Amrita Pritam

Amrita Pritam (31 August 1919 – 31 October 2005) was an Indian writer who produced novels, essays, and poetry in both Punjabi and Hindi. A key figure in Punjabi letters, she won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1956. Over her career, she published more than a hundred books, including poetry, fiction, biographies, essays, a collection of Punjabi folk songs, and an autobiography. Her works have been translated into many Indian and foreign languages.

She is most famous for her poem *Ajj aakhaan Waris Shah nu* (Today I invoke Waris Shah), a lament addressed to the 18th-century Punjabi poet that voiced her grief over the massacres during the partition of British India. Her best-known novel is *Pinjar* (The Skeleton, 1950), which features the character Puro, a symbol of violence against women, lost humanity, and surrender to fate. The novel was adapted into an award-winning Hindi film in 2003.

When British India was divided into India and Pakistan in 1947, Pritam moved from Lahore to India, though she remained popular in Pakistan throughout her life.

Her major work, the long poem *Sunehade*, earned her the 1956 Sahitya Akademi Award, making her the first and only woman to win that award for a Punjabi work. She received the Jnanpith Award in 1982 for *Kagaz Te Canvas* (The Paper and the Canvas). She was awarded the Padma Shri in 1969 and the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second-highest civilian honor, in 2004. That same year, she received the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, India’s highest literary award, given to the “immortals of literature” for lifetime achievement.

Born Amrit Kaur in 1919 in Gujranwala, Punjab, in British India, she was the only child of Raj Bibi, a school teacher, and Kartar Singh Hitkari, a poet, scholar of Braj Bhasha, and editor of a literary journal who also preached the Sikh faith. Her mother died when she was eleven. She then moved with her father to Lahore, where she lived until 1947. Facing adult responsibilities and loneliness after her mother’s death, she began writing early. Her first poetry collection, *Amrit Lehran* (Immortal Waves), appeared in 1936, when she was sixteen. That same year, she married Pritam Singh, an editor she had been engaged to since childhood, and changed her name to Amrita Pritam. Between 1936 and 1943, she published half a dozen more poetry collections.

She started as a romantic poet but soon shifted direction, joining the Progressive Writers’ Movement. This shift is evident in her collection *Lok Peed* (People’s Anguish, 1944), which criticized the war-torn economy following the Bengal famine of 1943. She also did social work, contributing to the opening of the first Janta Library in Delhi, inaugurated by Balraj Sahni and Aruna Asaf Ali. Before partition, she worked at a radio station in Lahore. Director M. S. Sathyu paid theatrical tribute to her with his performance *Ek Thee Amrita*.

The partition of India in 1947 brought communal violence that killed about a million people. At age 28, Pritam became a Punjabi refugee, leaving Lahore for New Delhi. While pregnant with her son and traveling from Dehradun to Delhi, she wrote the poem *Ajj Aakhaan Waris Shah Nu*, which later became a lasting reminder of Partition’s horrors. She worked in the Punjabi service of All India Radio, Delhi, until 1961. After her divorce in 1960, her writing became more feminist, often drawing on her unhappy marriage. Many of her works have been translated from Punjabi and Urdu into English, French, Danish, Japanese, and Mandarin, including her autobiographies *Black Rose* and *Rasidi Ticket* (Revenue Stamp).

Her first book adapted into film was *Dharti Sagar te Sippiyan*, as *Kadambari* (1975), followed by *Unah Di Kahani*, as *Daaku* (1976), directed by Basu Bhattacharya. Her novel *Pinjar* (1950), about partition riots and the suffering of women, was made into an award-winning Hindi film by Chandra Prakash Dwivedi, shot in border regions of Rajasthan and Punjab. For 33 years, she edited the monthly Punjabi literary magazine *Nagmani* with Imroz. After partition, she also wrote prolifically in Hindi. Later in life, she turned to Osho, writing introductions for his books, and explored spiritual themes and dreams in works like *Kaal Chetna* and *Agvat Ka Nimantran*. She published two autobiographies: *Kala Gulab* (1968) and *Rasidi Ticket* (The Revenue Stamp).