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In sync with the sacred feminine

APS Malhotra

Amrita Pritam is no more. An admirer remembers the effect of her words as portrayed in the film "Pinjar".

MOVING WORDS Amrita Pritam

As someone whose roots are in a small town, Saiyyad Kasran in the West Punjab district of Rawalpindi, now in Pakistan, I have always felt a strong sense of loss, of being an eternal refugee . From an early age the heart has felt ripples, no matter how faint, of the demonic event that ripped the innards of the subcontinent. That the events are fairly recent has been obvious to me - having taken birth in a family that suffered the full bodied brunt of one of the most vicious carnages in human history - an insane epoch that devastated millions of lives. My mother, a woman of exceptional learning, often used to talk about a Punjabi writer by the name of Amrita Pritam when I was a kid. She eulogised Pritam for her landmark feats in the field of Punjabi literature. At that time, I could not come to terms with any worthwhile literature being written outside English. It was much later, when I saw her being felicitated with numerous awards, including the prestigious Jnanpeeth Award, that the extent of her stature dawned on me. But even then, I did not take the pain to go through any of her writings. It was only when I saw the screen adaptation of her magnum opus, "Pinjar", circa 2004 that her mastery over the fine art of storytelling hit me. Her profound adeptness in sensitively interpreting complex emotions, that too in the backdrop of challenging times and overpowering situations, highlights a deep understanding of the human psyche.

Invoking Warris

But what really transformed me from being a mere spectator of a motion picture to being an active participant in the psychologically smouldering events of an era long gone by, was the heartrending rendition of vocals at the fag end of the movie as the titles roll by:

Aaj aakhan Warris Shah nu,

Kithon kabran whicho bol,

Aaj kitabe ishq da,

Koi agla warqa khol

Penned by Pritam, and voiced with immense intensity and pathos, they are a call to the legendary Punjabi Sufi poet, Warris Shah. As a kid I had heard the poem several times from my mother, specially the first two stanzas, but had never been able to comprehend the extent of their depth and reach.

Partition pogrom

In the fabled lines, written against the backdrop of the Partition pogrom, an anguished Pritam calls upon Warris to rise from his grave and wield his pen again. And this time, in the book of love, she exhorts him to open a new page. She envisaged the impact of such a scenario - if Warris could weave eye moistening sadness in words at the tragedy of one `Heer', what would he present before the world, when a plethora of daughters from the scorched Punjab were suffering unimaginable persecution. When the pristine waters of the Chenab had turned red with blood flowing into it, when the fertile soil of the land of the five rivers, generating life giving crops was rendered sterile by the poison of vicious hatred, when every human male had mutated into a blood curdling, sex-starved beast, devouring whoever came in the way - like the malfeasance ridden uncle of Heer, Kaidon.

It is one of the most apt and moving depictions of women's plight. One ballad, at the fag end of the movie, shook me from within. But more than that, it saddened me. For the truth has not changed for women - centuries have rolled by, but their plight remains the same. From the Sita of Ramayana, to the Draupadi of Mahabharat to the Heer of Warris to the Puro of Pritam to the Bilkees Rasool of Gujarat - callous men have always used innocent women as an easy tool, to settle scores, in acts of grave depravity, irrespective of the issue being political, social, religious or ethnic. The waters of the Saryu, the Chenab, the Yamuna and the Sabarmati continue to be contaminated with innocent blood.

Then why do the so-called conscience keepers of the world retreat into a shell, and why do the otherwise pro-active thekedars of religion suddenly lose their vocal chords when these demeaning acts are perpetrated? There are no answers for this. But just as you once exhorted Warris to rise from his grave and write again, I call on you, Amrita, to break your silence, rise again from the ashes and give a reminder to a few fallen people of India, to heed the silent echoes, shouting to be heard from within the graveyards of the past, so that history is not condemned to repeat its immoral orgies, yet again.

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