Ajeet Cour Offers us a Memorable Glance into the Lives of Punjab's Literary Figures through 'The Blue Potter'

"Amritaji (Amrita Pritam) would be sitting and conversing. She would just lift her eyelids and look towards Imroz.......Imroz would understand whether she needed tea or a cigarette. He used to quickly go and bring it to her," writes Sahitya Akademi Award-winning author Ajeet Cour in her new book, 'The Blue Potter', turning the pages of which feels nothing less than a deeply emotional connect she has had laid out about the 'The Creative Genius of Punjab', the titular piece used to denote the personalities.

At a time when thinking of the cultural land of Punjab now, maximum, gets one to the extravagant Lohris, giddas, or names like Diljit, AP Dhillon, Moosewala, and Guru Randhawa, the Padma Shri Cour has brought about the insides of the lives of the eminent Punjab personalities that laid a strong cultural and literary foundation for the state and for its natives to take pride in. While there can't be any old guard vs young turks debate, this book is a much pensive personal and experimental effort at a time like now.

However, to call Cour's attempt "experimental' for this is hardly justified, given her career spanning the life of an accredited journalist and a well-known Punjabi fiction writer. Why it is still justifiable is the time when it comes out for the readers - as Punjab deals with immense shame for not just the age-old drug cases but some of the heinous crimes and incidents that have been reported in recent times. The task has been well managed by Sushindar Jeet Kaur, who has translated Cour's Punjabi into English in this Alpeh release.

While many from the book stand out for a special mention, through a chapter on the publisher Bhapa Pritam Singh, she highlights, through Singh's lens, how the sprouting of Punjabi writers had a shaky beginning. She quotes him say: "....Every Punjabi thinks he has become a critic, and every young person who writes a love letter in Punjabi.......considers himself Waris Shah.....You will be surprised to know that the Punjabi Central Writers' Association now has over a thousand members, all claiming to be writers!'

One of the many beautiful traits that Cour possesses, as a writer, is to let her readers feel they have been involved in the story. Cour does it very intricately, even on the delicate matters attached to the people described in the book. In one of the chapters dedicated to Punjabi language dramatist, theatre director, Balwant Gargi, Cour quotes him: "Whenever some woman has cheated me, I always made the path of cheating smooth for her and always held myself responsible for it." Cour does not hesitate in depicting his stereotypical mindset, yet presents Gargi's defence simply for the readers to decide. 

No personality has ever lived without shortcomings, and Cour shows the courage to speak so well and lucidly about it. Recounting conversations of yore and a meeting with Amrita Pritam after the Emergency was declared by the Indira Gandhi-led government in 1976, Cour says how a praise for the Emergency by Pritam "dismissed her into silence". "This was the first time that I had left without hugging her." Cour furthers the story by telling readers how Pritam was a Congress stalwart.

At times, more than the book being Cour's idea of the character sketch of the people like Khushwant Singh, poet-politician V. P. Singh, Shiv Kumar Batalvi, Kartar Singh Duggal, Mohinder Singh Randhawa, Krishna Sobti, Padma Sachdev, and others who have been mentioned, it tends to give the readers the idea of Cour's personal diary towards the denouement. "I didn't like Chitra's (Chitra Singh) voice. But what could be done? They were together. For Jagjit's (Jagjit Singh) sake, everyone tolerated Chitra as well," she writes in a chapter dedicated to Singh.

It is not to deny that, even then, the book does not become trite or lose its grip and allows for an ephemeral trail through a timely parable that is not just restricted to the sketches, but includes lives and cultural atmosphere around partition, emergency, and most importantly, the literary land of Punjab that people have forgotten.