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Ram
Sarup Aņkhi 1932–2010
am Sarup Aņkhi, who has
died aged 78, was a prolific Punjabi writer with 15 novels and eight story
books and five collections of poems to his credit. Aņkhi was Brahmin by
caste but Sikh in appearance. He kept the Hindu name as is the custom in the
Malwa region of Known
as a mesmerising story teller, Aņkhi chronicled rural life in Malwa in the
latter half of the 20th century. In his writing the Malwa
landscape comes alive. His Sahitya Academy
Award winner novel Kothey Kharhak Singh ਕੋਠੇ
ਖੜਕ ਸਿੰਘ, named after a fictitious
but typical Malwa village, is a novel of epic dimensions spanning three
generations. It covers the period starting after 1940-42 and moving to
Janata Party’s rule after the Emergency and thence to Indira Gandhi’s
return to power in the early 1980s. In his later novels
self-evidently titled Salphas ਸਲਫਾਸ 2006, (a chemical used by
debt-ridden Malwai Jatts to commit suicide), Jamināñ Wāley ਜਮੀਨਾਂ
ਵਾਲੇ (The
Landed Gentry) 2004,
Kaņak da Qatalām ਕਣਕ ਦਾ
ਕਤਲਾਮ (Slaughter of the Wheat)
2007 and Bhima ਭੀਮਾ (a
Purbia farm worker) 2009 etc.,
he portrayed the post-green revolution Malwa with all its acute
socio-economic problems such as the onslaught of corporate capitalism,
pauperisation of small peasantry, mass drug addiction, influx of Purbia
migrant labour and, in consequence of all this, disintegration of village
communities. Aņkhi
also edited a Punjabi short fiction quarterly Kahāni Punjab ਕਹਾਣੀ
ਪੰਜਾਬ since
1993 assisted by his son Krantipal, currently teaching at Reviewing
his two-volume autobiography Malhey Jhārhiāñ ਮਲ੍ਹੇ ਝਾੜੀਆਂ (Thorny
Bushes with Berries published in 1988 and later updated twice) Atamjit,
Punjabi playwright and columnist wrote:
It is not only his art of storytelling that mesmerises its reader;
his simplicity,
honesty and bluntness also produce magic.
Content with his life in his native village Dhaula, its surrounding
areas
locales and characters from within
this
region. His vast canvas of narratives
never required anything from outside. Many may like to see it as a
limitation but he is happy to portray what he knows best. He explains
how with the passage of time the same landscape has seen a sea
Aņkhi creates the much-desired diversity by using characters from
different
economic, social and religious backgrounds. There are many divergent
tendencies and traits in his personal life too: he is Brahmin by
caste but
Sikh in his appearance; he was wild in his childhood but is very
disciplined
in his writing; he started as a poet but ended up as a fiction
writer; and
he married thrice. His
novel Zakhmee Ateet (The Wounded Past. 1981) was published in the
Farsi script by the Institute of Punjabi Language & Culture Lahore. Some
of his books were also translated into Gujarati, Hindi and English.
He
is survived by his widow and their three daughters and two sons. A daughter
predeceased him. Amarjit
Chandan Ram
Sarup Aņkhi, Punjabi writer, born August 28 1932 Dhaula Sangrur died
February 14 2010 Barnala Sangrur
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