Love, Longing and
Ludhiana
Jottings from Sahir’s City
by Nirupama Dutt
oddess
Saraswati seems to be looking
Ludhiana
’s way this year with the prestigious Saraswati Sammān (awarded
annually for outstanding Indian works of prose or poetry) going to a poet
of that city, Surjit Patar.
The
fact is that there is much more to
Ludhiana
than the butter chicken that Pankaj Mishra, of Butter Chicken in
Ludhiana fame, immortalised. Punjab’s
Manchester
is known for its hosiery industry, its cycle factories, its business
money, the agricultural university, migrant labourers by the thousands who
come on trains nicknamed Bhayia Express, the filthy sewer that runs
through the old town, and rampant pollution. Yet this familiar picture of
Ludhiana
misses one important aspect: the fact that the city has been home to a
large number of poets in modern times, with Sahir, famed Hindi film
lyricist who bore the city’s name, topping the list.
The
first Journey
Most
of my journeys to
Ludhiana
have been in one way or the other related to poetry except perhaps the
first. But no, I am wrong. Perhaps the first was the most poetic. Instead
of going into the details, I will just quote a few lines of a poem I wrote
a decade-and-a-half after visiting the city for the first time:
What
couldn’t I have done this season of late rains
right
from singing Raga Malhār to penning an epic poem
I
could even have borrowed a flame orange dress from a friend/ worn a pair
of dark glasses and stealthily
boarded a bus to
Ludhiana
just
like fifteen years ago when I had returned home desolate…
I
am desolate these days too from another
Ludhiana
that has sprung up in
Chandigarh
…
The
first time I visited
Ludhiana
in 1977, I was positively thrilled to see the welcome signboard outside
the city, which read: Ji aaean nu. This is a pure Punjabi
greeting and blessing which defies translation into English. It just
conveys a very heartfelt welcome, Punjabi style. Many cities in
Punjab
bear the welcome sign of Jee aaean nu. One does not always
notice them, but sometimes the heart skips a beat and one thinks – this
here is an earnest welcome posted just for me.
Since
the address that I was looking for in
Ludhiana
did not exist, I visited instead the home of my love’s friend, Surjit
Patar, who along with other friends cheered me up with words and food.
This celebrated master of the Punjabi couplet then lived in a small
bachelor’s pad near Gate No: 3 of the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU)
where he was a research scholar in the Department of Languages and
Culture. Mohan Singh, the poet, also spent his last decade at the
PAU
, where he was poet emeritus.
The
tradition of Punjabi poetry is a multilingual tradition – Faiz wrote in
Urdu and Amrita Pritam in Punjabi. Regardless of language, Urdu poetry
greatly influenced Punjabi poetry in the last century. Sahir and Patar
both grew out of the classical tradition of Urdu poetry established by Mir
and Ghalib, though Sahir wrote in Urdu and Patar writes in
Punjabi.
My
first journey to
Ludhiana
was one of heartbreak but also of poetic acquaintance. Patar is heir to
the poetic tradition of this city and is full of
Ludhiana
lore. He once recounted how, when Sahir was asked how he wrote so many
film songs, the poet answered with a laugh that there was not much to a
film song, he could write one in ten puffs of a cigarette. Patar added,
“Those days he took the princely sum of Rs 10,000 for a song so each
puff of his cigarette was worth a thousand rupees.” Patar is a poet of
the classical tradition who chooses contemporary issues as his theme. One
of his finest poems was written at the time of the Naxalite movement of
which he was a sympathiser: It is difficult to return home
now, who will recognise us? /Death has left its signature on our
foreheads/ Friends have trodden on our faces/Someone else glances
back from the mirror…
t
was the signature of death that took me to
Ludhiana
the next time. The city lost its most precious poet, Sahir, on the last
day of October, 1981. He had lived long in
Bombay
and that was where he died but I felt that to write about him a journey
had to be made to the city of his birth and youth. This time I did not
notice any welcome signboards. Instead there were banners all over town
exclaiming “Hai! Sahir Ludhianvi.” Painter Bawri, a friend from
Sahir’s youth had put up these memorials. Bawri was also an Urdu poet,
and a signboard painter by profession. Talking about the time when Sahir
published Talkhiyan, his first book of verse at the very young
age of seventeen, Bawri said: “I was older to Sahir and when I read his
poem Chakle that was later used as a song picturised on
the red-light area in Guru Dutt’s Pyaasa, I was amazed by the
courage of this young poet.” The lines that amazed him were those in
which Sahir called a whore a daughter of Eve and of Zuleikha and a sister
of Radha. By thus relating a prostitute to the women held sacred by these
three faiths, he was appealing against the objectification of a woman’s
body.
Days
of Poetry
Abul
Hayee (Sahir's real name) was born on March 8, 1921, just a year after the
Government College of Ludhiana was established. He enrolled himself in the
college on a hot summer May day in 1937, filling the form in a sensitive
and delicate hand. In the form, which is still preserved in the college
records, he wrote ‘Law’ in the column that asked which profession he
would like to follow. Though he never became a lawyer, he was certainly an
advocate of popular emotions and dreams for a better tomorrow.
Interestingly, a college mate of Sahir’s was the famous poet of Urdu,
Ibn-e-Insha, who migrated to
Pakistan
at time of Partition and later chose to live in self-exile in
London
until his death in 1978. Insha’s couplets are quoted widely till today
such as: Insha ab in ajnabion mein chain se baki umra kātey/Jinki
khatir basti chhodhi naam na le un pyaron ka (Insha may you live
among these strangers in peace for the rest of your life / do not even
speak the name of those dear ones for whom you fled the basti).
The
Government College of Ludhiana was something of a hub of budding poetic
talent in those days and it was to remain a recurring motif in the poetry
of Sahir, which received immense popularity after he became a lyricist for
Hindi films. One scene in Ramesh Saigal’s 1958 film, Phir Subah Hogi (loosely
based on Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment), apparently
draws on Sahir’s time in Ludhiana’s Government College where he fell
in love with a Sikh girl called Ishwar Kaur. In those pre-Partition days
of intense communal strife, this romance had little chance of
blossoming.
But
Sahir had found his muse. When he blossomed as a poet, Iqbal, Firāq, Faiz
and Majāz had already made a name for themselves. It is unlikely that
Sahir remained uninfluenced by them, but he also had a natural poetic
talent shaped by a rare felicity with language and chiselled by the
idealism of the Left. Interestingly, Ludhiana could not retain this young
talent and Sahir was expelled from college, the popular excuse being his
love for the Sikh girl for whom he had penned the couplet: Phir na
keejie meri gustakh nigahon ka gila/ Dekhiye aapne phir pyar se dekha
mujhko (Do not blame me for my bold gaze again / Look, you
glanced at me with love again). It is believed, though, that the real
reason for his expulsion was the progressive ideology he was propagating
as a poet in colonial times.
Sahir
Ludhianvi (centre) flanked by Jaan Nisār Akhtar (left) and Mohinder Singh
Randhawa ICS one of the architects of post-1947
East Punjab
.
Ludhiana
. c 1970
photo
by Krishan Adeeb
Many
decades later when the college celebrated its golden jubilee in 1970,
Sahir was the guest of honour and was awarded a gold medal. It was then
that Sahir wrote his famous poem ‘Nazar-e-College’ dedicated to his
college : Yahin seekha tha phan-e-nagmagari/ Yahin utra she’r ka
ilham/ Main jahan raha yahin ka raha/ Mujhko bhoole nahin yeh darobaam/
Ham inhi fizaon ke pale hue to hain/Gar yan ke nahin yan se nikale hue to
hain (It was here that I learnt the art of writing songs/ It was
here that poetry came to me/ Wherever I went I always belonged here/ I
could never forget these portals, these terraces/I grew up in these
environs/ If I was not owned here at least I was disowned here)
It
was my 1981 trip that put me in touch with several poets of
Ludhiana
. Among them were Ajaib Chitrakar (painter-poet) and Krishan Adeeb, a
friend and ardent admirer of Sahir. Adeeb had remarkable talent in the
Urdu ghazal and nazm with some of his compositions having been sung by
Mehdi Hasan, Jagjit Singh, Mohammad Rafi and Chitra Singh. Originally
from Phillaur, a small town near
Ludhiana
, Adeeb was bitten by the creative bug and left home young to wander. In
Bombay
he stayed with Sahir who encouraged him to write poetry. Adeeb’s famous
ghazal on the heart-wrenching sorrows of love and longing after sunset was
sung by both Jagjit Singh and Mehdi Hasan: Jab bhi aati hai teri
yaad kabhi shaam ke baad/Aur badh jaati hai afsoorda-dili shaam ke baad.
(Whenever I think of you after evening fall/ Sadness of the heart
increases after evening fall.)
In
fact, my first encounter with Adeeb was in
Chandigarh
. There was a mushaira in
Chandigarh
in the last year of the 70s and my mentor-friend, Kumar Vikal who had
grown up in
Ludhiana
, requested me to go and interview Adeeb. Those were the times when mushairas
would go on into the wee hours of the morning and poets would step down
from the stage in turns for their date with Bacchus. I went backstage and
sent word for Adeeb to meet me. He came from the green room into the
passage and said: “I have taken some whiskey and I do not talk to a
daughter after drinking whiskey. You come to my house 12/14 on the
PAU
campus in
Ludhiana
and I will give you an interview there.”
Krishan
Adeeb
Photographer
unknown
So
it was that some months later, accompanying Vikal to a literary meet in
Ludhiana
, we visited Adeeb’s home on the university campus, where he worked as
the university photographer. As I interviewed him, he and Vikal downed
glass after glass of rum. Perhaps talking with daughters after rum was
different from talking to them after whiskey!
Adeeb
was an accomplished poet whose verses touched very tender sentiments; one
of his long nazms compared thoughts to stubborn children who
without leave run out of the house barefoot. His love for the Urdu
language was all-encompassing and he would say: “Urdu is not just a
language. It is a culture: a way of life.” The last time I met Adeeb, he
had retired from the university but had been allowed to open an STD booth
on the campus. He limped, having damaged one leg in an accident, could no
longer smoke as he was severely asthmatic, and could no longer drink
whiskey or rum as his liver was damaged. But his spirits were still high
and there was poetry was scribbled on the walls of the STD cabin alongside
pictures of him with Jagjit Singh, Sahir and Mehdi Hasan. When he passed
away, I was reminded of an ode he had written to poets of the city: Ab
na Sahir hai mere paas na Ibn-e-Insha/ Waqt ne chhen liye yaar purane kya
kya (Neither Sahir is with me nor Ibn-e-Insha/Time has snatched
away such dear old friends).
Apart
from these famous poets there have been other, lesser-known Ludhiana poets
such as Madan Lal Didi, a trade union leader and friend of Sahir’s, and
Satyapal Anand, a professor of English literature who wrote in Urdu and
English and now lives in the US. I wonder what it is in
Ludhiana
’s air that inspired and attracted poets. Perhaps it was a reaction to
the growing industrialisation and materialism of the city – the voice of
the soul rising to maintain the balance, as it were, between the material
and the spiritual. Post-Partition, the most famous Punjabi publisher of
those times, Jiwan Singh, set up his Lahore Book Shop in
Ludhiana
and many writers worked for him. The media hub of Jalandhar was just an
hour and a half by road or rail. The
Agricultural
University
too made an effort to include a literature component in it syllabus. The
labour and trade unions were centred in this industrial town and along
with them left-wing intellectuals and poets.
Kumar
Vikal, the poet dearest to me, is considered one of the most humane and
creative poets of Hindi literature. His family moved to
Ludhiana
after being uprooted from
Rawalpindi
at the time of Partition. It was this city which gave him images of
retrenched labour, women working in factories, old prostitutes and liquor
vendors. He supervised publication at the Lahore Book Shop on a meagre
salary and was well known for his wit, sharp mind and talent for poetry.
Students from Sahir’s college would ask him to write them verses for the
girls they fancied. There was one particularly attractive girl called Asha
and their deal with Vikal was that each time her name (which meant hope)
figured in a poem, Vikal would be given two rupees. Vikal found a smart
way to earn his daily half a bottle of rum.
Wazirabad
born Kumar Vikal.
Chandigarh
. 1976.
Photo
by Amarjit Chandan
Poetry
blossoms in times when there are pro-people, idealistic movements or
radical forms of resistance. In
Ludhiana
, as in the rest of
Punjab
, we are today living in the era of the popular songsters who are part of
the Punjabi pop cult. However, the city does honour its poets. Every year
there is a Mohan Singh Mela and Jashn-e-Sahir. In
PAU
, a special variety of chrysanthemum is named after Sahir-gul-e-Sahir —
and the
Government
College
has a portrait of him at the entrance. So when in
Ludhiana
to buy woollens or a Hero Honda bike, do spare a thought for this city’s
many and accomplished poets.
[Published
in the Caravan.
New Delhi
. Vol 2. May 5 2010]
