virk: A Master Story-teller

THE UNFORGETTABLE MR. VIRK

Nirupama Dutt

Kulwant Singh Virk, who died recently, will long be remembered by literature buffs as a brilliant short-story writer. But to those who knew him and were touched by his gentle genius, as NIRUPAMA DUTT recounts, he was a precious friend and a tremendous source of encouragement
KULWANT SINGH VIRK was, to most of us, not just the name of writer who made people real to themselves in his short stories which will live a long life. He was a vibrant, laughing, handsome man who put his talent in his works and his genius went to life.A writer of a towering stature which went well with his own tall, well-made frame, Virk’s remarkability lay in the fact that he would say very little of himself or his work. He spoke more of the works of others, he spoke more of his people and his land — the Punjab. And Virk was to us a piece of the precious Punjab — a man who loved his land, his people.Others may have a greater authority or research on the history, society and politics of Punjab but with Virk it was an instinct which would never fail. And he took pains to share this instinct with others; to transmit the feel for the soil and its people to all those who came into contact with his work or life.“Drink as much of Punjab as possible, and then it will take care of your writing.” This was Virk’s friendly suggestion to many a young writer.Yes, Virk always came out with suggestions, never advice. It never was like Virk to get pedantic in his speech or writings. He picked out the most simple and the most commonplace subjects and wove them into a valuable piece of art — a gift essential to a writer of the short story. So he described the unforgettable “Chacha”.“Though Chacha was older to our father, we still called him Chacha. Perhaps the reason for this was that he was a bachelor. Many times I would console him saying there were less women than men in Punjab so some men had to remain unmarried. But this explanation failed to satisfy him. All the men in the village were married; all had daughters and daughters-in-law, so he never saw that there was famine of women as such.And in few lines Virk unfolded before the reader, his Punjab, its social life and its characters. His was the Punjab of villages; his own village was left behind in Pakistan. In the past few years Virk’s passion was to go back to the village and write a novel. He never could go to the village and the novel was never written.But never mind the novel, never even mind the death, though it is a grave loss to his family, friends and admirers, what one does mind is the silence which struck our laughing darling Mr Virk.The last few years of Virk were years of illness. First it was a heart attack but Virk came through that a little weaker but himself, nevertheless. It was paralysis which confined him to the bed and made him lose the power of speech. It was in this period that Virk started keeping people away but the closest of relatives and friends. And once in a while one read something about him — a poetic piece by Ajeet Cour in which she described him “Nikki Kahani Da Badshah” or a long article by Gul Chauhan called “Virk Di Chup Nall Ki Mulakaat”.I never met Virk during his years of sickness for many unavoidable reasons. I felt guilty then, for I had received from him great encouragement and warmth. But now I think it is just as well. I will never remember our Mr Virk as ailing, helpless or see the pain writ large on the face of his beautiful wife, and lovely daughters. His wife nursed him to the last keeping a brave front and trying to make a joke of it before him while she shed tears the moment she came out of the sick room.No, I will not remember all that. I will remember him tall and handsome, in an immaculate suit of a light grey or buff colour. Mr Virk relating the juiciest of literary gossip or coming to have a cup of tea in the Express canteen and bringing with him a fine article for the Saturday page. We were, very often, the proud recipients of his articles in English which he wrote with a fantastic flair for the language though he would laugh and say — “Writing in English is an arduous task. I cannot write too much in English.”But what he wrote is still fresh in the memory — he would write of Punjabi literary meets or writers’ drinking bouts. He would write home articles from his travels which read so like letters coming from Britain or Canada. He would very often give story ideas to reporters but never seek a word for himself. I may have met him a hundred times but I never interviewed him. It was a series of meetings which said more than could his tape recorded interviews.It was while doing an article on writers in the Punjab Secretariat that I first met him. There were other writers there but he stood there a giant among pygmies smiling and saying, “Bureaucracy and writing cannot go together. I will write only after I am out of the secretariat. Let’s talk of your writing instead…” He said this while the other writers there made out that bureaucracy was the greatest gift to creativity.And once one got to know Mr Virk better, one started to take little liberties and he not only allowed these with the grace of one who can take a joke but also enjoyed it. When the Punjab Arts Council gave him an award, one noticed that the white streak in his brown beard had shifted a little and he replied, “Well, I keep trying out these designs to see which will look the best.” He wasn’t the one to be shy of admitting to brown hair dye or purple for that matter. And then came a time when he stopped dying his beard.It was not just the heart attack but the turmoil in Punjab which took away much of his laughter. I remember him sitting in the shabby Express canteen pondering over a cup of oversweet tea and he said, “No, I am not writing. In Punjab one can’t think at the moment of short stories or novels.” Virk had experienced earlier, the pain of 1947 and in a story written of the devastation of the partition, he had said that the blades of grass come out nevertheless green and fresh and so goes the cycle of life and time.Mr Virk, it is a hard task to write on you now! Believe me, it isn’t easy, for one is almost tempted to say that he was a man of a vanishing tribe. Will still men be made like him? The pain of the moment may compel one to say that no there never will be a man like him. But then that would not be so, he too wouldn’t have liked it — he who believed so much in the continuity of life, powers to resurrect and make a new. No there will be men like him in other places at other times. The heart warms up to think that some day, somewhere there will be another Mr Virk telling a jittery, club reporter that… “let’s talk of your writing instead.”And this, Mr Virk, is no obituary. No one, I am sure would have wanted to write one. That’s why the newspapers took time. It is no easy task to write obituaries to those whom one has loved. So this is just a letter that got delayed. It wasn’t written to you during your helpless days of sickness for one would not have liked to bring a tear to your eyes. Never mind the tears in our eyes.

January 12, 1988

Amrita Pritam

The girl from Gujranwala

PROFILE by Nirupama Dutt

It is a pleasant December morning. The day is Thursday. The bus I take from Gurgaon, a suburb of New Delhi, drops me at the Phool Mandi in Mehrauli. Before starting on a day’s work in town, I venture into the flower market. Gardeners from farmhouses and nurseries gather there to sell flowers to the kiosks, florists and others who wish to buy the blooms on a bargain. There are roses aplenty in myriad hues, tall stalks of tuberoses and gladioli, small bunches of carnations and narcissuses. Of course, chrysanthemums in varying sizes and colours seem to have taken over the market. There are the snow-white big blooms with curling petals and smaller ones in pink, yellow and red. A gardener offers me a big bunch of blood-red blooms, flecked with orange for a few rupees. I just cannot resist the temptation and I find myself with the big bunch in my arms along with the bag and books that I am carrying. What will I do with them? It occurs to me that they must go to the girl from Gujranwala, which was famous for its blood-red malta oranges. And who is this girl from Gujranwala? She is none other than Amrita Pritam, the celebrated Punjabi poet. Her poem, ‘Aj akhaan Waris Shah noon, kiton qabran wichon bol’ (‘I call out to Waris Shah today to speak from his grave’), written after the Partition, is loved across India and Pakistan: I call out to Waris Shah today to rise from his grave and open a new page of the book of love. Once a single daughter of the Punjab cried out, and you wrote many dirges. Today a million daughters weep and look to you for solace... Amrita wrote these lines to the poet to immortalised the folk heroine Heer a few months after Partition and the poem became a symbol of the catastrophe on both sides of the border. The story behind the writing is even more heartrending. Looking back, Amrita once told me: “Uprooted from Lahore, I had rehabilitated myself at Dehradun for some time. I went to Delhi looking for work and a place to live. On my return journey in the train, I felt the wind was piercing the dark night and wailing at the sorrows the Partition had brought. I had come away from Lahore with just one red shawl and I had torn it into two to cover both my babies. Everything had been torn apart. The words of Waris Shah, about how the dead and parted would meet again, echoed in my mind. And my poem took shape.” Amrita is a poet of many seasons. She was born in 1919 in Gujranwala, now in Pakistan, in a Sikh household. I remember her partner, the artist Imroz, once jesting as she spoke of her birthplace, “You know Gujranwala is famous for just two things, blood-red maltas and Amrita Pritam.” Amrita’s father was a man of letters and encouraged Amrita to read and write. She published her first book of poems when she was just fourteen. However, it was in 1935 in Lahore that she got serious critical notice for her poems with the publication of the anthology Thandian kirnan . Then there was no looking back. After the Partition in 1947, Delhi became her home. Her talent blossomed in the capital of independent India, and writing in Punjabi, her mother tongue, she was to take the language places. Among the honours she received for her writings are the Sahitya Akademi award, the Padma Shri, Jnanpith Award (the first Punjabi writer to be thus honoured), Cyril and Methodius Award (Bulgaria), and the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France). Besides poetry, she’s written essays, short stories and novels in Punjabi and Hindi, and her work has been translated into thirty Indian and foreign languages. She is also a former member of the Rajya Sabha, upper house of Parliament. The story of Amrita’s life is one of amazing courage, resilience and achievement. What set her apart was her search for freedom and desire to live life on her own terms. She was reared in an orthodox environment yet dared to write of love. Walking out of a loveless marriage, she made her home with Imroz and their relationship has lasted over forty years. Although she is vocal about the rights of women and has portrayed the sorrows they face in a male-dominated world, Amrita always felt that men and women complete themselves in a meeting of the body and soul. Defying the established norms of the society and carving out a special place for herself was not easy but she persevered and helping her along was her special talent for words. For three decades Amrita and Imroz brought out a literary monthly in Punjabi called Nagmani that had nothing short of a cult following. I have a special relationship with Amrita and Imroz dating back a quarter of a century. However, I am but one of a large and charmed circle because their magazine nurtured two generations of Punjabi writers. She brought onto stage the Punjabi poet Shiv Kumar Batalvi, fiction writer Dalip Karu Tiwana, Mohanjit, Manjit Kaur Tiwana, Gagan Gill and many others. Her address in New Delhi, K-25, Hauz Khas has become a site of literary pilgrimage. She also recorded in the magazine the changes happening in society. Amrita was forced to close the magazine three years ago as her health deteriorated. Recently, Amrita’s poetry reached an even wider audience, through the offices of India’s massive film industry. Pinjar , a film based on a novel she wrote nearly half a century ago, featured her famous poem to Waris Shah. During her life Amrita has defied conservative society and many times earned the wrath of the Sikh clergy. She rewrote legendary tales of doomed love, and survived some of the most horrifying moments in subcontinental history. It’s no surprise she’s an inspiration to many. Her poem to Waris Shah is engraved on a memorial to 1947 at the Indo-Pakistan border at Wagah, along with a poem by the Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz. Yet she is humble: she says she has merely returned what she learnt from the poetry of Sufi sages, and quotes a line from her own poetry: “I make no claims to talent, but I am proud of my love and dedication…” And so I find myself outside that hallowed address, K-25, Hauz Khas, New Delhi, clutching the bunch of blood-red chrysanthemums. For the past three years, Amrita has been on a sickbed. Six months ago when I visited her with a small nosegay of orange poppies, she could still talk and once helped to sit up, she smoked a cigarette and inquired if I was in love these days or not. Laughing, Imroz said, “She would be, for the colour of the flowers is one of youth in bloom.” When he left her room to get some tea, she grew grumpy. When he returned she flirtatiously spoke out to him the line of a Punjabi song: Maradi nu chhad ke na jaayin mittara (‘Don’t leave a dying woman, my friend’). Imroz jokingly replied, “You keep saying you will die but you don’t!” Two months ago when I came to see her again, she could not sit up. Lying there she wept and said that it was time her body set her soul free. Then last month, she was deep in slumber, and I did not go to her room. This time she is sleeping again. I sit down with Imroz to share a morning cup of tea. We’re seated at that familiar black dining table on which Imroz has splashed some colour: bougainvillea vines trail onto it from the windows. All around are sketches and photographs of the girl who won his love. And Imroz talks of his favourite subject – Amrita, of course. They have lived together for nearly half a century. A very open man, he has often talked to me about the love Amrita had for Sahir Ludhianvi, Urdu poet and film lyricist. Amrita, of course, has put it all in black and white. Today he talks about the first holiday the two had in Andretta, as guests of painter Sobha Singh in the summer of 1958. Then he asks me if I have seen the new book of poems and adds, with a murmur, “Her last book.” Everyone knows that the end is painfully near. There is a murmur from her room. He goes there and I follow him with the bunch of flowers in my hand. Amrita is writhing in pain and he caresses her face. I bend down to touch her and for a moment she stops sighing and flashes me that naughty girlish smile. It is Thursday, the holy day of the pir faqir . I put the flowers on the bedside table and the smile of the pir called Amrita falls into my lap as a blessing. The pilgrimage is complete.

A poem by Amrita Pritam

Main tainu pher milangi

(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 lineon your canvas,

I will keep gazing at you
Perhaps I will become a rayof sunshine,

to be embraced by your colours

I will paint myself on your canvas

I know not how and where –

but I will meet you for sure.
Maybe I will turn into a spring,

and rub the foaming drops of water on your body,

and rest my coolness on your burning chest.

I know nothing elsebut that this lifewill walk along with me.
When the body perishes,all perishes;

but the threads of memory are woven with enduring specks

I will pick these particles,weave the threads,

and I will meet you yet again.

Translated by Nirupama Dutt and published in The Little Magazine

Ik si Amrita, Ik hai Imroz

A love story revisited by Nirupama Dutt

People are trying to explore live-in relationships and society is trying to learn to accept such unconventional ties. But more than forty years ago there was this gutsy girl from Gujranwala and a dreamy boy born in Chak No: 36, near Lyallpur, who defied all convention and chose to live together in a brick-and-stone house lined with dreams just because they loved each other. What is more, this bond of love stood firm in the face of storms and it retained its intensity and beauty until the dying day.
No, I am wrong here for even death has not the power to do them part. One is talking, of course, of Punjab’s celebrated poet Amrita Pritam and her lifetime companion painter Imroz.
Pal Kaur, Ambala-based Punjabi poet, says: “It was the ideal relationship of our times. It was a coming together of two souls who complemented each other and it was a spiritual bond if there even could be one.”
For Amrita it was the realisation of the dream of finding true love. The lady of letters had recorded the experience of finding Imroz in the second volume of her autobiography called “Shadows of Words”, which is a sequel to her famed life story title “The Revenue Stamp”. She wrote that there was once a shadow in her dreams of a man standing by a window and painting a canvas. This dream would return night after night for long years. In her own words: “Then something happened. Someone suggested that an artist called Imroz design the cover of a book of mine. The shadow turned into a man. Love may be a cup of poison but I had chosen to sip it again.”
Those, who have seen the two live together in bliss day after day in their Delhi home, K-25 Hauz Khas, know that it was not poison but nectar divine that the two had tasted together. In that house with gray stonewalls on which bougainvillea trailed, they lived out their dreams. Patiala’s Punjabi poet Manjit Tiwana says: “Their relationship surpassed even that of Sartre and Simone. For one Amrita and Imroz shared the same home and unlike Sartre Imroz showed greater devotion till the very end. Every Punjabi woman writer longed to be loved by an Imroz but perhaps you have to be an Amrita to get an Imroz.”
True! The “Haar-Singhar” tree in their patch of green was witness to the blossoming and ripening of their love. Poetry had met painting, woman had met man and two souls had come together to belie the oft-repeated cliché that there is no true love in this world. Amrita and Imroz were born to the land of doomed love a la Heer-Ranjha, Sohni-Mahiwal and Mirza-Sahiban but they defied the shackles of society and realised their love. I recall what Punjabi fiction writer Ajeet Cour said when she visited her older sister of letters perishing on the sick-bed: “There was Imroz pressing her legs to relieve her of pain and attending to every little need of hers. It is so rare! I have yet to see such devotion from a man for a woman. She must have done many good deeds in her past lives.”
No Imroz came to her not as a result of past deeds but the deeds of this very life of this gutsy Gujranwala girl who was Lahore’s celebrated poet when she was just sixteen and later she won fame home and abroad with her gifted pen. The two gave each other complete space and freedom in their home together. Amrita cooked the meals and Imroz made those endless cups of tea for the stream of writers visiting them. Theirs’ was an open house and I had the privilege of staying there ever so often and eating the saag and chapatti cooked with love by one of the greatest poets of our times and drinking tumbler after tumbler of tea that Imroz made with the same involvement as he made his sketches.
How does the male world react to this relationship all against the established macho order? Fiction writer and editor of Sankh literary weekly Sidhu Damdami says: “The relationship was path-breaking. They became a role model and many tried to experiment thus to be together but few reached the heights that these two amazing octogenarians did. It was love that held them together.” Well-known satirist Bhushan, who was close to the two, says sans satire for once: “It was an example of complete surrender by Imroz who was an admirer of her writings. What is remarkable is that he was by her side till the very end. It can only be described as spiritual.”
And how does 80-year-old Imroz, for he was six years younger to Amrita, feel now that Amrita passed away on the Diwali eve? Is he shattered and lonely that she is now gone? However, he surprises their admirers by saying, “I am not sorrowful at all and not lonely either. Only her ailing body is gone, she is till with me. Even death cannot do us part.”

Obituary: The true daughter of Waris Shah

Nirupama Dutt
Chandigarh, October 31The news of the passing away of the grand dame of Punjabi letters, Amrita Pritam, spread like forest fire through the literary circles in Chandigarh and Punjab as telephone calls started coming from Delhi minutes after her demise.
She rose like a meteor with her verses in Punjabi in Lahore in the Lahore of the 1930s and ‘Thandian Kirnan’ published by her in 1935, when she was just 14, brought her serious critical notice and there was no looking back after that. In a literary career spanning seven decades, she did Punjabi proud by bringing it the highest of national and international awards and honours. Not only was her contribution great in poetry and prose, she also provided a platform to young Punjabi writers in her magazine ‘Nagmani’, which she edited for 33 long years.
As writers recalled her and her times, the lines from her famous poem ‘Ajj akhan Waris Shah nu…’ was on many a lip. This poem made her the indisputable Punjab’s Partition poet on both sides of the border for she had summed so well the sorrow and loss that Partition had wrought on human lives.
Born in 1919 at Gujranwala in West Punjab in the rather orthodox Sikh society of the times, she showed rare courage in coming forth with what she believed in both her verses and life. This pretty and petite woman reigned over the world of letters and was a path-breaking writer in her language. It was she who brought to Punjabi the prestigious Jnanpith Award for the first time for her anthology of poems called ‘Kagaz te Canvas’ and the only other Punjabi writer who got the award after her, shared with Nirmal Verma, was novelist Gurdial Singh. When asked to comment on the award, she had replied in a line of her own verse — ‘Maan suche Ishq da hai, hunar da daava nahin…’ (I am proud of my pure dedication and I make no claims to artistry).
Among the other awards she received were the Sahitya Akademi Award, Cyril and Methodious Award from Bulgaria and the Ordre des Arts des Lettres from France. The Delhi Government declared her Poet of the Millennium at the turn of the Century. Interestingly, the same title was bestowed upon her by Punjabi Academy, Lahore. However, what made her most happy was when Illias Ghumman and other Punjabi writers of Pakistan sent her in recent years three ‘chaddars’ from the tombs of Waris Shah, Bulle Shah and Sultqan Bahu saying — "You are the true daughter of Waris Shah and thus the Waris of our Waris. Frail and weak as she was in her latter years, she got herself photographed with the green silk ‘chaddars’ edged with gold. Of her own poetry, her comment in all humility was: "I have just returned what I had absorbed from reading the poetry of the great Sufi and Bhakti poets of my land."
The story of Amrita’s life is one of amazing courage, resilience and achievement. What set her a class apart from others was her very romantic search for freedom and the desire to live life on her own terms. Walking out of a loveless marriage, she made her home with artist Imroz and the relationship lasted over four decades. It was Imroz who answered the telephone at their home as he was getting her ready for her last journey. He said in a choked voice, "She has not gone, only her body has perished. She will be there in her poems and my paintings."
In her lifetime, Amrita authored over 100 books of poetry, fiction, biography and essays. In one of her last poems written from the sick bed, she consoled her love Imroz by saying, ‘Main tainu phir milagi…’ (I will meet you yet again). This is the promise she made to her soul mate but she will yet meet us all again through her writings. For today on Divali eve she has passed out of history into legend to stand in the row of poets like Meera Bai, Rabia and Lal Ded.

Mantonama

Manto: Messiah or madman?

Nirupama Dutt

on Saadat Hasan Manto, the wild child of literature.

A month before I was born here in Chandigarh, there died a man called Saadat Hasan Manto out there in Lahore in 1955. He was just 43 and he had challenged God in his own epitaph that is written on his grave_ "There Saadat Hasan Manto lies buried…and buried in his breast are all the secrets of the art of story writing. Even now lying buried under tons of earth he wonders whether he or God is the greater writer of the short story."
For the likes of me who grew up without knowledge of Urdu, the language Manto wrote in, he remained a much-talked-about yet obscure litterateur and my first introduction to his stories was through a special issue of Sarika, a literary monthly that used to be brought out the by Times of India group long ago, sometime in the 1970s.
This issue carried some of the Partition stories for which Manto is so famous. However, for a teenager brought up on a not so merry mix pulp fiction in English, Hindi and Punjabi via Devanagari these stories were difficult and somewhat remote.
This seems a rather strange confession from a member of a family that had migrated from Lahore in the bloody 1947. The only alibi that I can find for it is in the ‘conspiracy of silence’ that was to be found not only in politics, history but even within homes. It took me many years to know which aunt had been abducted and then rehabilitated or which relatives had slaughtered their daughters as they migrated from one part of the Punjab to the other.
Saadat Hasan Manto was of Kashmiri origin born at Padaudi village, near Samrala, in 1912.
He studied in Amritsar but dropped out of college before completing his graduation.
Working for All India Radio during World War II, he was a successful screenwriter in Bombay before moving to Pakistan at Partition.
Manto published 22 collections of short stories, seven collections of radio plays, three collections of essays and a novel.
In recent years he has enjoyed a cult status with many of his stories staged as plays.
A Manto theatre festival is being organised by Madeeha Gauhar of Ajoka theatre group at Lahore in November this year.
Publishers are rushing in to print him anew as the copyright on his works ends this year.
Anyway, Manto was not a name to be mentioned too often in middle class homes, specialise as he did in tales of pimps and prostitutes. He was a drunk and had been an inmate of lunatic asylums. What had we, the new breeds of Independent India, have to do with the likes of him?
Glimpses of him came in snatches from my mentor, Mantoesque poet of Hindi called Kumar Vikal. I recall him saying, "If one is to write of red-light areas in present times, one should be able to transcend a Manto who seems to have said it all." Vikal with Hindi as the medium of his expression and Left-wing politics as his inspiration seemed to dismiss Manto such.
Those were still days of ‘Laal Salam’ and Manto was also a deserter of sorts who had chosen to migrate to a country that was formed on the basis of a particular religion.
It was only in the late 1980s when Baba Laali, the Savant of Patiala, allowed me into the ranks of his disciples, who could be talked to, that I heard him referring to Manto, his writings, and also using him as a symbol for humanism amidst the dark days of militancy in Punjab. I recall some quotable quotes by Laali uttered on the bench outside the cafeteria of Punjabi University at Patiala and I gobbled these remarks with the enthusiasm of a slow learner. So said Laali: "That was 1947 and now it is AK 47." "The urinal is the only secular space. Manto has said it all in the symbol of the urinal."
In the early 1990s I actually entered that pre-Independence urinal in Bombay of old where the graffiti debated, in unprintable epithets the treatment meted out to the mothers of the two communities. For mothers and sisters are the first to be targeted in any battle that men fight and so it was with the names of the two countries that were replacing female genitals. This was when Rajkamal Prakashan published five volumes of Manto’s complete works in Devanagari. Of course these were not so complete as what would be unpalatable to the popular opinion in Hindustan was edited out. Nevertheless ‘Mutari’ (urinal) and other stories that make Manto compete with God were there and also my slowly acquired understanding to receive them.
That was a time when 50 years of Partition were approaching and so was a revival of interest in this madman and messiah called Manto who had intervened in spaces into which historians social scientists failed to reach. That was a time when progressive historians accepted their failure. Mushirul Hasan aptly says: "The fact is that to me and many other historians like me, Manto and many other creative writers expose the inadequacy of numerous narratives on Independence and Partition, and compel us to adopt new approaches that have eluded the grasp of social scientists and provide a foundation for developing an alternative discourse to current expositions of a general theory on inter-community relations."
Manto’s nephew Khalid Hasan, to whom goes the credit of translating much of Manto into English for Penguin, wrote some time ago wondering if Pakistan would pay adequate tributes to Manto on the 50th anniversary of his death. Tributes to Manto? What tribute can one pay to a writer who at the cost of his sanity, health and well-being paved the way for the preservation of essential human values. And it is to Manto and his kin that we today think of a sub-continent that will shape up differently for the positive. Manto Mian, I would like to tell you of some graffiti here in this Chandigarh of ours.
As I take a lift in some office in Sector 34 during the India-Pakistan cricket days, I find a heart with an arrow piercing it drawn by some youth of the MTV generation with the words ‘I love Pakistan’.
It has been a long and painful journey since the two governments of India and Pakistan divided their madmen and the protagonist of your Toba Tek Singh breathed his last on the no-man land. But we seem to be moving on and there are more choices before us than banishment, madness or death. Perhaps, there was a method in your madness.

With Manto through forbidden streets

Telltale balconies, bead-curtained doorways and carpeted halls lit by a single chandelier… Nirupama Dutt re-reads vignettes of a wayward world from the pen of a master storyteller

Narrow streets with sleazy paanwallahs and vendors hawking gajras, glass bangles, ittar and henna. Drowsy streets awakening alive at dusk to the strains of a thumri wafting own a dark staircase.
This is no scene recaptured from old Lucknow. Such forbidden streets with their telltale balconies, bead-curtained doorways, and carpeted halls lit by a single chandelier were very much a part of the towns of East Punjab. Although the ``entertainment’’ capital of Punjab was Lahore’s Heera Mandi, other towns such as Patiala, Ambala, Malerkotla, jalandhar, Amritsar had glittering retreats that were nearly as well populated and ``professional’’. Even little waystations like Balachaur could boast of a few houses.

Come Partition and these streets ceased to be for these were the first to be attacked. The kothas were burnt down and the tawaifs who provided comfort to any man with money irrespective of his caste, religion, mother-tongue or place of origin became the victims of communal fury. Many of them were abducted. The entire bazaar of Amritsar was burnt down and so also many buildings in what today is known as the Dharampura Bazaar of Patiala.

It was a nightmare for the girls of a famous kotha, ironically named Befikr manzil, in Patiala. “Yet, another kotha, recounts an old Patialvi ``was converted into a religious place with the original name plaque whitewashed. But when the paint would come off, devotees could read that this place of worship was once `Nissim manzil’ – a byword for nautch-gana wagera. Finally, the plaque was removed with the brick and all and now one finds there a gaping hole.’’ Although the tawaifs of Malerkotla migrated to Pakistan long ago, that town is a good place to see what the old kothas looked like – at least from the outside. Malerkotla saw neither killings nor arson in 1947 so many of the old buildings with their ornate iron railings and carved wooden awnings still line a street in the very centre of town. The ladies of Malerkotla were particularly prosperous as much of their clientele before 1947 were British troops. In fact, the town was unofficially designated for a ‘rest and recreation’.

Stories of these forbidden streets are now relegated to the memories of old timers. An aged jeweler of Amritsar recalls ``Once a week, my father would take with him a jewel or two and visit his favourite tawaif. He would return home late humming a ghazal.’’

The most vivid account of this world is to be found in the stories of Sadat Hasan Manto, the famous writer of Urdu fiction who prided himself on being the ‘best informed on the pimps and prostitutes.’
To journey with Manto through the forbidden streets is not merely to seek out the ambience of a long forgotten world but to glimpse the reality of life on the fringe of society and fathom the inner truth of the men and women who were condemned to live on that margin.

He was a writer who wrote not from flights of fancy but chronicled with great felicity what he saw, heard and experienced.
Most of the stories pertain to the late thirties and forties when the courtesan and the culture she represented had fallen on sad days. The reason was not any sort of revolution in public morals but mainly because British rule with its large military population reduced women who combined easy virtue with various kinds of cultural attainments to women who’s only commodity was flesh.
One story which he did write from hearsay recounted the tale of two famous courtesans of Amritsar and their brother who got mixed up in a revolt against the British. Called 1919 ki ek baat, it is told to the narrator by an old man in a train.

It dates back to the time when, following a ban on Mahatma Gandhi’s entry into Punjab and arrest of Congress leaders, a revolt broke out among some of Amritsar’s not-very-respectable citizens. One of them was Thaila kanjar, brother of two famous courtesans Shamshad and Almas. He attacked a British soldier, killed him and was killed in return by another soldier. The two sisters wept for their brother who had died a hero’s death. Sadly, the two sisters had to perform a mujra that evening for the officers. Here the old man broke down, saying that instead of refusing to do so they actually sang and danced.

With this denouement, Manto mocks society for casting some men and women beyond the pale of humanity, regarding them with contempt and loathing – and at the same time expecting patriotism and noble deeds from them.

Then there is the delightful story Kaali Salwar with Sultana of Ambala as the heroine. Manto describes how Sultana, with the gora soldiers of the cantonment as her customers, had picked up a dozen or so phrases in English. When business would be poor she would say ``this life is very bad’’. And she would amuse herself by lovingly hurling the choicest Hindustani abuses at the goras who, taking them to be endearments would laugh and receive a giggling ullu ka pathas from her in return.

Sultana later moves to Delhi and falls on hard days. The story ends with her pimp, Khudabakhs, obtaining the black salwar which Sultana so badly wants for Moharram from another courtesan in exchange for Sultana’s silver ear-rings. Finally the two women come face to face.

And so one moves from street to street with the Sultana’s and Alma: heroines whom Manto delineates not as debauchees but as women with dreams, hopes and fears. There is the young girl from Lahore who cannot enter the trade until she has gone back to her city and left her lover asleep in a hotel, as he had done once after eloping with her. Then there is the honourable ``Mummy’’who runs a house of entertainment but will not allow advances on a girl too young… and the girl who shivers in her kotha in Delhi as the riots begin.
The greatest of them is the story of Saugandhi, a ten-rupee woman of Bombay who is fleeced by a policeman who poses as her lover and protector. She plays along game until one Seth refuses her as she goes out to earn some money for a girl-friend in need. With the refusal, her dreams shatter. She throws out the lousy lover and picks up her shaggy diseased dog and sleeps with him.

Not only does Manto portray the women of the forbidden streets as women first but he also exposes ``respectable folk’’ for their hardness of heart in comparison to the sadder but kinder whores and pimps. These women who trade their bodies for daily bread emerge as a shade less mercenary than those who come to buy them for a night or just half a night.

Lal Singh Dil

Caste in his own image

Nirupama Dutt

Lal Singh Dil (1943-2007)

Dil with his Billa: A photgaph by Amarjit Chandan

How is one to remember Lal Singh Dil? The literary status of Dil in the world of Punjabi literature was never disputed and he is often described as the poets’ poet. Punjabi poet Surjit Patar says: “He will be counted as one of the top Punjabi poets of the twentieth century.” However, there was more to Dil’s life than is difficult to slot. It was a life of immense struggle as his story stands witness to the deep-rooted human discrimination in the name of caste, which, a creation of the Hindu way of life, is yet to be found in all major religions that have been based on conversion from Hinduism. Sadly enough, it has also been a part of the Left group cadres, which ideologically do not recognize religion, caste or creed. So Dil’s various attempts to transcend the caste barrier by joining the Naxalite movement of the late sixties in Punjab or later converting to Islam with the new name of Mohammad Bushra met with frustration that his simple poetic heart opposed.However, his life and struggle raise the issue of caste prejudice and a big question mark after his death. Punjab has a higher Dalit percentage than that of the other states. Scheduled Caste form about 30 percent of the total population and eight percent of these castes live in the rural area and are landless and mostly Sikh Jats are the land owners. The Dalits take the religion of their masters as per old practice.Born to a low-caste Ramdasia Chamar (tanner) family, Dil was the first of his clan to pass Class X, while doing his daily labour, and go to college. He was training to be a basic school teacher when Naxalbari intervened. Dil’s poetry was true to his life and that of those around him and the experience of poverty, injustice and oppression was so real and told so well that he was hailed as the bard of the Naxalite movement in Punjab. In the dream of a society free of caste and class, Dil saw a new dawn for the oppressed. However, the extreme Left cadres were not without the caste factor and when the movement was crushed the torture meted out to the Dalits by the upper-caste police was far worse. Dil went underground and moved to Muzaffar Nagar in Uttar Pradesh. Here comes the progresson of Dil. As a caretaker of a mango orchard there, he came in contact with Muslim culture. Once again he saw escape from caste oppression and converted to Islam. In a historical letter written to his mentor-friend Amarjit Chandan in February 1974, he revealed his decision in a long letter saying a crescent moon had appeared on the palm of his hand and adding a line: “Allah is very kind to Maoists because he understands cultures.”Years later Dil was to tell me, “Caste prejudice exists among the Muslims too.” And this was a scathing comment on the “Manu-made” evil that exists among the Muslims, Christians and Sikhs of the sub-continent because it is so deeply rooted in the Hindu way of life that it is difficult to get rid of it even after conversion. However, Dil remained a devout Muslim saying his namaz , keeping rozas (fasting) and eating only halaal. While he did not put his last wish to be buried on paper yet he had articulated it to his close riends and relatives. Gulzar Mohammad Goria, a writer and Dil’s constant companion, told me: “The wish was communicated to his brothers and left-wing activists. However, there was no Muslim burial ground is Samrala as the Wakf Board had leased out the ground to a Sadhu, who has built a temple there.” It would have meant taking his body to the neighbouring village of Bhaundli but it may not have been accepted there so the brothers of dil conferred and respecting the fact that he had converted to Islam, they yet decided to cremate him as they had done with other elders of the family. Goria adds, “We did not wish to rake a controversy that would make Dil the Muslim overshadow Dil the great poet.” A great poet he was undoubtedly and his collection of poetry Satluj di Hava (1971), Bahut Saare Suraj (1982), and Sathar (1997) as well as his autobiography, Dastaan, enjoy an exalted place in Punjabi letters. However, his life was a constant struggle. He was never married nor did he enjoy the companionship of any woman. His body and mind wrecked by police torture, he took to country brew. When the Naxalite movement was crushed all the activists went back to their class folds. Dil had nowhere to go to. His dreams for a better life were gone and till the end he remained a ‘proclaimed offender’ in police records because there was no one to help and set the record straight. Sadly, many Naxalite writers and artistes were to receive honours, posts and money from the government but even the meager pension of Languages Department, Punjab was not to find its way to Dil’s hovel through his long years of penury or illness.For some years after his return to Samrala, Goria and he reopened the mosque in Samrala with Dil saying the morning and evening azaan (call for prayer). Goria recalls: “God is everywhere and our effort in opening the mosque was directed to give confidence to a minority community who should not be afraid of going to their own place for prayer. However, when people started coming to the mosque, the Wakf Board intervened and took over. Well, the Wakf Board must be having its own reason because political ideology apart, Dil and Goria were just a bit too fond of their drink.With the money sent by his well-wishers in England, his hut was made over into a pucca home and a wooden shack built to serve as a teashop so that he may earn a living by selling tea. He did so in partnership with Pala, a local upper-caste drug addict, but after his death the shop was closed. On Sunday when hundreds of all shades gathered to bid adieu to Dil, but for one all old comrades took care not to mention the two truths of dil’s life: one that he had converted to Islam and the other he found solace in addiction. Expressing regret as an ex-Naxalite activist Manmohan Sharma, an admirer of the days when red had not faded, says: “This is how society exhumes radicalism and Dil the radical was not acceptable either to the society or his own party cadres.” Chandan adds more explicitly: “Beneath the faded red, the Hindus and Sikhs, they would not have anything to do with his last wish for a burial.”Dil was a legend in his lifetime and now after him his poetry lives and so does his struggle and protest. He had told this writer that one day people would come and sing qawwalis under the banyan tree outside his hovel. It will happen one day, for in ‘Manto-town’ (Samrala being the birth place of Saadat Hasan Munto) Dil was the true faqir and Manto and Dil were forever buried in many a heart.(Lal Singh Dil, poet, born 11 April 1943, Ghungraali Sikhaan, Ludhiana; died 14 August 2007 Dayanand Medical College and Hospital Ludhiana.)