1937-2010

 

Harinder  Singh Mehboob, who has died aged 73, was a distinguished Punjabi poet and Sikh theologian.   

  Born in a Sikh farming family in Lyallpur , after Partition he had to migrate along with his family and settle in a village Jhoonda in district Sangrur. The experience of Partition, unsettlement and migration left a deep and lasting imprint on his life and writing. He could never really free his mind from a certain nostalgia and longing for what he had left behind on the other side of Wagah. Among other things, Sufism and even militant Islam held a special attraction for him.

But his first love was his own religion: Sikhism. It was to the study of Sikhism that he devoted the major part of his life. The result was his magnum opus Sahje rachio Khalsa (1986), which makes a systematic exposition of the various aspects of Sikhism.  

 

  According to Mehboob, Sikhism represents the purest and highest form of monotheism and is thus superior to all preceding religions whether Indian or semitic. Sahje rachio Khalsa comprises seven books and engages in the exegesis and interpretation of Sikhism within a comparative framework. Mehboob rejects everything inconsistent with his vision of Sikhism and that includes large portions of Dasam Granth associated with Guru Gobind Singh. Mehboob’s book has remained controversial for its somewhat archaic prose and fundamentalist outlook.

  What brought Mehboob greater recognition and praise was his poetry published in Jhanā di Raat, a big tome comprising eight books published in 1986. The book won him the coveted Sahitya Academy award the following year and the Shiromani Kavi award for 2008 from Bhasha Vibhag of the state government of East Punjab . To be sure, by the time of the latter award, he had already published two volumes of his epic Ilāhi Nadar de Painde devoted to Guru Nanak Dev and Guru Gobind Singh respectively and also recieved Giani Ditt Singh Puruskar from Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee in 2002 for his work on Sikhism. Mehboob had flirted with leftism before making over completely to Sikhism and Sufism and this evolution is fully reflected in his poetry.

Mehboob had a Master’s degree each in Punjabi and English and for most part of his life taught at Khalsa Col lege , Ga rhdhiwala. That explains why he was known as ‘Professor Mehboob’. He retired from his job in 1995, but continued  to live at Gardhiwala leading a reclusive life devoted mainly to reading and writing. It was at Garhdhiwala that he finally passed away suffering from prostate cancer.

  Harindar Singh Mehboob leaves behind his wife and a son and a daughter.

Gurpreet Kaur

Harindar Singh Mehboob Punjabi writer born October 1 1937 Chak no. 233, tehsil Jarhānwala, district Lyallpur now Faislabad; died February 14, 2009 Garhdhiwal  Hoshiarpur district

[About the author: Gurpreet Kaur, a lecturer in Punjabi literature at
Punjabi University , has done her M.Phil. thesis on Mehboob]