Remembering the great Punjabi literary poet, novelist & Bhartiya Jnanpith awardee Padma Vibhushan Amrita Pritam ji on her 101st birth anniversary. The 20th century writer was born on 31 August 1919 in Gujranwala. She is considered the first prominent female Punjabi poet, novelist and essayist.
Amrita Pritam, the greatest poetess / author of Punjabi literature in 20th century. She was considered the first prominent female Punjabi poet, novelist, essayist and the leading 20th-century poet of the Punjabi language, who is equally loved on both sides of the India–Pakistan border. With a career spanning over six decades, she produced over 100 books of poetry, fiction, biographies, essays, a collection of Punjabi folk songs and an autobiography that were all translated into several Indian and foreign languages. She is best remembered for
her poignant poem, Ajj 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.
It was her poem addressed to Waris Shah, which captured the imagination of people — Ajj aakhan Waris Shah nu, kiton qabran vichon bol. Her voice became the voice of millions of women, pleading with the poet Waris Shah to become a chronicler of the brutality inflicted on women during Partition.
As a novelist, her most noted work was Pinjar (“The Skeleton”, 1950), in which she created her memorable character, Puro, an epitome of violence against women, loss of humanity and ultimate surrender to existential fate; the novel was made into an award-winning film, Pinjar (2003).
When 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.
Known as the most important voice for the women in Punjabi literature, in 1956, she became the first woman to win the Sahitya Akademi Award for her magnum opus, a long poem, Sunehade (Messages), later she received the Bharatiya 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. she wrote her poems mostly for the partition. She breathed her last on October 31, 2005, in Delhi after a prolonged illness. She was 86. Her four-decade-old living partner Imroz was present beside her bedside when her soul left her body.
Bibliography
In her career spanning over six decades, she penned 28 novels, 18 anthologies of prose, five short stories and 16 miscellaneous prose volumes.
Novel
Pinjar
Doctor Dev
Kore Kagaz, Unchas Din
Dharti, Sagar aur Seepian
Rang ka Patta
Dilli ki Galiyan
Terahwan Suraj
Yaatri
Jilavatan (1968)
Hardatt Ka Zindaginama
Autobiography
Black Rose (1968)
Rasidi Ticket (1976)
Shadows of Words (2004)
Short stories
Kahaniyan jo Kahaniyan Nahi
Kahaniyon ke Angan mein
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)
Sanjh de laali (1943)
Lok Peera (The People’s Anguish) (1944)
Pathar Geetey (The Pebbles) (1946)
Punjab Di Aawaaz (1952)
Sunehade (Messages) (1955) – Sahitya Akademi Award
Ashoka Cheti (1957)
Kasturi (1957)
Nagmani (1964)
Ik Si Anita (1964)
Chak Nambar Chatti (1964)
Uninja Din (49 Days) (1979)
Kagaz Te Kanvas (1981)- Bhartiya Jnanpith
Chuni Huyee Kavitayen
Ek Baat
Literary journal
Nagmani, poetry monthly
