I had attended the World Punjabi Conference in Lahore as the
year began and it seemed natural to catch up when many of
the Pakistani delegates were in Chandigarh for the next WPC
as summer peaked. Funny how such back-to-back conferences
happen when bonhomie floods hearts and governments tweak
their political agenda. Anyway, this one was organized at
Shivalik View Hotel (which of course allows a very poor view
of the Shivaliks). The following piece appeared in The
Indian Express as the conclave took off.
In
Shahmukhi,
In
Gurmukhi,
the message from WPC is same
– We Love You
SP Singh
Chandigarh
The tenth World Punjabi Congress, which took off today, is perhaps all about spilling out emotions, as the Shahmukhi and Gurmukhi writers met each other like 16-year-olds and said to each other what 16-year-olds often say in three beautiful words – “We love you.”
Novelists and writers talked like men of letters, Imran Akram of Dawn hobnobbed with local scribes, Saleem Pasha went around distributing his monthly Rozan International journal, Satinder Noor spewed wisdom, Deepak Manmohan Singh cracked jokes, and Avtar Paul worried about the arrangements no end.
But the WPC was about what Afzal Ahsan Randhawa was going through. The man who seemed most disinterested in the goings-on inside the hall at the Shivalik View Hotel, represented the success of WPC. Amritsar-born Randhawa, easily the tallest name in Pakistani Punjab’s literary domain, wrote his first Punjabi novel Deeva te Dariya in 1960. Many of his books are prescribed for the students of Punjabi literature in India. But the 1937-born was visiting Punjab for the first time since Partition.
“There is too much emotional upheaval that I am going through. Who wants to talk literature? I saw Amritsar for the first time; you know I actually passed through Jalandhar. And then someone said in the bus that we were in Ludhiana,” silver-haired Randhawa was speaking like a child mesmerized. Overtaken by emotion because your bus was passing through Ludhiana?
Many like him were trying to drink it in – the atmosphere, the flavour of a Punjabi which sounds somewhat different, the eagerness with which they wanted to know everything. Those who walk the Gulberg area were trying to compare the Sector 17 piazza with it.
Renowned economist Sucha Singh Gill was telling people about economic opportunities that improved Indo-Pak ties can offer. Many were nodding in agreement. Zareen of Panna Art Group from Pakistan was saying people of the two Punjabs love each other. Everyone was in agreement.
Higher Education Minister Harnam Das Johar called WPC Chairman Fakhar Zaman the badshah of Punjabi unity. Zaman felt an inch taller. Johar was soon saying Deepak Manmohan was the pride of Punjab. Deepak smiled like a bridegroom inches away from the altar. Deepak always smiles that way. He is always that distance away from the altar. Ask anyone who knows him.
K.L. Zakir looked contented. Years ago, he scripted Karmawaali, the play about a woman torn by Partition. Today he watched people trying to overcome that divide. As his daughter Kamlesh Mohan, head of History Department at Panjab University, was leading her father out of the hall, he seemed happy that times were changing.
Barbed wire still runs along the border, but love came flooding in from the gates at Wagah. At Shivalik View the levels shot up the danger-mark where it can become permanent. For the next two days, be there, get drenched.
(May 28, 2004)