By Zaman Khan

Date:11-12-05 Source: The News

Amrita Pritam, renowned for her Punjabi poetry and fiction, passed away on October 31, 2005. Her death is widely mourned all over the world. She had been living with Imroz in Delhi for the last four decades. Khushwant Singh, praising his devotion to Amrita, wrote: "Amrita's real love affair was with Imroz. It was total devotion on his part...I think the most moving part of Amrita's life was her later years. She was stricken with illness and could not move. It was Imroz who looked after her with a devotion I have never heard of: changing her clothes, feeding her and keeping her clean."

A lot has been written about Amrita during her life and after her death. But Imroz, a great man and artist in his own right, is for a number of reasons less known to the world. And the foremost reason is that he is a humble man who avoids publicity.

Imroz was born in a village in Lyallpur (Faisalabad). He studied in the village school. He would visit the city and sit quietly for hours in Bhawana Bazar watching one Mr. Jalal painting cinema banners. At night he would sometimes sleep on the wooden extension of the shop (phata).

Noting his keen interest in painting, somebody suggested to his family that he should be sent to study at the Mayo School of Arts, Lahore (now National College of Arts). He was admitted, but left without completing his studies.

He told me that the main reason for his departure was that he did not want to follow the style of his teachers. Teachers, in most cases, leave an indelible impression on the student, who sacrifices his originality and copies their style all his life. Imroz left college in order to retain his original and natural style. He started painting cinema billboards in Lahore, for a paltry amount.

He left for India after partition and settled in Delhi where he started working in the magazine Shama. Later on, he specialised in designing book covers. That is how he met Amrita Pritam. "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 better."

I went to their house at 25, Hauz-e-Khaz, New Delhi, to condole Amrita's death and see how Imroz fared after it. Everything looked changed except Imroz's hospitality. He would not only prepare tea for you but also go to the bus stand to see you off.

While talking about Amrita he said it was not love at first sight. (Amrita told me once, in the 80s, that her meeting with Imroz was like a meeting with God.) The acquaintance took almost three years to change into love. Amrita was married but separated. Both Amrita and Imroz were living in Patel Nagar. She used to cycle to Delhi Radio Station, where she was paid five rupees daily. Imroz, who had a scooter, offered to give her a lift daily, which she immediately accepted. So Imroze would drop her at the radio station in the morning and pick her in the evening. He would also drop her children to school. Then they decided to buy a car and shared the cost.

On his earliest memories of relations with Amrita, he said: "Once, I visited her on my birthday. Her gesture on that day marked the beginning of our friendship. She left the room and said something to the servant, who brought in a cake."

"In 1958 I did some work for Guru Dutt's film Pyasaa. 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 both happy and sad, and she cried." The couple realised that they could not live separately, so Imroz decided to move into Amrita's house on his return from Bombay. Amrita's former husband, Imroz said, gave Amrita a formal divorce after twenty years, when he himself wanted to marry again. But when he was seriously ill Amrita shifted him and all his family members to her house, where he died.

"We had a rishta (relationship) so there was no need of legal cover. Those who don't have a rishta need legal cover."

Amrita in her will gave away the house to her children with clear instructions that Imroz would continue to live in the portion where they used to live.

Imroz and Amrita had separate rooms in the house. "We were like individual artists. We did not live like husband and wife. Except in Amrita's last days when she was seriously ill, we lived in separate rooms. We would meet at breakfast, lunch or dinner, or whenever Amrita wanted to recite her new poem. Or when I wished to share a good movie song with her. I would first watch a movie in the cinema and then we would go together to see it."

"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 civilized 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 the undivided Punjab mirrored its soul. Her work was dominated by protest and anguish that humanity wasn't considered important in religion. She hated religious bigotry; unfortunately it is in the followers of every religion."

He described his house as a family of individuals, where everybody contributes to run the kitchen. "Amrita was a khuddar(self-respecting) woman and earned her own living."

When Amrita died, he said, "she knew she was going so she put on clothes and said don't bathe me, I have bathed enough. She did not believe in the temple or the gurdwara. No mourning, she said. No religious rites, just throw my ashes in the river. So her ashes were thrown in the river Jamuna."

"We keep the room as it was during Amrita's life. I feel as if Amrita is still in the house - after all it was a long association of more than four decades."

Commenting on Khushwant Singh's column on Amrita, where he said that he translated her novel Pinjar on Amrita's request, Imroz said, "Pinjar was her first novel to be translated into English by Khushwant Singh. In an article in Outlook he has written that Amrita told him to do so. The fact is that she never asked him; rather he got it published without showing it to Amrita. And he missed out the most important line of the book."

After Amrita's death, Imroz has also started writing poetry. "When Amrita was bedridden her fans and friends wrote poems about her. When the manuscript landed with the publisher, he said, Imroz, you have been so close and dear to Amrita but you have not written anything. So that is how I wrote the first poem of my life. And now my book of poetry will soon be published."