Reaching for roots by Nonika Singh
The Sunday Tribune, 14 Feb 2010
Roots remind me of root infinite, the source of everything.
THAT’s Amarjit Chandan, the celebrated poet rooted in Punjabi soil—its chaste language and ethos—yet spanning continents, the universe, the timeless zone. Living in the UK, where his poetry is etched in a 40-feet-long sculpture, he seeks and finds refuge in his language. And just as the lines read, “Far, far away on a distant planet there lies a stone unseen unturned, it can only be seen with closed eyes as you see your loved ones,” he, too, can see and feel Punjab with closed eyes.
Read full article: http://www.tribuneindia.com/2010/20100214/spectrum/book8.htm
Punjabi Poet Amarjit Chandan Receives the Anad Kav Sanman 2009
Chandan accepting award from Krishan Khanna (middle). Bhai Baldeep Singh (right).
India Islamic Cultural Centre Auditorium was a venue for an unusual celebration of the spirit of poetry, music and painting – a fusion of the folk, classical, sufi and gurbani traditions of undivided Punjab – to bring together poets, artists and musicians for a rendering of the poetry of Amarjit Chandan – the recipient of the Anad Kav Sanman, 2009 for his seminal contribution to Punjabi Poetry, and for bringing Punjabi Poetry on the International Scene.
The function began with a musical tribute to Baljit Kaur Tulsi by Rupinder Pal Kaur, who sang one of Tulsi’s poems in Raga Peelu.
Professor Namvar Singh, Hindi literary critic and Chancellor, Mahatma Gandhi International Hindi University presided over the Award Ceremony and Krishan Khanna, the Painter, was the Chief Guest of the Second Anad Kav Tarang Festival, organized on the occasion of the conferring of the Award, instituted in the memory of a Punjabi poet, Baljit Kaur Tulsi. The award, offered to eminent poets, includes a cash prize of Rs. 2.25 lacs, a citation, a silver plate and a turban. Anad Kav Sanman is unique in South Asia in the sense that it exclusively celebrates poetic excellence to honor the memory of a woman poet.
Read full article: amarjit chandan press release
Jugni by Jasbir Jassi
Jugni by Madan Gopal Singh
Singer: Jasbir Jassi
Video Gurvinder Singh
Translation by Madan Gopal Singh
Sonata for Four Hands by Amarjit Chandan
Amarjit Chandan’s long-awaited first full-length collection to be published in Britain comes with a preface by the distinguished writer John Berger, long-time admirer of Chandan’s work. Ironic, lyrical, sometimes angry or regretful, these poems, written in Punjabi but by a poet settled in Britain, add a new dimension to contemporary poetry.
Foreword by John Berger
Cover by Gurvinder Singh
ISBN: 978-1-906570-34-7
978-1-906570-35-4
Publication date: 1 October (pbk & hbk)
Dimensions: 138 x 216 mm
Pages: 160
Kitte Mil Ve Mahi
This is invisible Punjab, bypassing the airbrushed mythology of its prosperity and the always-happy-always-cheerful Punjabi. This is a key to the understanding of how the Sufi way has come to rest with the state’s impoverished Dalits.
Watch the video: http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/documentaries/kitte-mil-ve-mahi
Studying the Sikhs – Hew Mcleod and Likhansar – A poem
After the sad loss of Hew Mcleod, Amarjit Chandan who was a friend of Hew has sent these to share with everyone.
Likhansar: A poem by Amarjit Chandan co-translated by Hew McLeod.
Likhansar. Poem. [Bilingual]. Revsd. Amarjit Chandan. May 2008
On my behest Hew wrote this a couple of years ago and its Punjabi translation done by me was published. studying with sikhs Mcleod 2007
PUNJABI POETRY ON WAR by Amarjit Chandan
I hail from a cursed land – partitioned land of five rivers – the Punjab. Since 1947, the East Punjab is in India, and the West Punjab is in Pakistan. Being the gateway from the northwest to the Indian sub-continent, for three millennia foreign invaders played havoc to its natives. First came the Aryans about fifteen centuries before the birth of Christ and occupied most of northern Hindustan. Other races – the Persians, the Greeks under Alexander the Great, Bactrians, Scythians, Mongol Huns, Mughals, and Afghans, followed them. In the end came the British. They occupied the Punjab in 1849 ruling over it for a century and left in 1947 dismembering it.
Summing up Punjabi people’s centuries old catastrophic history in just five sentences may seem rigorous, but even volumes will betray inadequacy of language to express the loss. A royal throne looted from Delhi and gifted to the Sultan of Turkey by Nadir Shah of Iran lying in the Topkapi Palace museum in Istanbul is a URL [universal resource locator] link to the troubled history of the Punjab.
Read full article: http://sikhfoundation.org/article-Amarjit_Chandan.asp
What Makhan Singh means to me by Amarjit Chandan
Paper presented at:
Trade Union and Working Class Struggles: Makhan Singh and the TU Movement in Kenya. Department of Applied Social Sciences, London Metropolitan University. 25 March 2009
From the window of the departing train I vaguely remember the figure of Makhan Singh waving and saying Sat Sri Akal (God is Truth) – goodbye (God be with you). This was to be the last time we saw him. My father and Makhan Singh never met again. Four months later Makhan Singh was to be arrested and spent almost 12 years in solitary confinement. My father was to die in the Punjab in 1969 and Makhan Singh four years later in Nairobi.
Read full paper:what makhan singh means to me
Modern Poetry in Translation – next edition ‘Freed Speech’
The next issue of Modern Poetry in Translation (Third Series, Number 12, autumn 2009) will be called ‘Freed Speech’.
Last year saw the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. One of those rights is freedom of speech. In our next issue we want to celebrate speech that has been freed. Poetry and translation, working together, have often been the means and the best expression of that liberation. We want examples from past and present, from all over the world, from all manner of circumstances, of people being enabled to speak and of their voices being heard. Of course, we must show the repression and harming of those voices too. But chiefly we hope this issue will be celebratory.We want it to show the triumph of the will to speak, the freeing, the recovery and the enjoyment of tongues. And in this might be included texts which, for one reason or another lost or hidden, have now come to light
Submissions should be sent by 1 August 2009, please, in hard copy, with return postage, to The Editors, Modern Poetry in Translation, The Queen’s College, Oxford, OX1 4AW. Unless agreed in advance, submissions by email will not be accepted. Only very exceptionally will we consider work that has already been published elsewhere. Translators are themselves responsible for obtaining any necessary permissions. Since we do sometimes authorize further publication on one or two very reputable websites of work that has appeared in MPT, the permissions should cover that possibility.
Faiz Ghar, Lahore – A museum to house Faiz memorabilia and papers
At the recent launch in Lahore of ‘Hum Jeetay Jee Masroof Rahay’, Agha Nasir’s book on legendary Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Adeel Hashmi, Faiz’s grandson, announced on behalf of the Faiz Foundation the establishment of Faiz Ghar in Lahore, a museum to house Faiz memorabilia and papers held by his family.
Funding permitting, the soft opening of a section is planned for Feb 09. The Ghar will be housed in a 2 kanal house in Model Town leased to the Faiz Foundation by an admirer of the poet’s for a token rent of One Rupee a month.
Apart from the Faiz section, the Ghar’s remaining rooms will be open house to artistes and painters to pursue and practise their craft.
Presided over by Begum Tahira Mazhar Ali and hosted by Shuaib Hashmi, the book launch had Asghar Nadeem Syed, Arifa Syeda, Ghalib Ahmed and Agha Nasir re-living their personal memories of Faiz.
Comments Off
Amrita Pritam – Ode to Waris Shah
Amrita Pritam in 1948. Photograph courtesy of Amarjit Chandan Collection
Translation from the original in Punjabi by Khushwant Singh. Amrita Pritam: Selected Poems. Ed Khushwant Singh. (Bharatiya Jnanpith Publication, 1992)
TO WARIS SHAH
To Waris Shah I turn today!
Speak up from the graves midst which you lie!
In our book of love, turn the next leaf.
When one daughter of the Punjab did cry
You filled pages with songs of lamentation,
Today a hundred daughters cry
0 Waris to speak to you.
O friend of the sorrowing, rise and see your Punjab
Corpses are strewn on the pasture,
Blood runs in the Chenab.
Some hand hath mixed poison in our live rivers
The rivers in turn had irrigated the land.
From the rich land have sprouted venomous weeds
flow high the red has spread
How much the curse has bled!
The poisoned air blew into every wood
And turned the flute bamboo into snakes
They first stung the charmers who lost their antidotes
Then stung all that came their way
Their lips were bit, fangs everywhere.
The poison spread to all the lines
All of the Punjab turned blue.
Song was crushed in every throat;
Every spinning wheel’s thread was snapped;
Friends parted from one another;
The hum of spinning wheels fell silent.
All boats lost the moorings
And float rudderless on the stream
The swings on the peepuls’ branches
I lave crashed with the peepul tree.
Where the windpipe trilled songs of love
That flute has been lost
Ranjah and his brothers have lost their art.
Blood keeps falling upon the earth
Oozing out drop by drop from graves.
The queens of love
Weep in tombs.
It seems all people have become Qaidos,
Thieves of beauty and love
Where should I search out
Another Waris Shah.
Waris Shah
Open your grave;
Write a new page
In the book of love.
NOTES
Waris Shah (1706 -1798) was a Punjabi poet, best-known for his seminal work Heer Ranjha, based on the traditional folk tale of Heer and her lover Ranjha. Heer is considered one of the quintessential works of classical Punjabi literature.
Qaido – A maternal uncle of Heer in Heer Ranjha is the villain who betrays the lovers.
The Punjab – the region of the five rivers east of Indus: Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej.
Massive population exchanges occurred between the two newly-formed states in the months immediately following Partition. Once the lines were established, about 14.5 million people crossed the borders to what they hoped was the relative safety of religious majority. Based on 1951 Census of displaced persons, 7,226,000 Muslims went to Pakistan from India while 7,249,000 Hindus and Sikhs moved to India from Pakistan immediately after partition. About 11.2 million or 78% of the population transfer took place in the west, with Punjab accounting for most of it; 5.3 million Muslims moved from India to West Punjab in Pakistan, 3.4 million Hindus and Sikhs moved from Pakistan to East Punjab in India; elsewhere in the west 1.2 million moved in each direction to and from Sind.
The newly formed governments were completely unequipped to deal with migrations of such staggering magnitude, and massive violence and slaughter occurred on both sides of the border. Estimates of the number of deaths range around roughly 500,000, with low estimates at 200,000 and high estimates at 1,000,000.
leave a comment