Tuesday | 14 January 2025 | Reg No- 06
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Tuesday | 14 January 2025 | Epaper

Ajeet Cour, a brave pen-master of word and activism

Published : Saturday, 29 September, 2018 at 12:00 AM  Count : 722
Pias Majid
Pias Majid

Pias Majid

Ajeet Cour, a prolific Punjab-based writer, has become more familiar in Bangladesh for her contribution in the SAARC Literary Festival and SAARC Sufi Festival. This 85-year-old Punjabi writer is working for her entire life to invoke friendship and to get rid of discrimination from the society. Not only the organiser 'self' of this writer works for alliance, but also her creative writer 'self' incorporates the uniqueness of kinship.

She understands and assimilates the ideology of kinship from a broad perspective. The time when religion, race, gender, language and geography of the human beings the outer appearance become the dominant factor of humanity and the 'humaneness' becomes a passive factor, Ajeet Cour writes about her story of social inequality and struggle, and how it shaped her childhood in the book titled Kura-Khawara.  To fight against the social prejudice how one can survive even after being burnt and continue the fighting -- this is what Ajeet narrated objectively in this book. In her life, she - a victim of hatred, intolerance and injustice -- has always raised voice against the social injustice and discrimination by her activities and writings.

She was born on 13 November 1934 at Lahore, Pakistan. Her family had to migrate to Delhi due to the partition. She studied in Economics. At the age of 33, she established Academy of Fine Arts and Literature where she still plays the role of president. In 1991, she founded Indian Council for Poverty Alleviation. For almost one and half an era, from 2001, she is working as the Chairperson of Foundation of SAARC Writers' and Literature. She is a pioneer of several social, cultural and environmental movements of India.

She has penned 10 short story collections, 6 novellas, 20 novels and 2 parts of autobiography titled Khanabadosh and Kura-Khawara till 2016. She has also translated and edited many works of Indian and other sub-continent writers regarding literature and Sufism. When around 50 books of Ajeet were published, almost 70 PhD students researched on particularly her writings. This kind of achievement for a writer, during the living time, is really rare.

She has many more achievements in her bag. She was awarded Sahitya Akademy Award, in 1986, for her autobiography Khanabadosh; got the honour as the Best Creative Person of Punjabi Language in 1992; Punjab University, Patiala declared her as The Most Honourable Writer of Punjab in 2004; and the Indian government awarded her the Padma Shri title in 2006. She was also selected for the equivalent to Noble peace prize One of the Thousand Peace Crusaders of the World. Apart from these awards, her great achievement is her love for peace-loving writers of different languages, literary organisers and global human beings.

Her writings were also translated in Bengali. Jaya Mitra translated Khanabadosh, with the title Gipsi Nodir Dhara which was published from Sahitya Akademy, and Gauri, a novel. Another part of her autobiography, Kura-Khawara, was translated with the title Aborjona by Pushpa Mishra (Mushayera, 2016). With the title Kalo Bataser Kanna o Onanyo Golpo, a selected short story collection of Ajeet, was translated by 15 young and experienced writers of Bangladesh that was edited by Selina Hossain and Rubana Huq (Mowla Brothers, 2016). Selina Hossain and Rubana Huq wrote in the introduction of the book, "She (Ajeet Cour) is equally a celebrated writer and organiser. Every year, she organises literary festival in different States of India. All the writers from South Asia meet under one umbrella over there. They talk, laugh and exchange ideas of life. The festivity brings them closer where everyone unites by the South Asian culture, beliefs and literature. It proves that there is no boundary of literature. She is one of the fore-runners of these literary festivals".

For the first time, I met Ajeet Cour at the SAARC Literary Festival of 2014, at National Museum Auditorium of Dhaka. The second time I met her, it was a significant time. In 2017, it was the time of seven decades anniversary of tragic Indian Partition. The programme was held at Jaipur, known as Pink City. Here, Ajeet Cour organises SAARC Sufi Festival every year. I met and talked her there. I was observing and thinking -- the wrinkles of her forehead may reflect her old-age but the way she was working with enthusiasm was reflecting her youth. In the evening, we, Ajeet and I, were sitting on the bench of old Diggi Palace and conversing about writing and life, the issue of partition was echoing from her side repeatedly perhaps that was her one of the traumatic events of life. The 13-year-old Ajeet left her country when millions of Bengalis and Punjabis were leaving their houses and were crossing the borders. This is how she narrated it: In 1947, when the partition happened, we were at Shimla. We went there for 6 months so that we could avoid the danger, murder and riot that were prevailing at Lahore. We didn't imagine that after returning at Lahore, we wouldn't be able to see our own house.

During partition, how many people lost their lives just because of religion none really knows! However, Ajeet has never looked at life from the negativity of riot-murder-discrimination rather all the time she has searched for the positivity and humanness of life. That is why even in this age she is pursuing her best to keep the harmony with the writers and people of her neighbouring countries.

She is aware about the fact that her writings have been translated into Bengali and other languages. When I was sharing how Bengali readers were amazed by reading her autobiography, she smiled and replied, "Perhaps, this is the uniqueness and success of a writer when other can connects with your words. Your writings can create a bridge by overcoming the bindings of border and language."

In her whole life, she continued the struggle. Everyone struggles for bread and butter, but in a conservative society the struggle for woman is really tough. Humorously she said, "I really don't know which struggle is better: the one who makes bread or the one who writes?" It's because she had to struggle for both, living and writing. The way Virginia Woolf wrote about a room of her own, in the same way Ajeet wrote about her house and dream like this: Actually, the woman never gets her own house. When she stays at her father's house, she is threatened by the idea that she needs to move to someone else's house. A house where she is smashed, battered, and shaped. Then, comes the husband's house. A house where she enters with a palanquin, and departs with the coffin. Husband -- whom you need to consider Parameswar. A house where a husband has the full authority to rape his wife whenever he wishes. The law has termed it as conjugal rights. And, whenever he wishes, he can throw her out of the house.

This bold expressions reflects how strong Ajeet is as a writer. She expresses the fragrance of perfume and the smell of buffalo-shed is equally attractive to her from the childhood. In this way, to give birth to lotus from the wastage is perhaps the work of a true writer!

In one of the chapters of her autobiography, she depicted how deeply she suffered in the roller coaster of conjugal life. For that, she never accuses any individual rather she accuses the ideology of patriarchy which makes women's lives a hell. She believes as long as the cycle of patriarchy is there the woman can never go out of this cycle. When we were discussing regarding the condition of women, I shared with her the struggle of Begum Rokeya and how she fought against the social odds. I also talked about Sultana's Dream, here the way Rokeya described women that truly created interests Ajeet to know more of Rokeya's works. She showed a genuine interest to read about Begum Rokeya.

She also played an active role in congregating the writers of different generations of Bangla literature through the literary festivals. Along with Shamsur Rahman, Syed Shamsul Haque and Selina Hossain, she has read the translated writing of young poets and prose writers of the Bengali literature. She believes the non-communal essence of Bengali literature will assist in establishing a tolerant and sophisticated society in the long run.  The contemporary Punjabi literature or any other literature of the world always glorifies the humanity the most. Even after that, the saddest part is still now the light of humanity couldn't remove the darkness of ignorance. The free-thinkers, writers, publishers and organisers still loss their lives for their commitment to liberal knowledge. The women are under the suppression and victim of the inequality like the character from Ajeet's fiction Gauri. These things saddened Ajeet on one hand, on the other hand it makes her more determined to go through the fighting against injustice and inequality.

The world is going through the turmoil of intolerance, genocide, mass killing, nuclear war and what not. Ajeet is aware about the brutal ethnic cleansing of the Rohingyas of Myanmar. She assumes this kind of discrimination comes from ignorance. And, this discrimination leads to racial hatred, fundamentalism and communalism. To resolve this extremism, she calls for peace and humanity, and arranges Sufi festival as Sufism encourages inward goodness of humanity. Sufism assimilates the outward and inward qualities of human beings, and it preaches to have a balanced life. It inspires to remove the darkness of intolerance, riot, hatred, and partition amnesia.  Ajeet Cour is trying her best to spread the light of knowledge and humanity.

Pias Majid is a poet and this write up is translated by Asmaul Husna


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