NEW DELHI Internet giant Google on Saturday marked the 100th birth anniversary of celebrated poet and author Amrita Pritam with a special doodle tribute that had a touch of Punjabi culture.
Pritam, one of the most prominent writers and poets of the 20th century, is best remembered for her Punjabi poem “Ajj aakhaan Waris Shah nu” (’Ode to Warish Shah’), which poignantly captures her anguish over the massacres during Partition in 1947.
Born on August 31, 1919, in Gujranwala (now in Pakistan) of Punjab province in undivided India, she migrated to India after Partition.
In the doodle, the poet-author is seen wearing a traditional Punjabi salwar suit, sitting beside a bunch of roses, as she pens something in a diary.
In “Ode to Warish Shah”, an 18th century poet, she captures the pangs and pains of people and the country being cleaved, and one of the moving lines from the poem reads —”Arise, o friend of the afflicted; arise and see the state of Punjab, Corpses strewn on fields, and the Chenab flowing with much blood”.
Among her plethora of novels, “Pinjar” (The Skeleton), written against the backdrop of the Partition, is considered to be one of the best literatures written on the subject, with a memorable character “Puro”.
{{/usCountry}}Among her plethora of novels, “Pinjar” (The Skeleton), written against the backdrop of the Partition, is considered to be one of the best literatures written on the subject, with a memorable character “Puro”.
{{/usCountry}}The novel was later adapted into an award-winning film “Pinjar” in 2003.
In 1947 at the time of the Partition she moved to New Delhi, where she began to write in Hindi, according to the website of SAWNET (South Asian Women’s Network).