Shiv Kumar Batalvi

Shiv Kumar Batalvi is a very famous Hindu poet who migrated from the poetic region of Sialkot to Batala during one of the most miserable moments of human history. It was during the hard won independance of the Indian sub-continent when in 1947 that the Partition of India resulted in the slaughter of lacks of humans as North India was divided along religious lines. The pangs of this separation are recurrent themes of this great lyricist of the land. He has been hailed as one of the greatest poets of all times.

Shiv Kumar was born on July 23, 1936 in Bara Pind Lohtian (Shakargarh tehsil), in Punjab (now Pakistan). His father was a Patwari by the name of Pandit Krishan Gopal. After the partition his family moved to Batala. As a child Shiv is said to have been fascinated by birds and rugged, thorny plants on the Punjabi landscape. Shiv was exposed to the -ramlila- at an early age, and it is to be expected that he received what was later to become his instinctive understanding of drama from these early performances.

Today singers like jasbir jassi (of dil le gayi kudi Gujarat di fame) sings his songs. He usually wrote romantic poems or songs, however, one day some one asked him why he didn’t write something about Guru Gobind Singh ji. He said I will try.

He has written in his book that after studying about Guru Gobind Singh ji he couldn’t find words to describe him and said that he was unable to pen a single word about Guru sahib for 3 months because he said that he could not describe him as god as Guru Gobind singh ji himself has said,

“mau ko parmeswar jo ucharre te sab narak kund main jaye

"whosoever treats me as a god, he would surely go to hell if there is such a place".

But in spite of the Guru's warning he wrote some beautiful poems in praise of the Guru, one of which follows:

Main kis hanju da diwa baal ke teri aarti lawaan,

out of which tear drop should I light a lamp with which to do your aarti

mera har geet bujdil hai, main keda geet aj gawaan,

my every song is full of cowardness,which song should I sing today

mera koi geet nahi aisa jo tere mech aa jawe,

none of my songs can match your personality

sarre bajaar ja kar ke jo apna sir kata aawe,

which can openly get his head beheaded (here the writer is actually referring to the sacrifice of Guru tegh bahadur sahib ji, because it was his young son Shahibzada gobind singh ji who suggested his father Guru tegh bahadur ji should save the Hindu Pandits.)

jo apne sohal chhinde bol nihaan wich china aawe,

who can get his favourite words bricked, (here writer is refering to Guru Gobind Singh's sons sahibzada zorawar singh ji and sahibzada fateh singh ji who were first bricked, while still alive, into a wall before being executed by wazir khan,

je lut jaawe taan phir bhi yaar te saathde jaawe,

when he has lost everything even then he lives as he used to live, (here the poet has said that Guru gobind singh ji's belief in god was the same as when he had held his darbar at anandpur sahib, his four sons and his wife and mother along with 52 poets and his army. When he later lost everything, he was in machiwara, where he didn’t utter a single word or tear over the death of his sons, while on the other hand when leaving Chamkaur Sahib bhai sahib bhai daya singh ji one of the punj pyaras (the 5 beloved ones) who was accompanying Guru Gobind Singh ji stopped and told Guru Gobind Gingh ji , " Sahibzada Ajit Singh ji and Jujhar Singh ji are lying on the battle field , you go ahead and I will meet you after attending to their creamation, to which Guru gobind singh ji said, "they are not my only sons for the whole of khalsa are my own-- who will do their cremation to which Guru gobind singh ji said, I don’t want any one to say that I treated my sons… (here the rest of the sentence is missing)

Details of his life

Shiv passed his matriculate exams in 1953, from Punjab University. He went on to enroll in the F.Sc. programme at Baring Union Christian College in Batala. Before completing his degree he moved to S.N. College, Qadian into their Arts program. It is here that he began to sing ghazals and songs for his classmates. Shiv never took the final exams he needed to pass in order to receive his degree.

Around this period, he met a girl named Maina at a fair in Baijnath. When he went to look for her in her hometown, he heard the news of her death and wrote an elegy to her titled Maina. This episode was to fore shadow numerous other partings that would serve as material for him to distill into poems. Perhaps the most celebrated such episode is his fascination for Gurbaksh Singh's daughter who left for the US and married someone else. When he heard of the birth of her first child, Shiv wrote Main ek shikra yaar banaya, perhaps his most famous love poem. It's said that when she had her second child, someone asked Shiv whether he would write another poem. Shiv replied, "Have I become responsible for her? Am I to write a poem on her every time she gives birth to a child?" Sounds much better in Punjabi (main oda theka leya hoyaa? Oho bacche banayi jave te main ode te kavita likhda rehma?).

In 1965 Shiv won the Sahitya Akademi award for his verse-drama Loona.

He married, on Feb 5, 1967, his wife Aruna who was a Brahmin from Kir Mangyal in district Gurdaspur. By all accounts Shiv had a happy marriage. He had two children whom he loved immensely, Meharbaan (b. Apr. 12, 1968) and Puja (b. Sep. 23, 1969).

By 1968 he had moved to Chandigarh, but soon both Batala and Chandigarh became soulless in his eyes. Chandigarh brought him fame, but somescathing criticism as well to which Shiv replied with an article titled, My hostile critics. Meanwhile his epilepsy got worse and he had a serious attack while at a store in Chandigarh's section 22. In the early 70's Shiv came to Bombay for a literary conference. In keeping with Shiv's outrageous behaviour there is a story about his trip to Bombay as well. Part of the conference involved readings at Shanmukhananda hall. After a few people had read their work (one of whom was Meena Kumari), Shiv got on the stage and began by saying, "Almost everyone today has begun to consider themselves a poet, each and every person off the streets is writing ghazals". By the time he'd finished with his diatribe, there was not a sound in the hall. This is when he began to read, Ek kuri jeeda naam mohabbat. gum hai, gum hai…. There wasn't a sound when he finished this piece either.

Shiv has been called a Bohemian. There were complaints about his drinking and some suggestions that his 'friends' would incourage his drinking so he would exhibit his outrageous side. Shiv Kumar died in the 36th year of his life on May 7, 1973 in his father-in-law's house at Kir Mangyal near Pathankot.

Shiv as the traditional poetical phenomenon was born out of the literary conjugation (Kalmi sanjog) of Amrita Pritam and Mohan Singh, to whom he appropriately dedicated his most important creation, Briha too Sultan. Both Amrita and Mohan had personally suffered in their respective love lives on account of circumstances beyond their control. In their romanticism therefore, a personal tinge of desperation was inevitable. Punjabi character is far more emotional, both in happiness as well as sadness, than all the other peoples- of the Indian subcontinent.

To succeed as a poet, therefore, one must succeed in making people cry as well as bursting into hilarious laughter with the flow of the lines. In contradiction to Amrita and Mohan, Shiv therefore, developed the most superb art of recitation. He will be long remembered, like Heer Warris Shah, for his emotional rendering of whatever he wrote. I was deeply impressed by his exposition of this vivid magic in the very first Kavita that he gave at our house - Ki puchde ho hal fakiran da. This rendering has the touch of Sehgal's voice - -])ukhh ke Aab din bitad nahin- Shiv like Sehgal had the inborn gift of soul touching expression. He needed words and lines and in this he had the help of his creators more than anyone else past or present. I feel that in her enthusiasm to present her 'poetic child' to the world Amrita herself became too emotional in giving an unnecessary notoriety to Shiv as a heart throwing lover (dil pheank ashiq).

Any healthy child experiences love stings similar to Shiv's and dreams love dreams as he did, but every child doesn't become a poet. In the lines that are attributed to this side of Shiv's creation there is the show of an irksome mockery. Every effort had been made to present him as a love torn lover; as a half living, babbling corpse of love's treachery. True to his creators he was expounding all his life a love lost theme, which was not, his own but was someone else's. He was never to grow up beyond this slippery, muddy stage of deception, what with alcohol and tobacco in his body and love potions in his mind. But Shiv violently protested against this utter subjugation. In his Main to Main he says:-

-O mere sirjko

Tan de trashanhar butkaro

Tuhadi wansh wich hun bal nahin

1k swal jamna si

Jida uttar wi moran ton

Tusan sabna sen sangna si

Te jad men oodri thup nen

Mere jungle choun langna si

Taan bhuldi sabiyata men

Shaher de moran to khangna si

He had tried to find himself in his own self. Similar effort has been made again and again in Loona. I feel sure that as time passes, people will try to find out more of the philosophy of his life, but at the occasion of the first national meeting that is being held in London to remember Shiv I wish to add my own appreciation of the man who came in our life only for a few brief moments. I had not heard of him in India and met him for the first time when I went to receive him at Heathrow. I was not aware of his poetry either.

During all his stay in England I had never found him sober, but he was wonderful to his admirers, a joke to his critics, and an enigma to himself. What I have written so far is the expression of a mixture of feelings that Shiv generated. But he had something really unique in him which would have him a place of pride among poets of the Punjab. He will be remembered long after his contemporaries would be forgotten for having brought to the Punjabi Kavita - a true expression of the Punjabi cultural panorama.

Although he has written on a variety of themes, the main theme in Shiv's Poetry is Chet, Chandni, Joban rutan, Bhalke - nah - rehna. He writes

Phul di mahek mare

Par agg di mahek na mardi.

A flower does not die only its odour disappears

That is why he wished after death to become first a star and then a second choice a flower to pervade on the earth and sky, be here day or night. A shining star gives its odour in its twinkling - the fire of love. Shiv was himself a fiery person. His laughter was tinged with fire of inner grief and showed a perpetual depression - a fiery depression. That he was depressed, is no doubt.

Main niki umren sara dard banda baetha

eadi joban rat lahi dard kenwars hor deo-

In the parts of the Siwaliks there grow wild trees of har sangar (cyctanthes- arbor - tristis). The whole tree flowers around the early hours of the morning and fully grown white - dreamy - tinged with orange flowers fall down almost in rain before daybreak. It is a wonder-ful sight to see this spread of flowers, a massacre of youthful beauty. These are picked up, wovwn into garlands and tied around hair knots by young village lassies. Bushes of chamba and chambeli have also fully grown white creamy flowers that fall in the same way, but not so spectacularly. Chambe-di-kali flower buds are more commonly attributed to chamba. I am sure Shiv as a child must have been impressed by this dramatic death of the full grown youthful flowers, dying at the height of life. This became Shiv-s ideal -

-Chambe da phul sajra naio tur paina-

He grieved to see the death of a Chamba flower - Aj ik chambe da phul moea Gal paona de pa ke bahin Gora chetar chham chham roea -Asaan te joban ruten marna Mur jana asan bhare bharae Hijer tere di kar prikarma.

These lines are a superb poetry as an example of delicate sensitivity in expression. He filled sadness in the refreshing dew on the fallen flowers - as chham chham roaa and confirmed his faith in the transmigration of the soul. He was truly a poet of nature-flower-soil-death and life, threading these into a garland of laughing sadness. -Pa tandan de thaknan Kis lei katna Oah nah aapna Tan asan kis lai katna hor ji- He wanted to go - -Ni jinde main kal nahin rehna- Asan kis khatar hun jina Is miti kise chuman da phul Kade nah ditha khiria-

He was a lover of colour and beauty but with these he wanted purity integrity and respectability. He complained of -Widwa rut- Widwa joban

Whatever personal and impersonal emotion Shiv experienced he spread these to the outside nature. His outer and inner nature became one many a time, and one waited for the other for the union. -Marua khirna babul Ji, Jad chetar mur aawe-

In every aspect of nature he found an image of death - a phenomena which was unique in Shiv. He said -

-Main chaonda haan aaj da gora din Aanaei maot na mar jae-

No other poet before him, to my knowledge, was so much glamorised by the phenomenon of death as Shiv was. As Shiv was, death truly is a gift that is given to a man at birth and that is not an end, but is a milestone on the journey from beyond to beyond. I see Shiv walking on this path. -Raat chanani main turan-

He will continue to walk and we will continue to see him shining as a star at nightfall and touch him, smell him, enjoy him as a flower, like the chambe da phul -he will be seen again and again dying on the morning after morning. To him death seems more real then life. No one sees the flower coming into life, but what we see is only the death of the living. But death also is not the end.

-Nahen sade tan koi rog awalra Nahan sadi oomsr aakhiri Babul ji Aasan mukh da suraj Dubde tak mur aonna He will come back again on the horizon before sunset to live through the night.

I am waiting for that moment when Shiv, like Lord Shiv Ji will recreate himself out of the pieces and bits that he has left for all of us in the form of his poetry - the immortal images of his mortal frame.

Zindgi us ke liye ik maut thi Who pa gaya hai zindagi dar asal mar jane ke baad.