THE SOUL OF THE BUSINESS
A PRIVATE   FAITH MADE DANGEROUSLY PUBLIC 
The Making of a Paper
 By SHOMA CHAUDHURY
 In Gratitude
 By TARUN J TEJPAL

Amrita Pritam

Our association developed gradually. An artist friend, Sethi, was asked to design the cover of Amrita’s book, Aakhri Khat. Sethi told her he knew an artist who could do it better. I was that man. Amrita and I lived quite close to each other — she in West Patel Nagar and I in South Patel Nagar — but we had not met till then. We met in 1957. I used to illustrate the Urdu magazine Shama. Amrita would see my drawings. Once, on January 26, I visited her and also told her it was my birthday. Her gesture marked the beginning of our friendship. She left the room, said something to the servant who brought a cake. I’m a rustic and can’t remember my birthday being celebrated in this way. Our friendship started from there.

Amrita worked as an announcer at the All India Radio those days. She would go by bus. I had a scooter and told her I would drop and pick her up. On the way to work, at Asaf Ali Road, I would often drop her children at the Modern School. In one week I was challanned twice for taking two children with me on the scooter! I said, regular visits to the court will be a problem. Let’s buy a car. She said, I don’t have the money. Neither did I. We pooled Rs 5,000 each and bought a Fiat.

In 1958, I did some work for Guru Dutt for his film Pyasa. He asked me to work with him in Mumbai. I got an appointment letter, resigned from Shama and bought a train ticket to Mumbai. Because Amrita was close to me I showed her the letter. She was happy and sad, and she cried. She told me a story indirectly expressing the feeling that she could not live without me. I understood but did not tell her that. She said, give me your last three days in Delhi, and I did. In May, there were yellow flowers everywhere. We went to the Safdarjung Tomb daily. We would lie on the grass, the flowers falling on us, occasionally touching each other, looking at each other.

I went to Mumbai but had already decided I would not join Guru Dutt. I phoned Amrita to say I was coming back. Then we decided since we were with each other all day why not live together? In 1961, she bought this land in Hauz Khas for Rs 6000 of which Rs 5,000 was the prize money from her Sahitya Akademi award. In 1964, Amrita told her husband that she had been mentally estranged from him for years and wanted a physical separation as well. When he was out of her life I came to stay with Amrita in this very house.

Shrine of Love: Imroz sits in their house, amidst his pictures of Pritam and his paintings

If Sahir Ludhianvi had told Amrita once, come stay with me, she would have gone. He never did

Initially, the children were unhappy with the separation but they accepted us because we did not give them any excuse to do otherwise. We never fought with each other. Amrita told me she could not live without me, but despite our relationship we were individuals and independent. We did not legalise our relationship even after her husband divorced her after 15 years. We had the protection of love and didn’t need the protection of law.

Years later Amrita spoke of an old incident concerning her novel Dr Dev, an imaginative portrait of the kind of man she would want in her life. She had received a phone call from a man who when asked said he was Dr Dev. She had put the phone down. I told her I had been that man!

She was wonderful. So intelligent and so simple — a rare combination. (Shows a photo that shows Amrita giving him food.) I took it in 1957 with a self-timer camera — the first day she fed me roti. Before meeting me she had never made roti, had never been able to show her affection. She had mentally separated from her husband in Lahore even before the Partition. I was not the cause of their separation. In Lahore she once visited a psychic, Dr Latif, who told her she should settle down only when she met a man after her ideas. For the next 40 years, until she fell ill, she cooked for her family. In my absence she would not eat. She did not cook alone. I would be with her in the kitchen. Often she would suddenly think of something she wanted to write. I would make the rotis then. We watered the plants together, did everything together. Though I would watch a film first and tell her the story. If she liked it we would see it. I have seen every film twice! Among the first was Baadban, with Dev Anand and Meena Kumari.

We did not spend each other’s money. She was like this before meeting me and I was like this before meeting her. I left my ancestral property, for I enjoy spending what I earn. The relationship that Amrita and I shared was between individuals. I have never asked her whom she was going to meet, for I am no chowkidar. A man who is a master will treat his woman like that. We were each our masters. Amrita would say that when she was with me she felt freer than when alone.

When Amrita was nominated as a Rajya Sabha member (1986-92), she did not want any helper. So I would drive her to the Parliament and wait for her like a driver. I have read the most in those six years! Amrita wanted me to be with her always. Earlier, embassies would invite her, not knowing about me. I would pack my dinner, drop her and wait for her, listening to songs. When they learnt Amrita had a life partner, they started inviting me. But I had no complexes about my relationship with her and nor did she.

In a dream one night Amrita saw her horoscope filled with just one name — Imroz. I painted the dream. But we didn’t meet each other all the time. I would paint in my room, she would write in her room, mostly at night. We were not possessive about each other.

You ask about Sahir Ludhianvi’s relationship with Amrita. Nobody knew why they were attracted to each other. But love happened. If Sahir had told her once, come stay with me, she would have gone. He never did. They did not meet so often. Once, Sahir came to Delhi and realised Amrita had another love: Imroz. He returned to his hotel and called Amrita at midnight to recite mere saathi khali jaam, my companions, empty goblets.

In 1966, we started the monthly journal Nagmani, and produced it without ads. In 1966 it cost Rs 1 and Rs 10 in 2002 and was delivered through vpp. It had a circulation of about 1,500. Nagmani had committed readers, Amrita Pritam’s readers. We enjoyed editing it. We have always done what we enjoyed.

Uski Roti:The day Pritam gave food to Imroz

You want to know of friends among her contemporaries? Don’t you know contemporaries kabhi dost nahin hote. Enemy nahin to dost bhi nahin hote. (Contemporaries can never be friends.) Most were indifferent to Amrita’s work. But she inspired young writers. She never published a weak work by a well-known writer, she preferred a promising work by a youngster. Merit mattered to her. Among her contemporaries Hindi writer Kamleshwar admired her as did Punjabi writer Dilip Kaur Tiwana. The rest? Plain jealous.

Twenty years ago, writer Krishna Sobti alleged that Amrita had plagiarised her work Zindaginama in her novel Hardatt ka Zindaginama. Sobti’s work was on Punjab’s history, Amrita’s on a freedom fighter’s life. The case is still in the Delhi High Court.

Amrita smoked only when she wrote. Only when an idea was ripe in her mind would she begin writing. She never made any changes. She was a humanist. For Amrita, it was important that people understand each other. A civilised culture was one in which a man did not take the name of a woman against her wishes. There was never any villain in her novels. She thought the Sufis of undivided Punjab mirrored it’s soul. Her work was dominated by protest and anguish that humanity wasn’t considered important in religion.

Pinjar was her first novel to be translated into English by Khushwant Singh. In an article in Outlook he has written as if Amrita told him to do so. Wrong. Khushwant told a writer friend he was sailing to London and wanted to read some novels he could translate. The friend gave him Pinjar. Khushwant got his translation published by Jaico, without showing it to Amrita. He had missed out the most important line of the book. Later Khushwant told Amrita if they became friends, he would get Pinjar published in French as well. Amrita said, English is enough.

Fountainhead by Ayn Rand was the first English novel she read. After Zorba the Greek she read most of Nikos Kazantzakis. She also read Steinbeck, Stefan Zweig and Henry Miller. Then came Osho. One of his books came to me to be designed 20 years ago. I read it, liked it and told Amrita to read it. Osho had also read Amrita and asked her to write the preface of his books. She did so four times. Once at a party she asked a senior Doordarshan official why they did not telecast someone like Osho when they aired every insignificant guru. He said, If you interview him, we will broadcast that. When we contacted Osho’s office, he was unwell and later died.

Though critical of Communist countries, she was invited most by them. When Czechoslovakia was invaded Amrita penned five poems. A humanist first and foremost. In India, she never aligned herself with any party though she was a friend of Indira Gandhi. Some of her poems reflect the anguish she felt over the Sikh killings in 1984. In her later years, Amrita wrote more poems. One of the last after her illness in 2002 was, Main Phir Milagi ( I will meet you again), addressed to me. She was like that with whatever she liked. If she liked a dress she would wear it a lot!

Then her health declined. She heard less and could recognise just us. Sometimes, we gave her a sleeping pill so she could sleep, but she needed constant attention. If I left her in the morning she’d feel bad. But Amrita knew her mind. Before going she readied her clothes and said, don’t bathe me by taking off my clothes, I have bathed enough. She didn’t believe in the temple or the gurudwara. No mourning, she said, so why should we do something she did not like?

As told to Chitra Padmanabhan