Letters of love

The unique bond that Amrita and Imroze shared was the stuff of legend. Arvinder, whose translation into English of the collection of intimate letters exchanged between the lovers is under publication, shares a selection with The Tribune

Amrita Pritam, the renowned Punjabi writer used, to lovingly call her companion Imroze, an artist ‘Imma’ ‘Immva’ ‘Bulle Shah’. And for him she was ‘Maja’, Zorbi’, Barkate’,.... (my abundance), in fact anything that was beautiful and anything that denoted strength. "When I read Zorba, the Greek, I kept calling her Zorbi and Maja was the protagonist of a novel based on the life of a Spanish artist. Much later, I came to know that in Marathi, maja means ‘mine’ perhaps that is why I found this name so warm and loving," says Imroze.

Amrita and Imroze shared a unique relationship. They lived together for more than four decades, transcending bonds of marriage or age.

When Amrita Pritam died, friends and fans were worried about Imroze. But Imroze had something different to say`85 "The fact that I am alive means that Amrita is not dead. My life is full of the beautiful moments that we shared. Now all those moments are transformed into sweet little poems`85" And he shows his recently published collection of poems "Together we enjoyed the flowering of the tree of life and now the tree is becoming a seed again and this seed is my Amrita. I brought a paper and she flowered into so many beautiful words on it."

Amrita and Imroze had met because of professional reasons. Imroze, known as Inderjeet those days, was a struggling artist, working in Delhi for, Urdu dailies Shama and Aaina. He was asked to make an illustration for Amrita’s poem Sunehre.

In her autobiography, The Revenue Stamp, Amrita tells of a dream that had haunted her for 20 years. In this dream she would see the silhouette of a man, with a shawl around his shoulders, brush in hand, he would be painting something on a canvas. Amrita could never see his face. But, strangely enough, after meeting Imroze, the dream that had haunted her all those years never occurred again to her. She had found the love of her life, the man of her dreams.

He devoted his life to Amrita. "We never even exchanged the proverbial ‘I love you’." There was total acceptance of each other.

He amusingly recalls an incident. It is very well known fact that Amrita had intense love for Sahir, the renowned Urdu poet and lyricist. Those days she was working with All India Radio and Imroze would pick her up and drop her on his scooter. "Sitting behind me she would keep making patterns on my back." Initially, I took it as her playfulness but then I started following the trail of her fingers and realised she was writing the name of Sahir on my back," he laughs.

Amrita once admitted to a friend that there should be an Imroze in every woman’s life. In fact she left a touching message for him from her death bed – a poem with which her writing life came to a befitting close:

During their life-long relationship, Amrita and Imroze had exchanged many letters. These letters give us a glimpse of their extraordinary relationship.

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