Basement

Re: # 8
Well, methinks Saminasha and the gang of women`s liberators feel it was too disgraceful for the protagonist of the poem/story to be waiting for a man, and be at his mercy. They will refuse to see any beauty in a poem like this.

dost-mittar:72

Well I accessed his (K-Ds) homepage got his phone # . Will have someone call & visit him.

Enjoyed your aptly-quoted shair.

thanks.

chusni:
The one regarding unhealed wounds that readily comes to mind is chacha Ghalib`s famous verse:
koyee mere dil se pooche tere-e-neem kash ko
Voh khalish kahan se hoti jo jigar ke paar hota
...my note to freethinker re. Shiv Batalvi should have also been addressed to you. I have an old audio tape of Kuldip Deepak`s songs. Somehow, he did not get the fame that I think that he deserved. Another obscure Toronto singer I also like a lot is a woman singer by the name Raj Ghumman. Neither of them sing in a style which is so popular these days, with dhole and western instruments.

Godot,

I am a little disappointed at such cycles of life. I mean it`s fine we all have certain number of days on this planet. And, we all have to leave at certain point and time. Some will leave early whereas others will follow later. Despite that it`s very important that you communicate what is inside of you to the ones who need to hear that. It just irritates me to even think of the fact that my late friend may not have communicated her true feelings to the right person. That`s very depressing to even think of. I feel terrible, horrible and miserable :( (tears...)

You are talking about translating the topic of remarriage. Honestly speaking, I have yet to appreciate anything in the concept of marriage. The more I look around and delve into certain nuances, the more fiascos I discover than any peace of mind promised to the naive idiots. So, I guess I may not be the right person to appreciate the said subject you have in mind. I will appreciate another topic that deals with the facts of life excluding the one above.

Oh, how I wished that nature had clear cut answers to all the questions. I mean there can be 100s of if-then-else cases. Ironically, you cannot address them always in an appropriate manner all the time. Being a thinking and alert adult ain`t aways a smooth ride!

...

Zahra, 66

Yes, Zahra, many of us have these deep-dark basments where we keep our stories, never to let them out, no history books to recount them, except for some lucky souls who have the art and skill of a fiction writer and can let it out via that channel. I only wish I was also blessed with that art.

Yours was a very touching story. Watch out for my future translations at Chowk. I’ve marked a story on re-marriage for a translation for Chowk sometimes in the future. It’s a classic. I think you’ll like it.

Thanks sameer, but I am specifically looking for the one by kuldip deepak. You`ll agree that Hans rendition has vulgarised and corrupted the very lyricism of shiv`s poetry.


sahib-e saaz pay laazim hai kay ghafil naa rahay
uksar uksar ghalat ahung bhee hota hai saroosh.

appreciate your help.

dost-mittar: any input?

dost ghumkhwari main meri, saai farmaen gey kyaa
zukhm kay bhrnay tluk, naakhun naa burrh aengey kyaa?

dost-mittar #64
Thanks, I will watch out for Hawaayen. The Khushwant Singh articles you posted on a previous thread were good particularly the `nakh` analogy. Hope to read someone somewhere writing about pre-1984 Hindu-Sikh estrangement from the personal/human angle.

chusni:

Here is the link for Hansraj Hans album ``ghama di raat`` containing 8 poems of Shiv Kumar Batalvi. You may write down the lyrics yourself by listening to ``aj din chaRia teray rang verga`` couple of times.

http://www.musicindiaonline.com/music/l/0309001206

dost-mittar:

Rajinder Singh Bed wrote in Urdu and Ik Chadar Meli Si is also in Urdu. Really there is no point discussing atrocities during the 80s, roles played by various parties and the rest on this thread. I agree with you as I also wrote same to sadna that ranking is based on a combination of factors in which literary contribution is just one.

In a poor third world society like subcontinent, if the literary contribution of a person does not bring out the stories, concerns and plight of the majority - poor, left outs, down trodden, rural - and instead producing stories of kings/ queens, wars, religions, princes, princesses, theoretical romances (ghazals), then the respect and ranking is specific only to serving the language and nothing more. The Progressive writers Union and leftists including Amrita Pritam never accepted literature for serving language only. This also required decrease the use of allegories, metaphors and imaginary piercing of various internal body organs by the arrows thrown from the eyes of the beloved and the blood oozing out from eyes etc etc. In Panjabi also, the poets trying to copy the classical Urdu style, like Munir Niazi went nowhere. The ethnic literature does not like too much indirect and too abstract talk. The depth of the abstract thought is not proportional to the standard of the poetry. One of the reason for the popularity of Amrita Pritam`s aj akhaN waris shah nuN is precisely the avoiding of deep philospophical and abstract thoughts so that it is understandable to any common reader. Of course the emotionalism of the topic also played the role. Outside the folk and religious poetry, this poem might be one of the most read poem of panjabi.

Godot,

Without any doubt, there is a lot to uncover in this mystery that was buried in a ``Tehkhana.`` And, I am not sure if everyone would even feel comfortable to visit their respective tehkhanas. Your story has provoked me to jot down a real life story that just went by like a film right in front of my eyes. I have seen many films being an observer, but this film had something in common with the ``tehkhana`` theme.

So, this friend of mine, a very elegant and decent lady with an equally elegant taste, decided to join me for a mushaira almost 7 - 8 years back . The mushaira was in South Jersey and I were to pick her up and drive up to the mushaira place. On the way, she dropped a few bombs from her personal life. I had to multi-task and focus on the traffic as well as the snippets she was sharing with me.

She decided to revisit the ``tehkhana`` of her life and started talking out loud and clear. In other words, she shared with me a lot of her ``tehkhana`` details. So, during the conversation, she revisited how she met her husband when she was working at xyz place and was introduced to him through family friends.

``I am sure I shared with you that he was previously married to a woman from another culture.`` she briefly mentioned.

I had not known of that. But I got her drift that she wanted to share and not take me by surprise. So, I served as a patient listener.

His previous wife had died. There were no kids in the picture. I must mention that she had all the good things to say about her husband.

Suddenly, she took the next step and in a very profound manner expressed something that may have been inside of her for very long,``I wanted to have kids but my husband did not. I gave that up as well.`` She had younger sisters whom she treated like her kids. A very romantic, passionate and loving woman!

Life is very unpredictable. I could not imagine that she would be swept away by the nature`s cycle so soon. She died of some kind of cancer a few years back and the doctors had no medicine to cure or address her pain. She was hardly in her very early 40s. May God rest her soul in peace!

We were out of touch for over 2 years. I used to hear about her off and on from the common friends. And, one fine evening, I got a call from her. It was a 2 hour call. And, I had to have strong nerves to listen to someone who knew that she may not survive. Still, she had the faith and belief and an upbeat outlook. She shared the ins and outs of her illness and everything it did to her life. That was a very brave last step since she was in hiding for a a few years and felt awkward to express what she went through.

Personally, I feel that despite she had everything and lived a fairly decent life, she wanted to have kids. And, deep down inside, she was not who she ended up being and that`s what kept on accruing in her system in form of that unknown cancer.

Just recently, as I got together with a few old friends, I got to hear that her husband had just remarried. This time he went to Pakistan to find himself a new bride. I hope the new one lives a long life.

...

freethinker:
correction: the shiv`s song I referred to is ``aj din chadhya tere RANG varga``.

freethinker:
Sahir was definitely ``aashiqaana mizaaj`` and there were numerous affairs attributed to him but the most persistent rumours, I believe, linked him to singer Sudha Malhotra. Interestingly, he was rumoured to have even an ``aashna``, Prakash Pandit, who is said to have composed some of the hindi songs credited to Sahir, such as ``shivji bihaane chale palaki sajaaye ke, bhabhuti lagaye ke` from the film Munimji.
...and Kuldip Deepak is also my favourite singer for Shiv Batalvi`s songs. In fact, I was introduced to Shiv by Kuldip Deepak; he used to sing occasionally on perhaps the first North American south asian programme, Sounds of Asia, from Toronto during the 70s. If you get a chance, listen to his rendering of Shiv`s song :``aj din chadhya tere chan varga``.

sadna, sameerjb:
There has been a recent film on the anti-sikh riots and the panjab situation in general. This film, Hawaayen, has been made in Hindi by some sikhs because they feel that Indians outside Panjab are not quite familiar with what happened during 1984. I haven`t seen the film but it has been described to me as a mostly sincere attempt, using quite a bit of actual footage of the period from the newsreel. It is a fairly sympathetic portrayal of the atrocities against the sikhs. But, perhaps to appeal to the non-sikh sentiments, it blames the trouble on Pakistan wanting to cause a split between the sikhs and the hindus.
My problem with such portrayals, and this applies as well to Machis, is that they seem to convey that there was no problem in Panjab prior to Mrs. Gandhi`s ill-conceived attack on the Golden Temple. It may be true that Bhindrawale was the creation of Indira Gandhi, but by 1984 the Frankenstein created by the inept handling of the Panjab situation by Indira and her chamchas like Giani Zail Singh had assumed such menacing proportion that the hukmnamas from the Akal Takht in Amritsar carried more weight in Panjab than the writs issued from Chandigarh and Delhi.

Re. the fame given to Panjabi writers, Amrita Pritam and Rajinder Bedi (did he write in Panjabi?) were stalwarts in other areas besides writing. Rajinder Singh Bedi -perhaps the only chain-smoking sikh- had his stories made into films like Garam Coat and Ik Chaadar Maili Si. If I remember correctly, he was also a bureaucrat but I could be mixing him with someone else. Amrita Pritam was a popular broadcaster and also had some of her stories turned into TV serials. That said, it goes without saying that any sikh writer supporting Khalistan is likely to be more popular in the Sikh Diaspora than in India.

Sadna, 50

Finally...a rational and objective opinion! Thank you so much Sadna. While pointing out the flaws (yes, I see that grammatical errors are “jarring”...I do need to become a better editor...but I disagree with you on the “formatting”...this is how the “original” was formatted and its unique style is what attracted me), you give credit where credit is due (no doubt it “vibes”...the wilted flower of promise on a quivering palm that time had wrinkled and corrugated...resonates deeply).

Plats8, 52

Thank you for your vote...

When I translate for Chowk, I just read a few stories from my collection, see which one appeals to me, and go for it. I don’t bother to “Google” and do a research to see if anyone else has attempted it and then try to improve on that. Before I submit a translation to Chowk, I know nothing if this story is popular or not or if someone has already attempted it. I like it this way better...I don’t get prejudiced about translation one way or the other. I translate as a hobby and am not competing with anyone. Each translator has his/her own way of viewing and approaching a story or a subject. That’s why there are so many different versions of the same fiction or non-fiction out there. The fact that one version appeals to a reader more than the other is not a commentary on the version itself...it’s a commentary on the reader.

And yes, indeed, why only the “competent” one should be made available to share. I think ALL different versions, competent or not, should be made avaiable to share on a translation board...so we can see where the Chowk translator stands as compared to others.

Zahra, 54

Yes, Zahra, I agree with you totally. There is a lot to contemplate on this piece, and this board could have gone in a completely different direction with a profound discussion. Justice to Amrita and her story was thwarted right away. As you also immediately saw, the very first hurried post set the tone for the brawl, soon joined by a couple of her cohorts. And that interactor still won’t give up. Tells you something...doesn’t it?

As you can tell, my writings and translations are for a particular mind-set and will appeal only to a few. They are not for everyone and not everyone will understand them. And they certainly are not for those who tried their very best to corrupt this board.

Samina,

This is 2004.

Happy New year!

So, let the bygones be bygone.

Hope you have a serene and restful 1st weekend of Jan 2004.

Sameer:59

Sameer I had already checked apna.org . If you did manage to get the lyrics and audio, please post the link here.

As a bribe here is one of my many favourites by Noorie. Superb lyrics superb melody--and then she sang it for me.

Enjoy: one and all.

Turn me on please :Vaikhya hovey

Sameer #59
I agree with your point. The leftist bent/social consciousness of this nucleus of writers seeped into Bollywood too and gave us v. memorable poetry/movies.

My (uninformed) impression is that not enough has been written yet in any language about all sides of the Khalistan movement. A movie like `Maachis` was a start but a lot more is needed for better reconciliation.

Regarding Sameerjb #40.

Are you sure Amrita was not a sikh? Not that really it matters so much. But I always thought she was a sikh. I am getting along in years, may be I`m mistaken.

I haven`t read her autobiography ``Raseedi Ticket``, you may have read it. But I have just now finished reading an article by Dr. Afzal Mirza on Sahir Ludhianvi and I quote from it as follows:

``Sahir had another love affair at that time with poet Amrita Preetam. Incidentally she was also a sikh. In her autobiography Raseedi Ticket Amrita Preetam has written elaborately about this affair.``

``Anothe love affair`` and ``also a Sikh`` allude to Sahir`s first love affair in the college. His first girlfriend was a Sikh whose name was Ishar Kaur. Now I do not certify if Preetam indeed was a Kaur or not; she was a Sikh according to Dr. Mirza`s article.

Amrita was born in Gujranwala in 1919. I had read another biography of Sahir written by one of his Hindu friends some five/six years back. May be Kaur and Sikh lingered in my memory from reading of that book.

With regards,

Mohammad Gill