Amrita Pritam's poetry depicts the feelings of a woman
in love. She has loved dearly and suffered terribly. Her attitude towards love,
in her early poems, is devotional mainly because of her religious upbringing.
She loves with her whole being and considers her personality incomplete unless
the man condescends to transform it into a thing, pure and sublime. In her poem,
Charon Tere Suchche, she says-Charan tere suchche
Hoth merejuthhe
Aj hon ge
Jan charan terejuthhe
Jan hand mere suchche
Ajhonge
(To-day
My lips unholy
Shall touch
Thy feet sanctified.
Else,
Thy feet desecrated
and my lips sanctified
Shall be.)
Love being her whole existence, she craves for complete identification with her lover. Her soul is like a parached soil longing for the welcome showers of love fulfilled :
Rup sajan dajal thhal rajwaan
Mere hothhan utle tareraan
(Thy beauty,
O love !
Is brimful, overflowing, inundating.
But my lips,
My parched lips are cracking.)
The poet in her has flung aside the outmoded standards of modesty and cries for the man who is her need. She is not in love with the idea of masculine beauty but with the male principle of 36 The Contours of Punjabi Poetry love. She wants him intensely and is not embarrassed to make him conscious of this fact:
Tun merejeevan di lor ain
Eh ik unn khaanjitni sachaye hai
(O love !
Need of my life,
Thou art.
Fact it is,
As positive as my dependence on food.) Amrita's poetry is full of ardours and hungers. She makes an admirable attempt to transcend her intense sexual impulse into poetic images of rare beauty. The excellence of her art lies in its intensity. In her poem : Charhde Dhalde Deon Ve, one notices a sensibility, both powerful and exquisite-
Nit tarkalaan saundian
Kise Usha de noor nun
Ghut kaleje naal
Suttian uthhian sargian
Kannaan teekan laal
(Everyday
Dusk slumbers,
With his arms tightened around
Aurora.
At day-break,
She awakens,
Flushed to the ears.)
Denial, deprivation and depression are the characteristic notes of Amrita's poetry. Sadness often morbidity, is felt even in her delightful poetry. A part of her personality is immobile at the stage where she experienced some intimate personal encounter. She is rooted to that spot and re-lives the whole experience over and over again but there is no escape from his haunting vision :
Mainjanaan ik aisi trishna
Jis de katre mur mur mainun
Garbhjun wichpaan
(A desire
Such as I know
Exhorts me
To rise from the womb of time
Again and again.)
Amrita Pritam, in her masterpiece Stmehre, unfolds a heart at once sensitive, sincere and wistful. She is absolutely absorbed in her personal grief and all that is around her has faded into nothingness. What matters is he who has filled her dreams since adolescence and, being a victim of socio-religious conventions, has failed to reciprocate her love with the intensity and ardour it demanded. She rises from his dreams, goes to bed with his dreams and is subtly content to imagine him grieving for her too. It appears as if Christina Rossetti, whom she resembles in more than one way, too had to pass through a stage in life in which Amrita Pritam is enmeshed at present:
I did not hear the birds about the eaves,
Nor hear the reapers talk among the sheaves
Only my soul kept watch from day to day
My thirsty soul kept watch for one away :
Perhaps he loves, I thought, remembers, grieves. She is hopeful of finding deliverance from the throes of love unrequited. She is eagerly expectant of the day when her love will be reciprocated and thus mellowed. The following lines are unmatched for their musical structure and superbly optimistic note:
Dor na bheer hayatiye
Rakh sidak di laaj
Ret thhalan vich aa rahi
Kadmaan di aawaz.
(O Life !
Turn not thy back:
Safeguard the honour of persevering hearts. Hark ! the sound of Footfalls
Emerging from the sandy deserts of hope.)