Memory keepers: How Punjab remembers its writers

Sarika Sharma

Eh jo rangan ch chitre ne khur jaange

Eh jo marmar ch ukre ne mit jaange

Balde hathaan ne jehre hawa vich likhe

Haraf ohi hameshaan likhe rehange

(These painted in colours shall deface

These engraved in marbles shall efface

Those in air, hands-ablaze craft

Words such, till eternity shall last)

(From ‘Poems by Surjit Patar’, translated by Gurshminder Jagpal)

Passing by a Ludhiana court in the twilight hour, poet Surjit Patar had imagined paintings fading away with time, sculptures eroding, only words hanging in the air, lasting till eternity… Decades prior to his passing, in his now revered poem ‘Kuj keha taan’, he had exalted the might of the written word.

On June 9, thousands of farm and industrial workers, along with litterateurs and intellectuals, will gather at Barnala’s grain market in memory of the late poet. Days away from the paddy-sowing season, these men and women will brave the heat to pay homage to one of their own. He was as much theirs as that of literature lovers who have discussed him in universities and literary establishments over the last two weeks. In their hearts will resonate his poems that spoke of their struggles: ‘Jaga do mombattiyaan’, which talks of sustaining the struggle in dark times; ‘Ki hoya je aayi patjhad’, which lights the hope for a new season, a new crop, a new opportunity… That is how Punjab will celebrate him, that is how Punjab celebrates its men of letters. In their memory, physical spaces are being preserved, online archives are being run and maintained; commemorations, big and small, are held as far and wide as Punjabis are spread.

Cut to the summer of 2019. Novelist Jaswant Singh Kanwal, the venerable luminary of Punjabi prose, was turning 100. To celebrate his eight-decade career in writing — marked by words of resistance — writers, scholars and activists from across the state converged upon Dhudike village in Moga. A five-day Puranmashi Punjabi Jorr Mela, which takes its name from Kanwal’s classic novel, was organised to celebrate his writing by a committee of villagers and literature aficionados headed by Kanwal’s grandson Sumail Sidhu, a historian. After his death a year later, the mela (now held for three to four days) has continued as a testament to Kanwal’s indelible legacy, a homage to the resilience of the human spirit immortalised in his stories. Besides, two other events are now part of the calendar every year; one, a memorial lecture and the other, a storytelling platform, Puranmashi Katha.

Dhudike, the village of Jaswant Singh Kanwal (as also Lala Lajpat Rai), is the centre of all activities as Kanwal’s novels often unfolded in its setting. Activities aren’t focused solely on Kanwal, but other writers as well. For instance, it celebrated the writings of Shiv Batalvi and Balraj Sahni last year. Sahni was a self-proclaimed fan of Kanwal’s writing and spent months at his house when he was writing his travelogues on Russia and Pakistan in Punjabi. “Before getting down to writing his own books, Sahni had wanted to read someone who wrote in ‘theth’ (pure) Punjabi, and landed at the doorsteps of Kanwal,” says Sidhu.

If Kanwal is credited with making the countryside an active ecosystem and inventing an appropriate rural diction for creating it, Sahni’s love for the Punjabi stage was well known. In his book, ‘Balraj, My Brother’, Bhisham Sahni writes how Balraj would sometimes go all the way from Bombay to Amritsar to take part in Gursharan Singh’s plays. “He would sometimes tour with the drama group in the interiors of Punjab… hardly a week before his death, he had been absorbed in the production of one of Balwant Gargi’s plays in Bombay.” So intimate was the association with Punjabi theatre that when he was awarded the Shiromani Sahitkar Award (1971) worth Rs 5,100, he gave it to thespian Gursharan Singh to promote literary activities. This money was used to start Balraj Sahni Yadgari Parkashan and the first publication was poet Pash’s ‘Loh Katha’; at the time, Pash was in jail.

Following Gursharan Singh’s death, his daughters have made attempts to memorialise his life and work through various initiatives. While an online archive preserves his books, plays and photographs, a museum was opened in 2017 at his Chandigarh house where Gursharan Singh spent the last 25 years of his life. An ode to Punjab’s revolutionary culture, the museum was, for several years, home to a permanent photo exhibition, 200 of his published and unpublished scripts of long and short plays, documentaries on his work, copies of Punjabi magazines Sardal and Samta that he edited, books he published, photos, letters, TV plays, writings of scholars on his theatre and some recordings of the drama performances. While the Chandigarh house has now been sold, the family is renovating its Amritsar house, Guru Khalsa Niwas, to set up a museum, along with an auditorium and a seminar hall.

Gursharan Singh was one writer who was as much celebrated during his lifetime as he is today. While his proteges Shabdeesh and wife Anita started the Gursharan Singh Naat Utsav in Chandigarh seven years before his death in 2011, the biggest celebration of his genius was held in 2006, when he was honoured for his contribution to the literary and cultural landscape of Punjab. More than 20,000 people gathered at Kussa village in Moga district on January 11 that year. “There was a 5-km-long cavalcade with Bhaaji standing in an open jeep. The speakers included writers Ajmer Aulakh, Atamjit, Santokh Singh Dhir. Slogans of ‘Gursharan Bhaaji Jug Jug Jive’ (Long live Gursharan Bhaaji) rent the air,” recalls Amolak Singh of Punjab Lok Cultural Forum (Pulse Manch).

Melas, an amalgam of literary events and cultural performances to commemorate writers, are a regular feature across Punjab. The longest running among these is Prof Mohan Singh Mela held in Ludhiana in the memory of poet Prof Mohan Singh. Started by Congress politician Jagdev Singh Jassowal, this mela has had 45 editions so far. Melas are also held in the memory of Jnanpith awardee Gurdial Singh, Aulakh and Pash, among others.

In their own way to pay homage to Norah Richards, the grand old dame of Punjabi theatre, students from Punjabi University would perform plays at Andretta in Palampur. This stopped post-Covid, but last year, a bust of Richards was installed there; she had donated her house to the varsity during her lifetime. Punjabi University also maintains the Dr Balbir Singh Sahit Kendra, a research centre established at Dehradun in 1974 in honour of the Sikh scholar. To celebrate the late Santokh Singh Dhir, last year, the Mohali Municipal Corporation renamed Silvi Park in Phase X after him. The writer had spent 40 years of his life in Mohali.

An addition to these memorials is a complex dedicated to Pash and his comrade Hans Raj at Talwandi Salem in Nakodar where they were killed by terrorists on March 23, 1988. Thirty-six years later, it stands as a testament to Punjab’s most enduring and frequently cited symbol of resistance, a lasting homage to Pash’s legacy.

Dhir’s grandson Ramanjit Sidhu, however, sounds a note of caution and concern. He says symbolic gestures are welcome, but are not enough. “None of his books has been re-printed since his death. In the end, only the stories that are part of the syllabus in schools will be remembered,” he says. There is no award worth mentioning for Punjabi writers or artists, he adds.

Writer Amarjit Chandan says that while Patar was much cared for in his lifetime by his fans and by the state, Punjabis do not care about the living, but worship the dead as heroes. “Our folk wisdom tells us that Punjabi marhi-pooj qaum hai — Punjabis are a grave-worshipping people. We ought to learn from the West on how they commemorate their great women and men. They name the streets after them, put plaques on their houses, name institutions in their honour.” He says that in Punjab, the governments propose grand plans commemorating deceased writers and artists. “Family memorial trusts, libraries and awards are announced, and sometimes executed, but forgotten soon afterwards. It’s a crying shame that there is no memorial to our great icons like Bhai Ram Singh, Puran Singh, Amrita Sher-Gil, Gurbaksh Singh, Nanak Singh, Dhani Ram Chatrik, Feroze Din Sharaf, Ahmad Rahi, Babu Rajab Ali, Saadat Hasan Manto, Amrita Pritam, Surinder Kaur, Devinder Satyarthi, Salamat Ali Khan, Harbhajan Singh, Bawa Balwant, among others.”

Following writer Ram Sarup Ankhi’s death in 2010, Barnala’s most famous street, Katcha College Road, was dedicated to him by a local administrative official and a milestone was duly installed. The street name, sadly, never came into use and the milestone was later removed. Several years prior to that, Patiala-based scholar Prof Pritam Singh collected original manuscripts of the seminal works of Punjabi writers with the dream of establishing a museum in their memory. Ankhi had also given him 12 small notebooks containing the manuscript of his Sahitya Akademi Award-winning novel ‘Kothe Kharak Singh’. “Let’s see if such a museum comes up in Prof Pritam Singh’s lifetime,” Ankhi wondered in his memoir.

Sixteen years back, Prof Pritam Singh passed away. Seeing no hope from successive governments, Ankhi’s family has now started converting a part of the house into a museum dedicated to the writer; the manuscripts well-preserved, his desk in place, his slippers awaiting someone to step into them. Until that day, remembrances are welcome.