Poem Translations
‘Soil’ by Daljeet Jutla
“teeyan” = Daughters
“uchay tahve peeng pade jithay aap hulara aavey” = “tie the rope for the swings high up on the tree where the wind will help it sway”
‘Flooding’ by Shagufta Iqbal
In her poem ‘Flooding’ Shagufta Iqbal uses a few verses from a poem by poet Amrita Pritam.
In her poem ‘Ajj Aakhann Waris Shah Nu’ (Today I am calling upon Waris Shah, published 1949) Amrita Pritam movingly and passionately expressed the trauma that the 1947 India/Pakistan Partition had on women at the time. Amrita is regarded as the leading 20th Century poet of the Punjabi Language.
In this poem Amrita calls out to the famous Poet Waris Shah (who had published a famous love poem called “Heer”, based on a star-crossed love story between a girl called Heer and a boy called Ranja – like the story of Romeo and Juilet) to speak from beyond the grave about the horrors the women of Punjab were suffering during partition. The poem Heer was written by Waris Shah in 1766.
Please note the translations below are not translating each word, and each verse has been translated to provide an overview of what Amrita Pritam was trying to convey.
—
Kiton qubran wichon bol
Tey ajj kitab-e-ishaq daa
Koy agla warka phol
“Please get up from your grave and speak to us, and turn the next page of this love story”
Ikk royi sii tee Punjab di
Tu likh likh maareyn wain
Ajj lakhaan teeyyan rondiyan
Tenu Waris Shah nu kain
“Go and tell Waris Shah that Heer was only one daughter of Punjab, and when she suffered in love, you wrote and wrote about her suffering, but now thousands of daughters of Punjab are crying, and you are quiet.
Uth dard-mandaa diya dardiya
Utt tak apna Punjab
Ajj bailey lashaan bichiyaan
Tey loaw di parhriya chenaab
“Rise from the grave (Waris) sympathiser of those who suffer and feel pain
Rise and see the state of your Punjab
Thousands of dead bodies litter the Soil of Punjab
And the Chenab River is full of blood”
Ajj Ankha Waris Shah Nu
Kiton qubran wichon bol
Tey ajj kitab-e-ishaq daa
Koy agla warka phol
“Today I call upon Waris Shah to get up from the grave and speak to us, and turn the next page of this love story”
We’d like to thank Mrs Amrita Mohan & Mr Kuljinder Singh Kahlon for helping us translate the verses from Amrita Pritam’s poem.
Additional Information:
This extract, copied below, may help you to understand some more about the context of this poem.
—
This couplet is written by Punjabi poet Amrita Pritam. In these lines Pritam has been able to express in depth the pain and sorrow in Punjab at the time of partition of India in 1947. A large part of Punjab was partitioned into the present Pakistan’s Punjab.
Amrita Pritam has related the incident to the Waris Shah's poem “HEER”. Waris Shah had perfectly expressed the pain felt by HEER in the love story of HEER RANJHA.
Pritam asks Waris Shah to speak from his grave to express the pain of the people today. Do it as beautifully as he did in his poem HEER. When Heer got separated from Ranjha, Waris Shah cried through his poetry and now thousands of love stories and relations are going to end. Who will cry for them? Who will express their pain? Who will share their sorrows? Who will express how the love got converted to hatred? All the daughters of Punjab ask Waris Shah to come out of his grave and see his Punjab whose land is covered by the dead bodies and the River Chenab is filled blood and express how it feels when violence replaces compassion, when rape replaces respect, when closely knit fabric of Punjab has been torn apart.
This has been similarly asserted by Khushwant singh in his novel 'Train to Pakistan' and also a movie based on the novel.
The reference to River Chenab has added a special touch in the poem because river Chenab is symbolically more attached with Pakistan side of Punjab this is because for most of its length it flows in Pakistan. The other rivers like Ravi, Beas and Sutlej are still on the Indian side of Punjab. And river Jhelum has not been mentioned because it mostly flows in Jammu and Kashmir and fully flows into Punjab of Pakistan. Pritam has beautifully selected Chenab to make it more touching to the reader. The river Chenab was also the setting for Waris Shah’s poem ‘Heer’, and features in other famous love stories from India like ‘Sohni Mahiwal’, ‘Mirza Sahiban’ and ‘Sassi Punnhun’.
The poem is an expression from the stand-point of the girls. This is because they were the worst sufferers because of crimes like rape.