Words & colours of love
Geetu Vaid

Amrita and Imroz — In The Times Of Love And Longing
Translated by Arvinder.
Full Circle.
Pages 192. Rs 295.

A lot has been written about love and its different shades. Love — that ethereal feeling which, though can’t be fully expressed either in words or in colours, is invariably bound in these two in its pristine expression.

Love — that in its purest form, can overcome all hurdles and take a mortal being close to the heights of divinity.

Love — the most revered as well as the most exploited feeling in today’s materialistic world.

In the midst of a cacophony of phony proclamations, there comes a rare glimpse of true feelings like a soothing breeze spreading like a balm on the minds and bodies lying mutilated in the wasteland of broken hearts.

The relationship of noted Punjabi writer Amrita Pritam and her painter beau Imroz is one such salve, which restores one’s belief in love. The story of this sensitive writer and poetess and her companion has been told numerous times by writers as if in a bid to keep our faith alive in selfless love and soulmates in the present times.

In The Times of Love and Longing gives an intimate glimpse of the different stages of their relationship through letters exchanged between them.

Through these letters one can tread on the terrain of a sensitive and intense relationship, and see what made their bond so special and so strong that their love continues to blossom even today. As Imroz says, "How can Amrita be dead, when I am alive? We shared and continue to share many beautiful moments. Amrita is still alive in my being".

Amrita, who was seven years older to Imroz, was a mother of two when she met him. Their professional interaction turned into love, and the two withstood all opposition to remain with each other for more than 45 years.

Arvinder, the translator, a Punjabi poet herself, has done a good job of bringing the sensitivity of sentiments from one language to another. She has successfully overcome the hurdles of bicultural and bilingual tone that make the task of a translator an onerous one. The translation appears to be true to the original and has, in fact, added to the original flavour.

The 122 letters translated in the book reveal the passion, craving, loneliness and the bliss of togetherness that Amrita and Imroz shared and felt over the years. While Amrita becomes Aashi, Ami, Amrita, Maja, Barkate and Zorbi for Imroz, Ima, Imma, Imva and Jeeti are some of the endearments that Amrita used for Imroz.

In the beginning, the conflicts of their circumstances and the uncertainty that envelops after giving in to the first flush of this feeling are reflected in some letters. Her touching expression of the realisation of the differences in their age comes in these words: "You met me now, now, when my life has reached its evening. This journey is about to come to an end. If destiny willed our coming together, then perhaps we should have met when life exuded the warmth of youth`85"

And his reply, "You call yourself an evening. Do you know what a beautiful evening you are? Come, let us celebrate and live this evening with all our heart and soul and body and with all our creative talent`85" and "If you are a beautiful evening, then I shall live this evening with all my strength, my vitality and with the intense warmth of my noon."

She knew that although she was his conscious choice, her age and compulsions and her worldly bonds were his conflict. There are glimpses of turbulent times when Amrita was annoyed with Imroz from November, 1960, to December, 1963, and when she wrote "I give you ten years" to enable him to cleanse his passion of its youthful craving, which Imroz called a curse. And then the realisation and surrender to the depth of her feelings reflected in, "if I get to live with you, one lifetime will not be enough".

Some of the letters express loneliness of Imroz in Bombay, from where he wrote: "People like you and me remain homeless even while living in these houses, these cities and these countries. The land where we can live happily still lies in our thoughts, in our creations, in our existence. This search is the symbol of our homelessness."

And there are others where Punjabi’s legendary poetess shares her experiences in foreign lands with her soulmate sitting thousands of miles away, and actually travels the world enveloped in his warm presence, making one wonder were they ever apart? The books she read, the people he met, the day-to-day details, his paintings, her words everything was shared completely, and this, maybe, was the strength of their bond. Imroz, she wrote, was not perfect for her as she found the word perfect stale and cold, he was "progress" — always in the quest for something new. His love and companionship gave strength and vigour to her creativity.

"To love somebody is not just a strong feeling, it is also a decision, a judgment`85", writes Imroz in one of the letters, and no doubt loving Amrita was a decision that he stood by long after the physical departure of his beloved.

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