The windows of my room were open to allow cool winds from outside to blow through, so I spent the whole sleepless night looking up at the moon and thinking on what she had said. I could not sleep well that night as Amrita Pritam’s words kept echoing in my ears. “Literature stands for the signification of peace nothing could be as important as such peace in this earth.” By the time I had to go home, we still had not concluded our conversation. My next question to her was, “How wonderful it would be if we could live a life like a poem, wouldn’t it?” To this, Ms.
“Yes, to be patient through every pain and difficulty,” I said, expressing my own suppressed thought.Īs her husband offered me another cup of tea and as I expressed my pleasure to her, I wished in that moment that the day would never end. “We need to have patience to be happy in every situation when we write,” she said to me. It was obvious that she was a kind-hearted person and was making a definite mark on life. “I always wanted to be a poet,” I told her. While I recited this poem aloud to her, I looked out of her window at the open and large road outside and at the pedestrians walking there. I remember seeing so much love in her beautiful face.Įverything from the heart that is pure and dedicated. When I reached her home, her husband made a cup of tea for me and, during our visit, she gave me some of her books. On the day of our appointment, I took the almost two-hour bus ride from Karol Bagh to her residence in Hauz Khas in South Delhi. “Rasidi Ticket” and “Ik Thi Anita” are two of her writings that brought tears to my eyes. When I called her at home, her husband Imroz picked up the phone, and I made an appointment to see her. When I first met Amrita Pritam, the first prominent Punjabi woman poet (1919-2005), it was July and I was living in Karol Bagh, New Delhi.