Poetry and analysis

1. I ask (you),
Waris Shah
By Amrita Pritam

2. I ask you, Waris Shah, today; to speak up
from among the graves
And to turn to a new page of the book of
love
Once, when one daughter of Punjab wept,
you had hit out by writing
Today a million daughters weep and
implore you, Waris Shah:
Arise, O friend of the distressed! Arise, see
the plight of your Punjab
Corpses lie strewn in the fields and Chenab
is filled with blood
Someone has mixed poison into the waters
of the five rivers
And that water is now irrigating the land

3. This fertile land is sprouting poison,
The horizon has turned scarlet-red and the
curses fly to the sky
The poisonous wind that passes through
the forest
Has transformed each bamboo-shoot into a
cobra
The first snake-bite made the snake-
charmer forget his spell
And the subsequent bites have the people
addicted
They have been bitten again and again
And in no time, the limbs of Punjab have
turned blue

4. Silenced are the songs in the streets, the
thread of the spinning-wheels snapped
The girls have fled the courtyards, the whirr
of the spinning wheels halted
The wedding beds and the boats have
been thrown away
Today the branch with the swing on the
Pipal broke
The flute through which blew the breath of
love is lost
All the brothers of Ranjha, today, have
forgotten this art
Blood rains on the earth and the graves are
leaking
And the princesses of love are crying
amidst the tombs

5. All have become Qaidon today, thieves of
beauty and love
Today, from where shall we get yet another
Waris Shah?
I ask Waris Shah to speak up from among
the graves
And to turn to a new page of the book of
love.
The original is in Punjabi. The translation is
not by me but Sundeep Dougal and I have had
to touch it up here and there for a better flow.
The original is called
“aaj aakhaaN waris shah nuuN”

6. Background: Who
is Waris Shah? He
was born in Punjab.
(1722–1798)
An 18th century Sufi poet who wrote
a classic on the star crossed lovers
Heer and Ranjha which is his most
famous poem. (Qissa Heer
Ranjha)

7. Thoughts on the poem
• The poem cannot be understood apart from knowing about the author,
history, about the poet and the legend of two lovers, geography, or
unlocked apart from the references and allusions. They frame the poem
and give it a context. This historical setting is the Partition. Amrita Pritam
had to flee from Lahore to India during it with just two small children and
she speaks of the cold in which she tore her shawl in two to cover her
children and protect them from it, sacrificing her comfort, in a train. The
torn shawl becomes for me the symbol of the Partition more than this
poem.

8. 2
• She apostrophizes Waris Shah to write a poem again as he once did for
Heer, as now many Heers are suffering.
• Once, when one daughter of Punjab wept, you had hit out by writing
Today a million daughters weep and implore you, Waris Shah:
Arise, O friend of the distressed! Arise, see the plight of your Punjab
…
• I ask you, Waris Shah, today, to speak up from among the graves
And to turn to a new page of the book of love.

9. The story of Heer and Ranjha and
its connection to the poem.
• “The story is about two lovers, Heer a beautiful village girl from a rich and noble
family; and Ranjha, a poor farm boy. He looked after Water buffaloes belonging to
Heer's father. They both fell in love but Heer's parents were against their marriage.”
• The poem speaks of Qaidon, Heer’s maternal uncle, the villain of the piece. There
are several villains in the poem, the snakes, a nameless someone, and “all”,
symbolizing at one go, those who practised hatred and violence, religious fanaticism
of Hindus and Muslims,, politicians, the British, the Pakistanis who stood for it, the
Indians who stood for it, finally metaphorically standing for evil, opposed by the
suffering women, girls and nature and earth. Thus the poem becomes humanist, a
protest, post colonial, anti religious extremism and political cruelty, ecofeminist and
elegiac all at one go, but in symbolic language which is its poetry. Heer becomes a
plural symbol here for women, girls, children and all who suffer in society due to
circumstances out of their control, making them powerless and helpless.

10. Amrita Pritam’s use of poetic
tropes and their why and how.
• Amrita Pritam makes use of all the usual tropes of poetry like the metaphor (book of
love), personification (the limbs of Punjab turning blue), hyperbole (millions killed),
apostrophe (addressing Waris), anaphora or repetition (today for emphasis). She
uses imagery that is also full fledged being visual, as in the Chenab river running
red, auditory, as in the silenced ‘whirring’ of the spinning wheels, kinetic, the sound
of the thread of the wheels or its yarn snapping, and also uses cliches like the
imagery of the snake charmer and the snakes and the flute bringing in also the
absence of a new Krishna. She gives the whole local colour by talking of the pipal
tree. The poem seldom falters and is very rhetoric in its outpouring of feelings and
anguish, melodramatic as is typical of much of Indian poetry and like the keening of
women wailers beating their breasts, here justified by the mad mass carnage being
described. If her aim is to make people weep, and take action, she did succeed in
making the great Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz weep.

11. Final thoughts.
• While the poem can be studied in terms of the poet and autobiography, in terms
of history and geography, in terms of its allusions and references and in terms of
its use of poetic tropes what is most chillingly prophetic about it is it also seems
to be about present day India which is again in the grip of fascist or evil forces.
Witness for example the Farmers of Punjab and their struggle and 730 deaths.
• We are forced to ask, where will a new Amrita Pritam rise today to write of it, as
she asked Waris Shah. We find an answer perhaps in the poem Shav Vahini
Ganga by Parul Kakkar.

12. Shav Vahini Ganga by Parul
Kakkar
• Translated by Dr Koshy AV
• Don't be sad but rejoice, say the corpses in one voice
• O King in your Ram Rajya
• We see the corpses floating in Ganga
• Lord, the trees have all become ash
• There is not even a speck of a place in the crematorium
• There is no undertaker/caretaker there or people to carry the corpses to the pyre
• No one to sit near and cry
• To those of us who lost everything, only the dance of death/Yama continues
around us, O King

13. Continued…
• In your Ram Rajya our corpses float around in the Ganga
• Spitting smoke and spitting smoke even the chimney is panting
• The virus has caught us and is shaking us
• Our bangles are breaking, and our insides are hurting, burning like fire
• When the city is burning, the pandit is playing the veena
• O King, in your Ram Rajya corpses floating through Ganga too I see
• What pomp and power there was in your get up and style earlier
• Now the city sees your real face
• Say no excuse now but come out in the open and say loudly, loudly
• That you are wearing nothing and have no ability and are lazy
• And we will not rest now as meek but act, watch!
• Smoke rings rise and rise to touch the sky, the city is angry and seething
• Don't you know in your kingdom through Ganga the corpses are floating at all?

14. Thank you.
• Prepared by Dr Koshy AV
• Sources:
• outlook for the badly translated poem, Google for Heer Ranjha summary,
some random site for info on Waris Shah etc.