Dareechah-e-Nigaarish



Shiv Kumar Batalvi (1936-1973) was born (July 23rd, 1936) in a Brahmin Hindu household and grew up in a small Punjab village called "Baraa Pind Loah-teeyaan" (District Shakargarh, in present day Pakistan) in the dying days of the British Raj in India.

He is one of the top five modern Punjabi poets.  He shot to fame in Indian Punjab's literary world with his Punjabi poems, ghazals and songs in the brief period between 1960 and 1967 at which time he became the youngest writer to receive the prestigious Indian national literary award (Sahitya Akademi Award).  His unique choice of words and the vibrant colors of his imagery won him hundreds of thousands of Punjabi speaking fans from the 1960's onwards. Currently, the number of Punjabi speaking people who admire and love his poetry, especially his songs, is in the millions.  

His father, Pandit Krishan Gopal, was an influential, middle class "Patwaaree" (British India's Department of Revenue government servant in charge of recording ownership and transfers of all landholdings in part of District Shakargarh) and had very definite plans for Shiv's future.  Shiv and his father's differences grew bigger throughout Shiv's life. 

In 1947, when the British were forced to grant freedom to India,  Shiv (at the age of 11) moved with his family from their ancestral village to the small town of Batala, Punjab province, Republic of India.

As a child, Shiv is said to have been a perpetual daydreamer who was always fascinated by the wildlife and natural wonders on display around him in the Punjab countryside.  Later, his poems and songs were to speak in metaphors masterfully moulded from images of rural Punjab.

At the age of 17, Shiv passed his Matriculation Exam (equivalent to present day Grade-10 exam in the Canadian or U.S. public school system)  in 1953.  He then enrolled for the Sciences program (Intermediate degree, equivalent to a Canadian or U.S. High School diploma with a major in Science) at Baring Union Christian College, Batala but got nowhere with his studies.  He then transferred and enrolled in the Arts program at Sikh National College, Qadian which was about 20 Km east of Batala (Sikh National College was originally set up in Lahore in 1938 but had to be moved to this new campus in 1948 after the ethnic bloodshed of the "partition" which split British India into Pakistan and India). 

It was at this point in his life, at the age of 18, that Shiv began to write poems and songs which he read for his school mates at Qadian.  It was also at that time that he met a young girl, Mainaa, at a country fair in Qadian.  She lived in Baijnath, Himachal Pradesh province to the north of Qadian.  Shiv was not able to complete the Arts program at Sikh National College.  He left Sikh National College in his second year and then enrolled in a College at Baijnath. When he went to look for Mainaa in Baijnath, he learnt of her sudden death and wrote the elegy titled "Mainaa".  He then enrolled in Government Ripudaman College in the small town of Nabha at the south-eastern tip of Punjab province but could not continue even at that place of learning. 

He returned to Batala and began to drift.  Upon his father's insistence, he enrolled for and passed the government exam to become a Patwaaree (like his father) in the Revenue Department of Punjab's provincial goverment for sometime.

It was in Batala, at this time in his life (1956 - 1960; his early twenties), that he became obsessed with the demure and pretty daughter of noted Punjabi writer Gurbaksh Singh Preetlari (1895-1977; novelist and short story writer who founded Punjabi literary journal "Preet Lari" in 1934; considered the father of modern Punjabi prose).  The match was disapproved of by the elders of both families because of differences in the Hindu castes to which Shiv and the girl belonged. This torrid love affair broke off when the young woman was hastily married off to someone in the U.K. and left Batala dramatically.  Shiv Kumar was always a  sensitive soul and this personal loss worsened his alcohol addiction and Bohemian life style.

Shiv's first book of Punjabi poems and songs came out in 1960 and was entitled "Peerraan Daa Paraagaa" (A Basketful of Sorrows).  He started dominating local poetry readings (held in Batala, Jalandhar, Chandigarh and other cities of the Punjab) with his highly original imagery, co-mingling the Punjab countryside  and the sensuality associated with womanhood.  His unique style of singing (he had a soulful voice), instead of reciting, his poems and songs gained him much popularity with the younger audiences attending these poetry readings where none of the other poets could match Shiv's brilliance.

He published a collection of poems entitled "Laajwantee" (O! My Coy Love!)  in 1961 where he first challenged oppressive traditional customs and rituals prevalent in Punjabi and Indian society which are used to shackle young lovers.

In 1962, Shiv published "Aatay Diyaan Chirriyaan" (Punjabi Maidens: Dough-Bird Child-Toys for Future Husbands") which evoked a classical Punjabi domestic image in a novel and controversial light:  birds shaped from flour dough for small girls to play with as they sit besides their mothers in the kitchen.  To Shiv's keen eye, these "dough-birds" symbolized young girls of marriageable age held captive by the ritual of arranged marriages which are used to barter daughters for material and social gain by parents.  The flour dough-bird is lifeless, cannot fly or soar and can be moulded into whatever posture is demanded of it.  Shiv contrasted this with the independent, liberated woman who can fly or soar like a falcon: another image of rural Punjab. This collection  includes his most famous love poem (Mein Ik Shikraa Yaar Banayaa" or "My Soulmate ... Ephemeral Falcon") which is believed to have been written for Gurbaksh Singh's daughter who left Shiv.

In 1963, Shiv published his collection of verse entitled "Meinoo Vidaa Karo" (Bid Me Adieu") where he first expressed his pronounced death wish which was to haunt him till his premature death.

His verse play "Loonaa" came out in 1965 in which he revived the classical genre of Punjabi Love Epic long poems but with a modern, feminist twist !  Loonaa is a girl who is married to an old man against her wishes and who then goes on to develop an illicit love affair with Pooran, her step son by marriage to the old man.  Shiv's long poem was based on the old Hindu Epic of "Pooran Bhagat".  In his long poem "Loonaa", Shiv defended the young girl and told her story from her unique point of view in order to highlight the cruelty inherent in traditional rituals and customs which are designed  to be used as tools of oppression of the individual by society.  Shiv Kumar Batalvi became the youngest recipient of the prestigious national literary award, the Sahitya Akademi Award, in 1967 for his long poem "Loonaa." 

In 1970, he published the collection entitled "Mein Tay Mein" (Me and I) where he examined the backlash of Punjabi and Indian society against his poetry (challenging the cruelty of social customs) and compared it to how society treats an illegitimate child.  "Aarti" (Adoration) was published in 1971 although these poems had been written much earlier and proved to be the last anthology of this prolific, iconic, modern Punjabi poet.

 On February 5th, 1967, he married Aruna, a Brahmin Hindu girl from Kirri Mangyal, a village near Pathankot in Gurdaspur district, Punjab. It was an arranged marriage to which Shiv agreed because (according to anecdotal evidence) Aruna resembled the girl from Batala who had left him.  In 1968 his father arranged for a job for him at the State Bank of India in the city of Chandigarh (joint capital of Punjab and Hariyana provinces), where he settled down to some much needed domestic bliss.  Here, the couple had two children (Meharban; b. April 12th, 1968 and Pooja; b. September 23rd, 1969). He tried to move on with his life but his inner demons  unleashed by life's hard knocks combined with his alcoholism to seriously affect his liver: his health began to deteriorate. 

He went to London, U.K. for a brief visit and was very warmly received by the Indian Punjabi community there.  He returned to Chandigarh but his health began to fail rapidly. He moved back, first to Batala and finally to his wife's village (Kirri Mangyal) and died there at the young age of 37.  

The diction of Shiv Kumar's poems is vast, encompassing Arabic, Persian and Hindi words besides many Punjabi words that people living in urban Punjab may never have encountered in their lives. For  these reasons, Dareechah's web pages dedicated to Shiv Kumar's poetry will feature meanings of all difficult words used in Shiv's poetry. A list of words with meanings will appear at the end of each poem, ghazal or song.

The images he paints in his immortal style in his poetry are woven with the elements of Nature and Punjab's rural scene, the animals, plants, sights and sounds of rural Punjab.  These images are vibrant, delicately carved frescoes that get imprinted on our very soul after we hear them once.

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's now famous musical composition of a Shiv Kumar Batalvi song "Maa-ay Nee Maa-ay Mairay Geetaan Day Nainaan Vich Birhon Dee Rarrak Paway" brings forth the rich imagery inherent in every line that Shiv Kumar ever wrote.  He was and still is a literary giant in the realm of modern Punjabi poetry.

The legendary Indian singer Jagjit Singh compiled a masterful musical album entitled "Birah Daa Sultan"  which contains many magical compositions of Shiv Kumar's songs, some in the voice of Jagjit's wife Chitra Singh.  This includes some  memorable songs like "Raat Gaee Kar Taaraa Taaraa",  "Geetaa Vay Chunj Bhareen" and  Shiv's punjabi ghazal "Roag Bun Kay Reh Gaya Hai Pyaar Tairay Shehr Daa."  The famous Indian Punjabi folk singer Surinder Kaur has also sung many beautiful Shiv Kumar songs including "Lokee Poojan Rubb",  "Vaastaa Ee Mayraa"  and the lilting song "Meinoon Heeray Heeray Aakkhay" 

Shiv Kumar Batalvi's collected poems (Kulliyaat-e-Shiv Kumar) have been published in the persio-arabic script (Shah Mukhi) in Pakistan by  Iqbal Qaiser who was ably helped in this huge endeavour by  Naseer Ahmad.  These collected poems were published by the avant- garde publishing firm of Fiction House, 18 Mozang Road, Lahore.

As a footnote, and a tribute to Shiv Kumar Batalvi, his world view was secular and imbued with humanity. Even though he was a Hindu living in a Hindu dominated India, his poetry used many Islamic symbols and through Shiv's punjabi poems we get a glimpse  of how Hindus and Muslims used to live in relative harmony in the small villages of the Punjab in the days prior to Independence from British colonial rule. One of his immortal lines goes thus:

Lokee Poojan Rubb ... Mein Teraa Birharaa

Saahnoon Sau Makkay-aan daa Hajj Vay Tayraa Birharraa !

Translation:

Folks worship a God ...  I bow down to your memory!

Worshipping your memory is like a hundred pilgrimages to Mecca!