Life Story of Amrita Pritam

Life Story of Amrita Pritam

Her name is famous among Punjabi writers. It is a very strange story of life as if a movie is going on. Which has been written by an author in a very exciting manner.

Mother died at the age of 11, after which her love for poetry increased. At the age of 16, she got married and a collection of her poems was published.

A love poet, she became a part of the progressive writer movement.

The narrow lane of love is different from marriage which was an unwanted bond. Two children, divorce from husband, unfulfilled love but the journey was still ahead. Once again I met a companion on the path of life, who always walked as my companion. A relationship that never needed to be named.

Amrita Pritam is the first poet of the Punjabi language. She is an Indian novelist, essayist, and poet writing in Hindi and Punjabi languages.

She has written more than 100 books including poems, stories, biographies, essays, collections of Punjabi folk songs, and autobiographies. Which were translated into many Indian and foreign languages.

She expressed the pain of the massacres that took place during the partition of India and Pakistan in the form of the poignant poem Ajj Aankha Waris Shah Nu. For which she is most remembered.

Amrita Pritam rose to fame as a novelist with Pinjar (The Skeleton, 1950). In which she depicted violence against women, loss of humanity, and ultimate surrender to the fate of the living through the character named Puro. Her novel was made into an award-winning film, Pinjar (2003).

Among her great works, he received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1956 for Sunehde, a long poem. She became the first woman to receive it.

She was awarded the Gyan Peeth Award, one of India's highest literary awards, for Kaagaz Te Canvas in 1982.

She was awarded Padma Shri in the year 1996 and Padma Vibhushan in the year 2004.

Let us know the life journey of Punjabi litterateur Amrita Pritam…

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Early Life

Amrita Pritam was born on 31 August 1919 in a Khatri Sikh family in Gujranwala, Punjab, British India. She was the only child of her parents.

Her parents named her Amrita Kaur. Her mother, Raj Bibi, was a school teacher and her father, Kartar Singh Hitkari, a scholar of the Brij language and a poet, was the editor of a literary magazine. Her father was also a preacher of Sikhism.

When Amrita Kaur was 11 years old, her mother died and she was away from her mother's company. After the death of her mother, her father took her and settled in Lahore.

Amrita Kaur, surrounded by loneliness without a mother in her growing age, started writing from a young age.

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Before Independence

In the year 1935, at the age of 16, she got married to editor Pritam Singh, with whom she was engaged in childhood when she was about 4 years old. After marriage, her name changed to Amrita Pritam. Although she was not happy with her marriage, she did not oppose it either.

In the year 1936, her first collection of poems, Amrit Lehran, was published. Half a dozen of her poetry collections were published between 1936 and 1943. She used to read her poems on the radio, which her husband did not particularly like.

Amrita Pritam started her journey as a romantic poet, but then she changed her steering and became a part of the progressive writers movement.

After the Bengal famine of 1943, she expressed his openly critical sentiments about the war-torn economy through his collection People's Anguish, 1944.

Before the partition of India, he also worked at a radio station in Lahore.

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Partition of India

Nearly one million people were killed in the communal violence that followed the 1947 partition of India. Amrita Pritam, 28, became a Punjabi refugee. She left Lahore and settled in Delhi.

In 1947, when she was pregnant, she expressed her heartache in the form of a poem on a paper while she was traveling from Dehradun to Delhi.

Amrita Pritam's poignant poem Ajj Aakhan Waris Shah Nu reveals the horrors of Partition, for which she is still remembered. She addresses this poem to the Sufi poet Waris Shah, author of the tragic saga of Heer-Ranjha. With whom she shares her birthplace.

However, she remained equally popular in Pakistan compared to her contemporaries like Mohan Singh and Shiv Kumar Batalvi.

Amrita Pritam was also associated with social work. Social activist Guru Radha Kishan took the initiative to bring the first Janata Library to Delhi.

Which was inaugurated by Balraj Sahni, Aruna Asaf Ali, and Amrita Pritam also contributed on this occasion. Which is still running in the Clock Tower of Delhi.

Amrita Pritam has two children with her husband Pritam Singh, daughter Kandla and son Navraj.

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After the Partition of India

After moving from Lahore to Delhi after the partition of India, she worked as an announcer in All India Radio.

An unwavering love for poet Sahir Ludhianvi awakened in her heart. Later, she had to walk alone on that path of love, when singer Sudha Malhotra came into the life of poet Sahir Ludhianvi.

Her passion for Sahir Ludhianvi can be gauged from what she wrote in her diary decades later in 1986, “Aaj Mera Khuda Mar Gaya”. She wrote this on the day of Sahir Ludhianvi's death.

This is such a love story, which seems difficult to understand. Her first meeting with Sahir Ludhianvi was at a Mushaira, a few years after their marriage.

She has written openly about his love for Sahir Ludhianvi in his autobiography Raseedi Ticket.

Due to the love for poet Sahir Ludhianvi in her heart, she divorced her husband in the year 1960. After the divorce, her work became increasingly feminist. Many of his stories and poems are based on her tragic experience of marriage.

To ease her bitterness during her husband's last days, she would visit him twice a day and spend a few hours with him.

Amrita Pritam worked in the Punjabi service of All India Radio, Delhi till the year 1961.

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Her meeting and closeness with Imroz

Imroz, whose birth name was Inderjit Singh, was born on 26 January 1927 in undivided Punjab. And it was on All India Radio that he met Amrita Pritam. Imroz was a famous artist and poet.

Gradually, Imroz took the place of companion and love in Amrita Pritam's life. Both of them started living together, which was a revolutionary decision at that time. Both of them lived together in their house in Hauz Khas.

Imroz and Amrita Pritam remained together for more than 4 decades till the last days of Amrita Pritam.

Amrita Pritam, along with Imroz, edited Nagmani, a monthly magazine in Punjabi, for 33 years. In which Imroz worked as a painter and designer. However, after the partition, she also wrote a lot in Hindi.

Imroz designed the covers of almost all of Amrita Pritam's books and illustrated many of her paintings.

She was greatly influenced by Osho and wrote introductions to several of Osho's books, including Ek Naam Ek Omkar Sanatan.

Now she also started writing on spiritual subjects and dreams. In which books like Kaal Chetna and Invitation of Unknown are included.

Many of her works have been translated from Punjabi and Urdu into English, French, Danish, Japanese, Mandarin, and other languages. Which also includes her autobiographical works Kala Gulab and Rasidi Ticket.

Amrita Pritam also published autobiographies titled Kala Gulab (1968), Rasidi Ticket (1976), and Aksharon Ke Saye.

Amrita Pritam's first book Dharti Sagar Te Sippiyan was filmed as Kadambari (1975). She was followed by the film Daku (1976), directed by Basu Bhattacharya, based on his book Una Di Kahani.

Her novel Pinjar reveals the story of the partition riots as well as the plight of women during that time. In which he has shown the suffering of the people of both countries.

Amrita Pritam's novel Pinjar (1950) came to the screen as the film Pinjar directed by Chandra Prakash Dwivedi. Which became an award-winning film. Which was shot in the border areas of Rajasthan and Punjab.

She also served as a member of the Rajya Sabha from 1986–92.

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Awards and Honors

  • Amrita Pritam was the first person to receive the Punjab Ratna Award, conferred by Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh.
  • She was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award for Sunehade (poetry collection) in the year 1956. She was the first woman to receive it.
  • She was awarded India's highest literary award, Bharatiya Jnanpith, in 1982 for her collection of poems Kaagaz Te Canvas.
  • Amrita Pritam was awarded the Padma Shri, India's fourth-highest civilian award, in 1969, and the Padma Vibhushan, India's second-highest civilian award, in 2004.
  • In the year 2004, she received India's highest literary award, the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship.
  • Amrita Pritam was awarded the standard degree of Doctor of Literature by many universities including Delhi University in 1973, Jabalpur University in 1973, and Visva Bharati in 1987.
  • She was awarded the International Vaptsarov Prize by the Republic of Bulgaria in the year 1979.
  • She was awarded the degree of Officier dans, Order des Arts et des Lettres by the Government of France in 1987
  • In the last days of her life, she was honored by the Punjabi Academy of Pakistan. On she said something like this, after a long time my parents remembered me.
  • Punjabi poets of Pakistan also sent her a chadar from the graves of Waris Shah and fellow Sufi poets Bulleh Shah and Sultan Bahu.
  • In the year 2007, an audio album named “Amrita Recited by Gulzar” was released by the famous lyricist Gulzar, in which poems written by Amrita Pritam were narrated by Gulzar Sahab.
  • On 31 August 2019, Google honored him by celebrating her 100th birth anniversary with a doodle.

In her important works

Novel: Pinjar; Doctor Dev; Blank paper, forty-nine days; Earth, Sea and Shells; colored leaf; Streets of Delhi; thirteenth sun; Traveller; district resident; Hardutt's biography

Autobiographies: Black Rose (1968); Receipt Ticket (1976); Shadow of Words (2004)

Short Stories: Stories That Are Not Stories; In the courtyard of stories; the smell of kerosene

Poetry collection: Amrit Lehran (1936); Jiunda Jeevan (1939); Trail Dhote Phool  (1942); O Geetan Walia (1942); Badlam De Laali (1943); Saanjh De Laali (1943); Lok Peer (1944); Patthar Geete (1946); Punjab Di Awaaz (1952); Sunehde (1955); Ashok Cheti (1957); Kasturi (1957); Nagamani (1964); Ek Si Anita (1964); Chak Number Chatti (1964); Uninja Din (1979); Paper to Canvas (1981); Selected Poems; Ek Baaten


Death

Due to prolonged illness, she died in her sleep on 31 October 2005 at the age of 86. Her most touching poem, which she wrote for Imroz in her last moments, was “Main Tainu Phir Milangi”.

Her last rites were performed as per her wish, in which no condolence meeting was called. Her children and companion Imroz took her on the funeral procession.

Amrita Pritam has two children, daughter Kandla, son Navraj Kwatra, daughter-in-law Alka, and grandchildren Kartik, Noor, Aman, and Shilpi.

After the death of Amrita Pritam, Imroz started writing poems. And shared her unwavering love for Amrita through poems.

In 2012, her son Navraj Kwatra was murdered in his Borivali apartment.

Amrita Pritam's partner Imroz died on 22 December 2023 at the age of 97. In her last days, she lived in Mumbai with Amrita Pritam's daughter-in-law Alka Kwatra.

Imroz once said that when you love someone and you are confident about your love, you do not count the obstacles that come in the way.

Writer Uma Trilok has written the book “Amrita – Imroz: A Love Story” based on Amrita Pritam and Imroz, which was published by Penguin in 2006.


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