|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Meri Saunh THIS book contains profiles of 36 eminent Punjabis, who attained heights in their field of activity, including litterateurs, artists, aesthetes, connoisseurs and politicians. The author Gulzar Singh Sandhu, a Sahit Academy awardee, has had the privilege to work with high dignitaries like M.S. Randhawa and Prem Bhatia. With others, like Amrita Pritam, Balwant Gargi, Kulwant Singh Virk, Batalvi and Mishra et al, he had frequent interactions during literary meets, poetical symposiums, etc.
Of the politicians mentioned in the book, Sandhu mentions Giani Zail Singh as a great admirer of Punjabi writers. Having earlier run a Punjabi Daily Khalsa Sewak, Zail Singh had a soft corner for journalists. He knew how to win over Punjabis. In all his mechanisations, he never lost sight of the political angle. He clelbrated the Guru Gobind Singh Marg and led a huge public procession on the Marg that started from Anandpur Sahib. So over whelming was the public response that it seemed as if the whole of Punjab was on the Marg, in reverence to the Guru. Politically, the Giani had taken the wind out of the sails of the Akalis, the then main opposition party in Punjab. A trait, which kept him above other politicians, was that he richly paid back those persons who stood by him through thick and thin. He would call on an ailing writer/journalist and would leave some money by his bedside. The other important politician mentioned in the book is Partap Singh Kairon. Punjab’s development was a passionwith him. Punjab Agriculture University, the Chandigarh project and Faridabad are his creations. He was adventurous, determined and committed to develop Punjab, and he did against all odds. Using Punjabi lore and idioms with ease, Sandhu has the knack for veiling the unpalatable meanings in soft and silky words. "Khushwant nun lutfi gallan te lufte likhtan da shauk hai"(Khushwant is fond of juicy talk and writing). He has briefly touched various angles of Singh’s personality. The writer has an interesting style of presentation. The introduction with Balwant Gargi is a classic example: "My acquaintance with Gargi was two-three hundred years old, before his and my birth." Referring to Gargi’s short story Kakka Data, Sandhu feels that his own forefathers in his village and Gargi’s elders in their own village had the same type of brittle and dustless sand. On the whole, all the character sketches are interesting, distinctive, engaging and educative. The writer has brought the Punjab history alive since the Partition days through the character sketches. Their public positions, contributions, writings and works well amplify Punjab’s social and political conditions of that period.
|
||
|
|
||
Being
a noted writer himself and fond of meeting persons of substance, in
addition to his long stay in Delhi at a young age, enabled the author
to be in the important circle of writers. The character sketches drawn
by him in the book are as such from a very close range of personal
perception and experience. Sandhu describes Prem Bhatia as a hard
working, prescient, audacious and highly refined person. "I do
not know, how long the Indian journalism would have to wait for a
Bhatia to appear again," writes the author while paying tribute
to the senior journalist.