Tribute to Giani Gurdit Singh

He captured the soul of rural Punjab

Nirupama Dutt
HE immortalised Mitthewal, an obscure Malwai village of the Malerkotla state of yore in Mera Pind, a book that enjoys the status of a classic today, and the book, in turn, immortalises its writer Giani Gurdit Singh.
He was a scholar of great repute, who made significant contributions in the areas of journalism, politics, Sikh religious studies and Punjabi culture. However, he was best loved and is best remembered today for his little epic that captured the heart and soul of Punjab’s rural life as it was in yesteryear.
This is not to say that his contributions in other areas were any less. He played a pivotal role in the establishment of Punjabi University, Patiala. On the basis of his report filed to the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), Takht Sri Damdama Sahib was established as the fifth Takht.
The Giani was the founder of the Sri Guru Granth Vidya Kendras in Delhi and Chandigarh. In fact, he was a towering figure in post-Independence Punjab, who held important posts and received many honours. But what set him apart from others was his integrity and refusal to budge from what he held true, no matter what the political climate of the time was.
A robust and earthy sense of humour and courage of conviction kept him active and alert, in spite of setbacks to his health, to a ripe age of 84. He authored scores of books on culture, folklore and religion, having started his career as the editor of Prakash, a daily Punjabi newspaper from Patiala he started in 1947.
His literary circle in those days included writer Suba Singh and Prof Pritam Singh. A spontaneous essay, written in his daily in 1953 on his village paved the way for Mera Pind, published in 1961. The Encyclopaedia Britannica calls the book ‘one of the most outstanding novels depicting rural life in Punjab.’
Well known writer Khushwant Singh had said of Mera Pind: ‘The book gives a lively picture of pastoral life, written in delectable prose, studded with aphorisms, anecdotes, proverbs and songs. The one thing that will give Mera Pind a long lease of life, if not immortality, is the fact that the author has used the Punjabi language as it is spoken by the common people.’
As the news of the Giani’s demise spread in literary circles, short story writer Mohan Bhandari says: “I have said it before and I am saying it now that even 12 Sahitya Akademi awards for this book would have been less for in it is encased the soul of Punjab.”
The book that defied classification did not win the Sahitya Akademi award but awards never make a book, readers do. Running into its seventh edition, the book is one of the best read in Punjab and commenting on it poet Surjit Patar says: “If you haven’t read this book, you have missed much of Punjab.”
Mera Pind portrays the innocence and simplicity of the Punjabi village before the intervention of ‘development’ and materialism. Paying a tribute to the Giani, Punjabi critic Bhushan says: “Mahatma Gandhi had said that India lived in its villages, and I say that the village lived in Giani Gurdit Singh.”
Published in The Tribune, January 18, 2007.

On Rajinder Singh Bedi

A creator `Sailing to Byzantium’

Nirupama Dutt

Meeting Rajinder Singh Bedi, writer and film-maker, who came here to receive the honour bestowed upon him by the Punjab Government for his outstanding services to the Indian film industry, brought to the mind the image of a desolate theatre, the players and viewers having fled, and the director sitting alone thinking of what has been gained and what lost. Bedi is no longer the vivacious man known for his wit and humour. A sudden attack of paralysis a year ago rendered his right side almost useless and at 65 he has lost the sight of one eye. He almost apologized for his ailing memory, fumbling speech and regretted that had he been his old self, this interview would have been more interesting and alive, for now he could not even remember the names of all the films he had made. One was reminded of W. B. Yeats ‘Sailing to Byzantium’:

``That is no country for old
Men, the young,
In one another’s arms, birds
In the trees,
Those dying generation--at their song’’

Born and brought up in Lahore, Rajinder Singh Bedi started his career as a post office clerk and during this period published two collections of short stories ``Dana o’ Daan’’ and ``Grayahan’’. These brought him fame and steadily through his literary pursuits he rose to the position of Station Director, All India Radio, Jammu and Kashmir, after the partition of the country. However, the job did not last long and he left for Bombay, the Mecca of Indian film industry, to try his luck. The first film he wrote was ``Badi Behan’’ with the singing star Surayya. The instant success of this movie brought him more work. Bedi wrote the screenplay of some of the most memorable films of the Indian cinema like ``Devdas’’, ``Daag’’,``Rail Ka Dibba’’, ``Basant Bahar’’. ``Ab Dilli Door nahin’’, ``Mirza Ghalib’’, ``Anuradha’’, ``Satyakam’’ and ``Anupama’’.

The first film he made on his own was `Garam Kot’’ with Balraj Sahni and Nirupma Roy, and then ``Rangoli’’ with Kishore Kumar and Vyajanthimala. Both did fairly well but it was his ``Dastak’’, a low-budget film based on his play ``Nakle makan’’, which brought him acclaim at the national level and he was awarded the Padma Shri.
His classic novel ``Ek Chadar maili Si’’, which was a sincere portrayal of the rural life of Punjab, won him the sahitya Adademi Award. ``I had written it in just three months’’, recalled Bedi. After he wrote it, he gave the manuscript to Krishan Chander to go through, Krishan Chander started reading it in the late hours of the evening and was so absorbed that he could not put it down. When he finished it late at night, he ran in his underclothes to Bedi’s house and said, you don’t know that you have written a masterpiece!’’ Bedi tried more than once to make a film on it but somehow the venture was ill-started in 1965, he started making it in Punjabi called ``Rano’’ with Geeta bali as Rano and Dharmendra as mangal. ``Shammi Kapur was against his wife playing such a bold role but Geeta bali was in love with the character of Rano and she lived the role’’, said Bedi. But the film was two-thirds complete when Geeta bali got small-pox. Bedi recalled the last hours when his ``Rano’’ died. ``I was by her side with her husband and father-in-law. She was completely covered with blisters, her face swollen. Geeta had beautiful eyes and she was so proud of them In that state, she asked for a minor to see her eyes but when she could not see them she fell unconscious and never regained consciousness. After her death, Bedi just drew a line across the negatives.

Some years back Bedi started the project once again and the mahurat was performed here in the Tagore Theatre and Kiran Thakar Singh was taken in the lead. Though the film was to be in Punjabi, the Punjab Government did not come forward with any help. Bedi was facing bad days. His ambitious venture ``Phagun’’ having flopped, the project had to be shelved once again. Now, Bedi revealed, Girish Karnad was making it in Hindostani and the cast had yet to be decided upon. Asked if he felt bad that his cherished dream was being realised by another, he replied: ``No, I am happy. I do not have the capacity to make it any longer and very few would take up a project like this. And Karnad knows more about films than I do, so he might do more justice to it.’’ He said that he could never make a Punjabi film because none came forward to help him.

Bedi has received many awards in his life but he was particularly bitter about the recent State honour given to him and S Sukhdev, ``The poor widow of Sukhdev came all the way from Bombay and she was given no money. Neither was I with such treatment, do they think anyone will come from Bombay to make a Punjabi film here? No one will touch them even with a pair of tongs,’’ he said. After ‘Phagun’, Bedi attempted another experimental film ``Ankhon Dekhi’’ on the atrocities on harijans with two newcomers, Suman Sinha and Suresh Bhagat. ``The day I got the censor certificate, I was taken ill and after that all my workers scattered and I was left alone.’’ He is now trying for the release of the film but he fear that it will not be done in his lifetime for he has vague premonitions of death. To a query of what he thought of the pages devoted to him in Balwant Gargi’s book ``the Naked Triangle’’, in which Bedi’s personal life has been laid bare with a vengeance, he answered: ``I have not read the book but I have heard about the much he has churned on. He never sought my permission to write anything and what he has written is in bad taste. If I got involved with one woman, Gargi got involved with 50 but that does not make literature.”

Looking back at his career, he said that it had been creatively satisfying but what was the use of making good films? There will always be a few to carry out the struggle and never see the fruit of their labour. Though Bedi will never be able to make a film again, he wants to write two novels, which he has already begun Mr. H.S. Bhatti made an offer that he stay with him and write them, but Bedi wants to work for the release of ``Ankhon Dekhi’’ first. Surprisingly, none of the local organizations arranged a get-together of the local writers to meet Bedi, not even some groups in the university, who love to bask in the glory of others. Perhaps they were more busy giving statements to the press about the deep shock Jean-Paul Sartre’s death had left them in!

Bedi’s son, Narinder Singh, is a successful film-maker and his films sell. Bedi said, ``My son realised what was profitable and made such films like `Bandhan’. `Jawani Diwani’, `Rafoochakkar’and `Benaam’. Asked if given the choice once again, would he make such a compromise and the reply, thankfully, was not disappointing. He said, ``No I would not have made such a compromise.’’ If with all the bitterness and disillusionment, this be the answer then hope still not lost and once again Byzantium, Yeats’ symbol for purity and creativity, comes to the mind:
``An aged man is but a paltry
Thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick
Unless,
Soul clap its hands and sing,
And louder sing,
For every tatter in its moral
Dress.’’

Indian Express, April 20, 1980

Chasing dreams

My dreams
Look for
The real thing
And my
Reality
Chases a dream -- Deepti Naval

Nirupama Dutt

This Little poetic confession comes from the second known Bollywood actress who took to writing poetry. And it’s not just poetry for Deepti Naval. Apart from being a painter, this petite actress has recently made forays into photography. In Delhi for her first-ever exhibition of photographs at Gallery Espace, Deepti brings with her the rugged landscape of Ladakh. The wide open sky, the snowcapped mountains, the trees shorn of the last leaf, walls of stone, rounded mud wall of a remote monastery merging with the bare hilltop…. And occasionally, a winterscape peopled with women wrapped in shawls and smiles.
Her dreams have certainly chased the real thing. And the photographs speak of skill and poetry. These stark landscapes are in a way an extension not just of her own poetry, but also that of her celebrated predecessor, Meena Kumari. Their poems speak of their direct communion with nature and of their journey through life alone. For, it was Meena Kumari who had spoken of Chand tanha hai asman tanha, dil mila hai kahan kahan tanha (The moon is alone and so is the sky, where won’t you find a heart alone?)
`Aloneness’, and not `loneliness’, was very much a part of Deepti’s early poems, which she started penning while still in college in New York. These published in an anthology called Lamha Lamha (Moment to moment) a couple years after the young, starryyears Deepti made her debut in Ek Baar Phir. This pahhened a decade after Meena Kumari’s death in 1972.
Interestingly, not only were these two actresses a generation apart, but also a world apart. Meena Kumari belonged to an age when tragedy was what the audience liked and so, with her immense talent and classic beauty, she queened over it. She played the ideal of Indian womanhood, and sadly, martyrdom followed her in life and the only way out seemed to be alcohol. Deepti came from a background in which women were empowered. She had the girl-next door looks. And charm spilling over.
The points of difference between Meena Kumari and Deepti Naval are many, but the common factor remains poetry. Interestingly, both of them gravitated poetically towards Gulzar, in their search for a sensitive man. And Gulzar not only re-invented Meena Kumari’s image on screen in Mere Apne, but also edited and published her poems after she died, for she had left all her diaries with him. Gulzar also paid her a tribute on celluloid though a short film called Shaera.
Deepti, too, found favour. Grapevine had it that the poet character that Gulzar invented in his film ljazat was inspired by her. Yes, that lovely Maya, played by Anuradha Patel, who telegraphs her poems and died strangulated, Isadora Duncan-like. Deepti laughts away the resemblance, though: ``Not really. I am not as erratic as maya was. I just love doing a lot many things.
There’s no rule that says an actress cannot paint or photograph. ``I came from a strictly non-filmi family. Both my parents were academics. I majored in painting and that was the time I learnt photography, too. But then came films,’’ she says. ``It is not a tragedy for me not to be doing films. I can do tother things.’’
For some time now, Deepti has been writing poetry in English and has penned some sensitive poems on the women inmates at the Ranchi mental asylum, which she visited to work on a script. ``Life has not been the same after that. I was so moved by the women and their histories.’ ’She says. The tentative title for her book is Living On The Edge.
On the personal front, Deepti has found a meaningful relationship with Vinod pandit, nephew of vocalist Pandit Jasraj. ``We are companions and for the moment, we do not wish to bring our relationship within the institution of marriage,’’ says Deepti. And one is happy that she has the spirit and the options which her ``older sister’’ Meena Kumari did not have. It is just that the two chased dreams at different points of history.