CHAPTER – 5

AMRITA PRITAM’S PINJAR AND ITS FILM VERSION

A story of love and hate, a tale of complexities of human mind and the

rehabilitation of abducted women with Partition as the backdrop builds the plot of

Punjabi, Hindi and later translated into English novel Pinjar alias The Skeleton and

other Writings. The novel Pinjar is written by Bhartiya Gyanpith Award recipient

Amrita Pritam. It has been later translated into English titled The Skeleton by equally

eminent writer Khushwant Singh. The novel came out in 1950, soon after Partition.

This same novel was brought on screen by Chankya fame director Chandraprakash

Dwivedi in 2003, almost after fifty years.

5.1 Amrita Pritam

Amrita Kaur was born to Kartar Singh and Rajbibi of Gujranwala, Punjab (at

present in Pakistan) of undivided India in 1919. She was married to Pritam Singh

Kwatra in 1936, but the two got separated in 1960. As a consequence of her marriage

to Pritam Singh she had two children and her identity as Amrita Pritam. In 1947,

amidst communal violence that followed the Partition of the subcontinent, Amrita left

Lahore and migrated to Delhi, India. In India, she worked with All India Radio for a

long time.

She was emotionally attached to the renowned lyricist Sahir Ludhyanvi as

mentioned in her autobiography Revenue Stamp. Thereafter, she spent last few

decades of her life in the companionship of Imroz, the known painter, till she took her

last breath. She passed away at the age of 87 in October, 2004.

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 Amrita Pritam’s pen started to follow her thoughts at a very young age of

twelve or thirteen. Since then, she has to her credit 27 novels and novelettes, 8

collections of poems and 38 other prose works which includes short stories,

travelogues and also her auto-biography. Her novels include Pinjar, Doctor Dev,

Naagmani, Yatri, Aaj Ke Patte, Koi Nahi Janta, Yah Sach Hai, Terhavaa Sooraj,

Unyas Din, Jalaa Vatan, Jebkatren, Kacdhi Sadak, Ek thi Anita, Dilli Ki Galiyan,

Kore Kagaj, Ghonsla, Unke Hastakshar, Saagar Aur Spiyan, Bandol Darvaja, Aag ki

Lakeer, Naa Raadha Naa Rukmani, Ek Sawal, Ariel, Bulaawaal, Ek thi Sarla, Eksimo

Smile and Pighalti Chattaan.

Pinjar, her debut novel is a saga of pain and pangs experienced by women

during pre-partition and Partition period. It tells of women’s abduction, dislocation

and loss of identity.

Doctor Dev focuses on true love which is far more important than the physical

intimacy. It sees ‘love’ and ‘marriage’ with a ‘not traditional’ angle and is mildly

appreciated. Unke Hastakshar reflects the writers own thoughts regarding woman, her

problems and the awakening with a variety of symbols. The novel passes a message

that a woman should have strength enough to let her grow even on the rocks. Rang ka

Patta is again a novel proclaiming the victory of love with the backdrop of Partition.

The writer here shows the results of social taboos like dowry system, marriages of

young girls to aged men and exploitation of women and her fight against it. Dilli ki

Galiyan’s protagonist reflects the life of the writer to a great extent. It is a satire on

contemporary political and social happenings and corruption prevailing in educational

institutes.

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 Ek thi Anita is one more novel directly related to Amrita Pritam’s personal

life, her marriage, her feelings for Sahir, her relations with Imroz and the breakups. In

this novel the writer boldly rejects marriage as a social bondage but tries to establish it

as a mature adorable value. Unki Kahani is a story related to the violence and

terrorism spread by dacoits in the Madhya Pradesh region. It narrates the pain

experienced by women in the worst conditions in the areas of dacoity. In Sagar aur

Sipiyan and Naagmani Amrita Pritam mirrors shocking truths of women of Indian

society. It tells of how duty and love in this age become each other’s substitute. Both

the novels explain love, physical intimacy without any sign of lust or dirt.

Amrita Pritam’s other novels in one or the other way reflect Indian woman’s

plight in the past and the present age. All her female protagonists come out as brave

individuals directly or indirectly and challenge the rigid traditions social taboos and

all those who hurdle her life and her emotions.

Apart from her large corpus of novels, Amrits Pritam’s treasure overflows

with 8 collections of poems, namely, Thandiya Kiranaa, Mai Jamma Tu, Jameen-

Aasmaan, Sunehudey, Kasturi, Lok-Peer, Sardheevelaa and Kagaj aur Canvas. Her

38 other prose works include 12 collections of short stories, 3 travelogues, one

character sketch and two autobiographies of which Rashidi Ticker or Revenue Stamp

won her fame and reputation of a life sketch writer.

With her prolific creations, Amrita Pritam could win over not just the hearts of

her readers, but also number of awards and honours. Her writing has brought her

much name and fame. She received Sahitya Academy Award in 1956 for Sunehudey

(collection of poems) and Padma Shri in 1969. She was honoured with Bharatiya

Gyanpith Award, the highest honour for Indian literature in 1982. In 2004, Indian

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Government honoured her with Padma Vibhushan. Apart to many other awards from

different states of India, Social and Literature groups, Amrita Pritam has been

honoured with D.Lit. Degree from the universities of Delhi, Jabalpur and Punjab.

Many of her works are translated in English, and several Indian and foreign

languages. Three of her novels are filmed by known film makers. They are Sagar aur

Sippiyan as Kadambari, Unki Kahani as Daku and Pinjar as Pinjar……beyond

boundaries.

The novel Pinjar has been translated into several Indian and Foreign

languages. Translated into French by Dennis Metrineje, the novel received the

prestigious award for literature in France in 2005.

5.2 The novel

In the words of D. R. More, Pinjar is remarkable for it’s:

“…poetic presentment of the theme of the exploitation of

the weaker sex on the background of the partition tragedy”

(2004: 235)

Amrita had not just heard of Partition, but had also witnessed it. She was

aware of the torture and inhuman insults women had suffered before, during and

immediately after Partition. The agony first appeared on paper as her legendary

blood-boiling poem Aj aakhaan Warris Shah nu…. The poem is an Ode to Warris

Shah, the Sufi poet and creator of the romantic tragedy Heer-Ranjha. This was

followed by her equally noteworthy novel Pinjar. It first came out in Punjabi and

Hindi in 1948 and later was translated into English as The Skeleton by the dynamic

old man Khushwant Singh.

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 Pinjar is a huge outcry hidden behind the silent sobs of thousands of females

like Pooro, a victim of religious and communal conflicts during the Partition of the

Indian subcontinent. Having caught the disturbance of Partition with great immediacy

and tragic power, this novel becomes an intimate leap into events that tear apart the

world of females like Pooro.

At the outset of the novel, Pooro the leading character, while shelling peas, is

recollecting her past. She is in a nostalgic mood. She feels her body polluted as if she

is nurturing a worm in her womb. As she shells the peas her thoughts shell her past.

She travels a few years back to her parents place at Chhattovani village down the

memory lane. The thoughts revealed that Pooro, a young beautiful fourteen year old

girl is the eldest daughter of a Hindu ‘Sahukar’ moneylender’s family. They belong to

Chhatovani village in Punjab of undivided India. Pooro has three sisters and one

brother. Her mother is expecting one more child. She gathers other woman folk of the

village to perform a ritual so that she is blessed a son by the goddess ‘Viddhimata’.

The subcontinent then was already in the clutches of the horror of Hindu –

Muslim – Sikh hostility. The novelist has pointed to the danger from the Muslim in

the beginning of the novel. “…Hindu girls never dared to venture out except in the

broad daylight of the afternoon” (2003:03)

Thus from the very beginning the writer has made her readers aware of the

attitude of the two major communal groups, Hindus and Muslims, towards each other

during pre-partition and partition period.

As the novel advances, Pooro’s marriage is being discussed. The family settles

their choice on young Ramchand, son of a well-to-do family from a nearby village

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Rattoval in Punjab of undivided India. Along with this, the marriage of Pooro’s

younger brother is fixed with Ramchand’s sister Laajo.

Both the families start preparing for the two marriages. But destiny’s plans

were extremely different. One day a Muslim Youth Rashid abducts Pooro in the

bright daylight in front of her younger sister. He locks her up in his house on the

farms outside the village.

A family feud is linked with this abduction. Rashid discloses it to Pooro. The

Sheikhs (Rashid’s family) and Sahukar’s (Pooro’s family) are not on good terms.

Before years Sahukars had abducted Rashid’s aunt for the debt of a very small amount

of money. They had kept her with them for three nights. This and Pooro’s family’s

arrival at Chhatovani made Sheikhs provoke Rashid to abduct Pooro and revenge the

Sahukars. But along with this he reveals one more secret. He truely loved Pooro. He

said:

“It was my love and the prodding of the Sheikhs which

made me do this. But I cannot bear to see you so sad.” (20)

Pooro is surprised to see Rashid, her abductor being gentle and caring towards her. He

even proposes to marry her.

The mournful process of abduction is aggravated by the rejection from her

parents when Pooro succeeds in escaping from the clutches of Rashid. Her parents do

not let her in. Instead they say:

“You have lost your faith and birthright. If we dare to help

you, we will be cut down and finished without a trace of

blood left behind to tell our faith”. (23)

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 Shocked Pooro returns to Rashid. She marries him and moves to a nearby

village. In the due course she is pregnant. She is renamed as ‘Hamida’ and her new

name, as if to establish her new identity, is tattooed on her hand. Priyadarshini Das

Gupta says about Pooro:

“Now she is Pooro only in her dreams and in her

reminiscences of her parents’ home. This duality she

cannot take affably to and is soon reduced to mere skin and

bones.” (2013:05)

Though Rashid did not call her Hamida, Amrita writes:

“In her dreams, when she met her old friends and played in

her parents’ home, everyone still called her Pooro” (25)

And again,

“It was a double life. Pooro became Hamida by day and

turned back Pooro by night. In reality she was neither

Hamida nor Pooro; she was just a skeleton, without a shape

or a name.”(25)

Pooro cannot even accept her own child. For her it is Rashid’s torture. She is

bewildered with the thought that she is carrying a portion of a person who has spoiled

her life:

“He had been planted inside her by force…. against her

will.” (33)

She thinks, “Only if she could take the worm out of her womb and fling it away.” (01)

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And she feels, “…as if the boy was drawing the milk from her veins and was sucking

it out with force…” (33)

During this turmoil, Pooro alias Hamida comes in contact with three females

living a wretched life. Kammo is a motherless young girl who is ill treated by her

aunt. She sees her mother in Hamida, but her aunt bans their meeting. Tara is

suffering with some unknown disease and is fed up of her own life. Her husband has

brought another woman to live with and forces Tara to become a prostitute. Both are

in their full senses but pass through the torture silently so as to get three basic needs

of life: food cloth and shelter. They suffer but they continue to live.

A mad woman arrives to village outskirts where villagers serve her food. She

goes around half clad and half fed. But the villagers are shocked to know one day that

she was pregnant. She is found dead with the birth of a baby boy. Hamida and Rashid

bring the mad woman’s child home and take care of the infant. She even breastfeeds

the child. All the three female characters are treated merely as a body, not as humans.

Pooro calls them all a ‘cage’, a skeleton compelled to suffer as if they had no heart, no

soul, and no feelings.

Owing to Rashid’s co-operation and caring nature, the three miserable lives

around her compel Pooro alias Hamida to rethink about Rashid.

“He had not left her, not thrown her out. She was safely

settled in his house. He was a kind husband”. (48)

She wants to forget her past and live a peaceful life with Rashid as Hamida.

But again her memories are ignited when she is to accompany an old woman for cure

of her weak eyesight to Rattoval, Ramchand’s village. The two come across each

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other, they recognize each other, but none of the two utter a word. She returns to her

family, once again disturbed.

One day Rashid comes to her with a bad news. Pooro’s brother had set fire to

their crops at Chhattovani village. This seemed to be an act of revenge. The year was

1947. As an irony to this act of setting crops on fire, communal discord erupts and

rises to an unbelievable height. The canvas of Partition is smeared with horrible

colours of murders, abductions, rapes and destructions. Not so surprisingly, none of

the creative writers selected for this study hesitates portraying the horror attached to

the event of Partition. The difference lies in the time and tenor, depending on their

subsequent individual sensibility and point of view. Amrita is very precise with her

pen:

“The streets ran with blood and were said to be muddled

with human corpses with no one to bury or cremate them”

(81)

During these days, a Hindu refugee group takes a night halt outside their

village. Ramchand and his family were among them too. Hamida goes to meet him.

Ramchand tells her that his sister Laajo, who was now also her brother’s wife, had

been abducted by Muslims. He requests Pooro to save his sister, Laajo. Back home,

Pooro pleads to Rashid to help her locate and save the girl. Together they are able to

locate her. She was confined in her father’s house by a Muslim of Rattoval. They help

her escape. She is brought to their house. One day Rashid informs the two females

about the Government proclamation. The people were requested to hand over all

abducted Indians so as to bring back their counterparts from India. Parents had been

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requested and pleaded to accept their abducted daughters back. The religion had

started to become accommodating and flex the rigid clutches of orthodoxy.

Pooro with Rashid hands over Laajo to Ramchand and Pooro’s brother. Her

brother urges Pooro to return to India. Pooro too was aware that this was her only

chance. But she challenges the obsession with borders and boundaries. She reaches

the climax of acceptance and challenge. She declares her choice “My home is now

Pakistan” (84). She comes back to her family-Rashid and her son Javed.

As quoted by Kalpana Raithatha, Lakshmichand Jain, the Director of Bhartiya

Gyanpith comments about Amrita’s writing:

“The one who has the knowledge and experience of the

female’s physical, mental and emotional structure, the one

who has heated herself to gold ornament in the

force/excitement of tension, conflict and pure love even in

the difficult situations, such a Amrita’s creation can be

appreciated only with the warmth of the blood flowing in

the veins and the throbs of the beating heart (translated

from Hindi). (2008: 63)

Amrita Pritam has used two types of narrative techniques in Pinjar -Stream of

consciousness and third person narration. The reader comes to know about Pooro’s

past, her grievances and anguish for Rashid and their son through the stream of

thoughts running in Hamida’s mind, the rechristenised Pooro. The same is with Tara.

She is one of the three females Pooro meets at Sakkar. Her illness and her husband’s

attitude towards her are unbearable. She wants death to free her from the cage of life.

Leaving these two characters, Amrita has used third person narration to introduce

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other characters. The readers gradually come to know of other characters through the

external narrator. Readers are not given an excess to their psyche. However, the

horror of partition is well expressed largely through the characters of Pooro, Rashid,

Ramchand and Laajo.

Pooro, the leading character of Amrita Pritam’s Pinjar has been nourished as a

paradigm of power hidden in a woman and its significance and manifestation. Her

mood has constant shifts. This makes her character realistic. From the very beginning

to the end, with each event she becomes one more woman on the pages of Pinjar.

Pooro’s nausea for the child in her womb, anguish for Rashid’s mean act of her

abduction, awaiting the moment of her marriage to Ramchand, rechristenised to

‘Hamida’, her acquaintance to Kammo, Tara and the mad woman, helping Laajo, the

gradual positive change in her attitude for Rashid, and finally her decision of

considering Pakistan her home forever altogether makes her character round. Long

back her return was rejected by her parents and she had to go back to Rashid:

“When she had come this way earlier, she believed she was

returning to life…, she had come full of hope. Now she had

no hope, or any fear too.” (23)

But when she declares Pakistan as her home, according to Priyadarshini Dasgupta:

“Pooro, thus, makes the non-normative choice to refuse the

offer of inclusion and interpolation into family, community,

nation that was once denied to her. In doing so she

recreates her own identity, ‘Hamida’ which had been once

thrust upon her.”(2013: 5)

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 Initially, Rashid’s character seems to be a negative, villainous one. But the

writer gradually brings out the virtues hidden behind the first and only one mean act

of his – abducting the girl he likes in the rage and provocation of age old revenge. He

is actually kind and considerate by nature. He continuously contemplates his mean

act. This adds to the increasing strength of his character. His character grows with the

story. He supports Pooro in bringing up the mad woman’s child, in helping an

abducted Hindu girl hide in their house, in letting Laajo escape from the clutches of

her abductors and reach home safely. Every time he helps Pooro, he feels a little

relieved from the burden of his mean act, of abducting her.

The writer has made Rashid the medium and the first victim of communal

malice ruling over the subcontinent. During the partition each and every community

prepared for the self defense and harassed and attacked the other community. To kill

was the way to save one’s own self. At such a time of crisis, Rashid saves Hindu girls,

the other community than his, of which one is sister to Ramchand, Pooro’s earlier

fiancé and wife of Pooro’s brother who had destroyed Rashid’s ready crop. He proves

to be growing. He does not remain flat but develops slowly and gradually. He

outshines a real man.

There are many other minor female characters who not only help to advance

the story but also leave long lasting impression on the readers. Pooro’s mother wants

one more son, a brother for her daughters but rejects abducted Pooro; Tara is

disgusted with life and wants to die as her own husband sells her to other men; the

mad woman, half-clad becomes a victim to some lustful men and gets pregnant;

Kammo, the little girl lives with her aunt in a very wretched way and tries to seek her

mother in Pooro; the Hindu girl from the refugee camp whom Pooro hands over to

Ramchand to take care of and Laajo, Ramchand’s sister, is abducted during the

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migration between the two parts of the cracked sub continent. She is put in a situation

similar to that of Pooro. Under Pooro’s shelter she fears returning to the family that

had once rejected abducted Pooro’s comeback. She says,

“So far our families have been mourning loss of one, now

they can grieve the death of two. Pooro, I have nowhere to

go. What face will I show to anyone?”(79)

With these female figures, the writer has tried to show the patriarchal society

asking for the ‘agnipariksha’, ordeal by fire of the second sex during the partition,

pre-partition period and also to-day.

Ramchand, Pooro’s father and Pooro’s brother become the symbols of

helplessness in front of the orthodox conventional thinking, religious fury and

migration of bewildered multitude and confused magnitude. Leaving Rashid, no male

character reaches the height of Pooro.

Amrita Pritam has passed through Partition and her experiences find first hand

expression in Pinjar. Besides this, Unke Hastakshar and Dr. Dev also voice her

trauma. She once said about Partition:

“I have written a lot on communal quarrels, and now I am

tired of it……Man has still not understood Mohmmad,

Nanak or Krishna. He is still entangled in meager things

and is there only where he previously was. How would he

understand that love and lord are one only” (translated)

(2001: 20)

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 Pinjar can be considered document of this terror, especially woman as its

major victim. The novel, off course, starts with the communal hatred of pre-partition

period, but it takes a turn at the midway. At the middle of the novel Amrita shows the

disturbance of the partition. It results in not just killing one or two persons but

butchering men, women and children beyond imagination.

“Hamida, with her own eyes, saw men collecting steel

weapons and having their edges sharpened…everyone was

saying, we will not let a drop of Hindu blood remain in our

country”. (80)

The writer shifts the novel to a violent complex chapter in Pooro’s life,

making the shades of the horror of Partition riots severe and turmoil.

“…the streets ran with blood and were said to be cluttered

with human corpses, with no one to bury or cremate them;

the stink from putrefying flesh hung in the air spreading

pestilence”(81)

Readers witness partition to a great extent through bewildered Pooro’s eyes.

She sees a young band of goondaz dancing about a naked girl. She also hears that

girls were stolen from the refugee camps in the night and returned in the morning. A

girl was taken away like this for nine continuous nights before Pooro helps her out.

Many girls were abducted and forced into marriage.

The writer tries not to be bias. She narrates the happenings on the other side of

the border too.

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 “News come of worn out conveys of Muslims coming

across the frontier. Many had died in India; many had

fallen by the wayside and many others had given in to their

wounds after their journey was over”. (83)

Amrita’s story of Partition, its horror and tragedy has man as the tormentor

and woman as the sufferer. The novel settles to a great extent with plight of women in

that crisis. It focuses more on the trauma of women abducted, raped, murdered,

stripped, paraded naked in the streets, forcefully married or made slaves by the

opponent community.

Unlike other Partition novels, Pinjar ends with recognition, recovery and

rehabilitation of the abducted women. As Bharti Ray quotes, Nehru too had made a

strong public appeal:

“I am told that there is unwillingness on the part of the

relatives to accept those girls and women… This is most

objectionable and wrong attitude to take and any social

custom that supports this attitude must be condemned.

These girls and women require our tender and loving care”.

(1999: 10)

Pooro compares the two times: when she was abducted and her return was

rejected by her parents and 1948, when families and community came searching for

their females. She was pure and was yet considered unclean at that time.

“When it happened to her, religion had become an

insurmountable obstacle; neither her parents nor her in-

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 laws to be, had been willing to accept her. And now the

same religion had become so accommodating?” (112)

Thus Amrita Pritam’s Pinjar, translated into English by Khushwant Singh

titled ‘The Skeleton’ is the tale of a young girl who becomes a victim of cross-

religious abduction but defies the patriarchal and territorial boundaries effectively

using her power and significance to assess critically the bitter reality of Partition by

choosing to stay on the other side of the border. Not that she hates her people, her

community, her India. But she accepts her bitter truth:

“Any girl whether Hindu or Muslim is welcomed back in

her home, take it that Pooro’s soul too has reached back to

its home.” (118)

As Raghu Ram Bandi puts it:

“The cinema’s business is not the photographing of

theatrical décor, a pre-stylized reality, but the

photographing of actual physical reality so that it has

style.” (2009: 9-10)

Amrita Pritam’s Pinjar too got a different style by Chankya (tele series) fame

writer, actor, director Dr. Chandraprakash Dwivedi. It fully satisfies the argument put

forward by Joy Gould Boyum:

“In assessing an adaptation, we are never really comparing

book with film, but an interpretation with an interpretation

the novel that we ourselves have recreated in our

imaginations, out of which we have constructed our own

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 individualized ‘movie’, and the novel on which the film-

maker has worked a parallel transformation. For just as we

are readers, so implicitly is the film maker, offering us,

through his work, his perceptions, his visions his particular

insight into his source. An adaptation is always, whatever

else it may be, an interpretation” (1989: 61-62)

5.3 Chandraprakash Dwivedi

A qualified medical professional, Chandraprakash Dwivedi has proved his

talent as a film director, script writer and actor He had cultivated deep interest in

Indian Literature and Indian theatre. Born in 1959 at Lakhmipur Kheri District of

Uttar Pradesh, Dwivedi, entered the medium of entertainment and theatre as an actor-

director in 1991 with his television epic Chanakya. The debut creation opened the

doors of television and cinema for him with a bang. This was followed by one more

television series Mrityunjay based on the same titled Marathi novel by Shivaji

Samant. It is on the life and relations of Karna, a major character of Mahabharat. This

snatched him the screen Videocon Best Director award of the year. Next was Pinjar

in 2003. This was his debute large screen film. It brought to the unit Film-Fare Best

Art Direction Award to Manish Sappal and National Award for Best Actor to Manoj

Bajpai. In 2012 one more Tele Series Upanishad Ganga came on the small screen.

Dwivedi has at present two projects on floor – The Legend of Kunal (a film based on

Emperor Ashoka’s son Kunal) and Mohalla Assi set around Assi Ghat, Varanasi.

Dwivedi’s commitment to exploring India’s cultural and historical heritage

and bringing it to the mass through the medium of films has been duly recognized and

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honoured with ‘Cultural Catalyst Award’ by South Asian Cinema Foundation in

2009.(Wikipedia)

According to Somdatta Mandal there could be several reasons why a film

maker adopts a story from the print medium into film. She opines that a director or

film producer would do so when “…he wishes to present his personal interpretation

of the original story through his own language of film” or when “…he wishes to take

up the challenge of recreating a period in history and the original literary source has

been picked up mainly for the period element.”(2005: 49-50)

Both these reasons can be attached to the pair of creator and creation, namely,

Chandraprakash Dwivedi and Pinjar…beyond boundaries. In his interview to

Sukanya Verma, a day before the release of his film, he says:

“I wanted to make serious cinema. Serious literature

fascinates me… I read Pinjar. I was sure I would be able to

make it into a meaningful film. What I found special about

the novel was its depiction of the crumbling structure of

society, people’s beliefs, faith, values of life and principles.

(2003: n.pag)

And he adds,

“Re-creation has become a habit with me”. (2003: n.pag)

5.4 Film Pinjar… beyond boundaries

Pinjar… beyond boundaries a full length commercial film, released in

October 2003, tells the tale of religious slits between Hindus and Muslims. This

religious slit was present before Partition but had reached a monstrous height at the

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end of the colonial rule. It brought human morals to a piteous depth in 1947, during

the time of Partition. The film reflects the dogmatic beliefs, rigid customs and

traditions attached to religious boundaries and its worst effect on the second sex.

Following is the crew of the film….

Film: Pinjar…beyond boundaries (2003)

Director: Dr. Chandraprakash Dwivedi

Producer: Lucky Star Produciton

Screenplay: Dr. Chandraprakash Dwivedi

Based on: Amrita Pritam’s Pinjar

Lyrics: Amrita Pritam, Gulzar

Music: Uttam Singh

Cinematography: Santosh Thundiyill

Editor: Ballu Saluja

Art: Muneesh Sappel

Cast: Urmilla Matondkar, Manoj Bajpai, Sanjay Suri, Sandali Sinha,

Priyanshu Chatterjee, Isha Koopikar, Lilette Dubey,

Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Farida Jalal, Alok Nath, Sima Biswas,

Dina Pathak….

Without fearing any controversy, Dwivedi has boldly handled the sensitive

issue of Partition. The film starts with Pooro (Urmilla Matondkar) and her family at

Amritsar. Pooro’s family includes her father (Kulbhushan Kharbanda), her pregnant

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mother (Lilette Dubey), her elder brother Trilok (Priyanshu Chatterjee), her younger

sister Rajjo (Isha Koppikar) and a kid sister.

They are shifting to Chhatowani, their village on Indo-Pak border in Punjab.

Her marriage is fixed to young cultured educated man Ramchand (Sanjay Suri) of

Rattowal in Punjab of undivided India. The time period is 1946. Pooro’s brother is a

freedom fighter. Pooro and her family’s joy get shattered when Rashid (Manoj

Bajpai) a Muslim of the same village kidnaps her. There had been an ancesteral

dispute between their families. Abduction of Pooro was to settle the past scores.

When Pooro escapes from Rashid’s prison and goes to her parents, they do not

accept her. Left with no other option, Pooro marries Rashid. Her dislocation gives her

a new name, ‘Hamida’. On the other end, Trilok is married to Ramchand’s sister

Laajo (Sandali Sinha) and Rajjo is married to Ramchand’s cousin brother. Rashid

leaves the village with Hamida and the two settle in the nearby village Sakkar. Pooro,

greatly depressed by all the happenings conceives but mis-carries the child.

She thereafter starts bringing up the child of a mad woman who had died

during the delivery of the child. But very soon, the child is taken away by the Hindus

of their village.

In 1947, the British leave India splitting the country into two. The effects of

Partition were equal to people on the either sides. Rattoval and Sakkar become part of

Pakistan. Rajjo has gone to Amritsar with her brother. But Laajo, Ramchand and their

parents are caught in clutches of riots. Laajo is abducted by some Muslims. Pooro

meets Ramchand who pleads to save his sister. Pooro, with Rashid’s help,

successfully helps Laajo to escape from her abductor. They hand over Laajo to Trilok

and Ramchand at the border.

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 Trilok and Pooro’s meeting is full of tears. Trilok asks Pooro to return and

marry Ramchand. But Pooro surprises them by saying that she now belongs to

Pakistan. Rashid has already left the place. Pooro runs around searching for him. She

finds him and says the he was her truth. They bid farewell to Laajo, Ramchand and

Trilok.

In the able hands of Dwivedi Pinjar, the novel is transformed into a sensitive

screenplay with a different sensitive approach.

Unlike the novel Pinjar, the film Pinjar moves ahead with linear time. The

novel begins with present time, shifts to flashback, comes back to present again. It

starts with pregnant Pooro at Sakkar recollecting her happy past and lamenting her

present. The film Pinjar starts with the ‘past’ of the novel as its present. Pooro is seen

enjoying her youth at Amritsar with her family at the out-set of the film. She is not a

fourteen years old child. Neither is her brother a child too. Both are matured enough

to understand and enjoy their lives. Pooro’s brother appears as Trilok (Priyanshu

Chatterjee) in Dwivedi’s film. He has an identity outside his home. He is a Congress

activist.

Dwivedi has filled the first forty five minutes of the film with bright colours

and bright light. The songs and settings of huge Punjabi houses reflect the joviality of

Pre-Partition Punjabi families. People are shown living and working together. It

shows undivided subcontinent. He has used space to show time. George Bluestone

has given the difference between time and space used by films and fiction.

“…The novel renders the illusion of space by going from

point to point in time; the film renders time by going from

point to point in space.”(1957: 61)

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 This part of the film is full of light, bright colours, farms under the bright open

sky, music, dances; laughter’s and smiles depicting joy and happiness.

In the film Pinjar there is no underage marriage. The characters are mature. In

the second 45 minutes of the film unlike Ramchand of the novel, Ramchand (Sanjay

Suri) of the silver screen denies the proposal of marrying Rajjo (Isha Kopikaar),

Pooro’s younger sister. He believes that it will spoil Rajjo’s life. She will not be able

to see a husband in him, but would be reminded of the tragedy every time she sees

him. He suggests to get his young cousin marry Rajjo instead and save the family

prestige. Even Trilok (Priyanshu Chatterjee) who loves his sister Pooro a lot and

shares a great attachment with her, files a complaint of Pooro’s abduction. The

novel’s little boy is not that grown up to take any bold decision. Whereas, in the film,

Ramchand, Trilok and Laajo are brought to the 21st Century audience in a convincing

manner. They are young and mature. They argue, give opinions and try to convince

their elders. They are capable of taking decisions.

The second forty five minutes has a mixed atmosphere. It is bright and joyous

on one hand and dull and grave on the other. At Amristsar and Rattoval the two

families are shown living a joyful life, enjoying the fair of ‘Baisakhi’. At Sakkar,

Hamida alias Pooro passed through the pain of miscarriage. Both Laajo and Pooro

alias Hamida’s names are tattooed on their hands. Laajo’s pain has joy hidden and

Pooro’s pain has the sorrow of the loss of identify. This time frame suggests that time

never waits or laments anyone’s absence. One has to continue to breathe irrespective

of absence or loss of one’s kith and kin too. And parallel to this, it also tells of how

one has to pass through the problems, the trauma, away from the dreamt life, and still

remain alive.

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 The last forty five minutes of the film is full of grave colours. The use of red

colour, as an exception symbolizes bloodshed. Through these forty five minutes, the

director portrays the year of 1947 more as the year of partition than the joy of

freedom. This part of the film, mostly follows the text faithfully. Pooro alias Hamida

with Rashid helps Laajo return to her folk. Pooro accept Rashid’s companionship.

The fidelity visible in the first two forty five minutes of the film slowly decreases in

the third part.

Joy Gould Boyum has discussed the word ‘fidelity’ saying:

“…a film might be considered faithful to its source, to the

extent that is implicit reading remained within the confines

of that work’s interpretative possibilities, to the extent that

it neither violated nor diminished then”. (1989: 77)

Dwivedi goes one step ahead of this. He borrows an original literary source

related to a period in history and tries to recreate it without losing the original story.

The novel Pinjar is a sad tale of sufferings of Pooro and other females starting

from pre-partition period in 1936 followed by abductions of females during Partition

of the sub-continent. The film Pinjar is about the same sufferings and exploitations of

Pooro and other females but at the eve of Partition. Pooro’s suffering on the screen

start in 1946 and extends upto 1947where the film ends. Dwivedi does not lengthen

Pooro’s suffering for eleven long years. He also decreases the number of sufferers as

compared to the novel Pinjar. There is no reference to Kammo or Tara’s characters or

their sufferings. The mad woman played by Seema Biswas, the Hindu female refugee

whom Pooro helps to reach the Hindu camp and Laajo are the only sufferers shown

on the screen. One of the reasons could be that he wishes to focus more on the core

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events and centralize the major characters, and through access to their psyche, wants

his viewers to re-experience the event of partition and the novel too. Thus the victims

are depicted more as sufferers of communalism during the Partition period. There is a

shift in the time period and degree of sorrow and also in the number of the sufferers.

This reduction in tragedy helps to balance the audience’s capacity of enduring it.

Tragedy on the screen does fulfill the function of Catharsis. But too much of tragedy,

especially on the screen may dilute the effect and prove melodramatic. The reducing

of the time period turns the story purely a Partition film.

Chandraprakash Dwivedi was born three years after Partition at a place which

was not much affected by the trauma. So in his words, no one in his family had a tale

to tell him about Partition and he knew nothing about its pain and tribulations. For

him the exposure to the trauma of Partition was confined to history, literature,

documentaries, films etc. He spoke to Sukanya Verma on the day before the release

of the film: how he came to know of the minute details about partition, the trauma

that he had never experienced:

“…When I read about it, I realized what a tragedy

humanity has gone through… To obtain the knowledge of

the society of that time, stories written in that period are of

great help. I read a lot of literature from that era as well as

post-partition stories that carry the images and pictures of

that particular time”. (2003: n.pag)

Owing to his lack of personal experience of Partition, Dwivedi’s scenes of

Partition do not appear grave with grey, black and blue shades. In the film one sees

open swords, stabbings, killings, blood gushing out, kids butchered, buses set on fire,

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blood flowing in the gutters with water, girls kidnapped from the groups of refugees

migrating to the other side of the border, house locked from outside and set on fire

with people screaming, shouting being burnt alive and much more. The film shows

everything in its naked form. No masking is used as far as killings, destructions and

abductions are concerned. The last forty five minutes of the film depicts the reality of

days of the Partition in its true colours, actions and reactions.

At Rattowal, Muslims set fire to all the houses belonging to the Hindus. A

mob runs behind Ramchand with open swords. Ramchand manages to escape from

their hands and reaches his house. He leaves the house with his mother and sister

Laajo. There is no news of his father. During migration to India, Laajo is abducted by

a Muslim. Ramchand and his mother are left lamenting the loss of first Ramchand’s

father and then Laajo.

Dwivedi, like Amrita Pritam has tried to remain unbiased with deviation at

two instances. Pooro’s brother Trilok is a Congress activist who follows Gandhi's

idea. In a Public meet related to communal riots at Amritsar during partition, Trilok is

seen distributing leaflets. The speaker in this public meet tells people that, “only a

few Muslim leaders want Partition”. This can be considered a hint to leaders like

Jinnah and Liyakat Ali and others. The film shows most of the atrocities from the side

of the Muslims. Even the harm done by Hindus is shown as a result of the problem

ignited by Muslims. The director thus slips out of the area of remaining unbiased at

few moments in short shots.

When a film-maker makes a ‘period film’, he has to be very careful about

everything related to that specific period. He needs to be faithful to the time,

structure, architecture, language, costumes, traditions and thinking pattern of the

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society of that specific period. This film shows communalism at the outset itself. The

viewer can immediately make out the period the film has used as the backdrop. The

typical Punjabi accent added to the Hindi used by the characters signifies the place

being discussed. Most of the Partition films are the part of genre of historical films. It

becomes mandatory to remain authentic at least through period settings, costumes,

traditions and dialects. One more significant feature of this film is its pace. It

advances evenly, without wasting unnecessary time on any single event or any

unwanted casting.

Apart to the language and dialect, the unit of the film Pinjar has used villages

of Rajasthan and sets of Amritsar and Lahore at Film City, Mumbai to create the

period of 1940s, pre-partition and Partition years. At Punjab, villages were already

crowned with antennas and water tanks. The settings brought Film-Fare best Art

Director’s award to Muneesh Sapal, the Art Director of the film.

Costumes are used us symbols too. The first quarter of the film is full of bright

and shinning colours. Even the costumes are of floral and natural colours. It suggests

joy, happiness and easy life. It also hints to hopes for a bright future. The last quarter

has more of dull, dusty earth coloured costumes. It suggests the storm, the holocaust,

the trauma of Partition shattering once colourful Punjab. In Punjab, both Hindus and

Muslims wear similar attires. The difference mostly lies in the colour of ‘dupattas’

among females and ‘turbans’ of males. In Pinjar the costume designer has not

ignored this difference. ‘Pooro’ is seen with red, pink and orange dupatta on floral

colour dresses, while ‘Hamida has white, black or brown dupatta’ on white, black or

earth colour dresses. While moving from Chhatovani to Sakkar after marriage with

Rashid, Pooro sits in the bus wearing a ‘burkha’. The ‘burkha’ becomes a metaphor

of Hamida concealing Poor’s identity then onwards. Young educated males like

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Trilok and Ramchand are not given any turban or dressing of any specific religion.

This suggests secularism entering the young generation through education.

From Raj Kapoor’s dream sequences to Salman Rushdie’s magic realism,

dream has been a conveniently effective tool to articulate reality in a convincing way.

Dwivedi is not an exception.He has employed the technique of dream to bring his

Pooro very near to the writer’s Pooro. In the novel, at Sakkar, Pooro after her

marriage was ‘Hamida by day, Pooro by night.” She dreamt of her parents, family,

friends and also Ramchand. She cannot forget Ramchand. In the film Pooro sees

Ramchand in Rashid at the time of Nikah and she says ‘yes’. She daydreams herself

as a bride in palquin led by Ramchand. The dreams of Ramchand can be summed up

to the conclusion that she still loved him.

The music in any film, especially the way it relates to the film is very

significant. Pinjar is not simply a film of pangs felt by women in the Partition period;

it aims to mark its presence as a commercial film too. Hence it contains many songs.

The songs help to build the mood or add to the importance of the characters. The song

Mar udaani…mat mar udaani…. become the words for Pooro and her family living

happily at Amritsar expecting and accepting her marriage very soon. Similarly,

Shabani Shabba… explains the festival of Baisakhi celebrated at Punjab. Sitako dekhe

sara gaon… is sung by Ramchand and his sister Laajo on screen. This song tells

much about Ramchand, Laajo and their family. It suggests that Ramchand’s family

was rich, educated and cultured. This song builds a positive image of Ramchand

revealing his peace loving and god fearing nature; his love for music and his faith in

religion. The song is about Lord Ram and his wife Sita’s parting and her

‘agnipariksha’. It turns a hint to the next event. Of all the songs, Chandraprakash

Dwivedi has taken two from Amrita Pritam’s collection, namely, “waris shahnu…”

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and “charkha chalati maa…dhaga banati maa…” Both these songs sing of the bitter

truth of the society: ignorance suppression and injustice towards women making her

existence merely a ‘skeleton’. “waris shah nu…” is a poem written by Amrita Pritam

invoking ‘Waris Shah’, the one who created the famous romantic story of Heer

Ranjha. The writer invokes him to shed the tears of blood for the daughters of India

and Pakistan.

In any film, actors play their roles respecting the script writer’s words. Manoj

Bajpai playing Rashid in Pinjar says, it was his dream role since the college times.

Urmilla Matondkar calls ‘Pooro’ and ‘Hamida’, a challenge to the actress in her.

Dwivedi’s casting and his faith in his artists has extended him exactly what he

desired.

According to Bhavna Somaiya as quoted by Gita Vishwanath and Salma

Malik,

“The advantage of using literature on celluloid was that the

film-maker had a readymade a ready-made screenplay

supported by well sketched wholesome characters. The

disadvantage was that it raised the expectations of the

audience.”(2009:68)

Amrita Pritam’s debut novel Pinjar, later translated as The skeleton by

Khushwant Singh, came as a saga of pain and problems experienced by females

before and during Partition. The novel has two parallel ends. Laajo returns to her

family and Pooro accepts her family. Along with accepting Rashid’s love for her she

was blinded by the mother-hood for her son Javed and the adopted child whom she

loves equally. Even Ramchand, her fiancé is married to her own younger sister. All

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these together play an important role in her decision declaring Rashid and Pakistan

her home.

Pinjar, the film too has the parallel ends as like the novel Pinjar. But in the

film, the director makes this decision comparatively difficult for Pooro. Unlike the

source text Hamida has lost her child as she miscarries it; the Hindus of her village

have taken away her adopted child calling him the son of a Hindu mother; Ramchand

is still a bachelor as he had rejected the suggestion of his marriage to Pooro’s sister.

The only attachment is her developing affection, understanding and forgiving Rashid.

She declares Rashid as her truth and Pakistan as her home.

When any filmmaker goes for the filmisation of a literary piece of work, the

utmost priority goes to the principal objective behind it and the group of viewers. The

shifts that are seen in the film Pinjar can be explained as the film maker’s

consideration of the demands of the audience. Catering the demands of the generation

and inflexibility of time, changes get necessitated. Even after bringing the necessary

changes in the film Pinjar, the director has tried to maintain the theme of its source

text without giving any complex narration.

Amrita Pritam’s Pinjar tells the story of love and hate. It also tells of the

feelings, reconciliation, recovery and reaccepting of women abducted in different

circumstances during Pre-partition and Partition periods. With visible shifts,

Chandraprakash Dwivedi, the director of the film Pinjar has maintained the story of

love and hate where love finally wins.

***

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References:

Bandi, Raghu Ram. Adapting Novels into Films. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2009.
Print.

Bluestone, George. Novels into Films: The Metamorphosis of Fiction into Cinema.
Berkley and Los Angelas: University of California Press, 1957. Prnt.

Boyum, Joy Gould. Double Exposure; Fiction into Film. Calcutta: Seagull, 1989.
Print.

Dasgupta, Priyadarshini and Dibyabibha Roy. "Recovering Women: Reading two

Dwivedi, Chanraprakash. Interview. Sukanya Verma. 22 October 2003. 10 February

Mandal, Somdatta. Film and Fiction: Word Into Image. Jaipur: Rawat Publication,
2005. Print.

More, D.R. India & Pakistan Fell Apart. Jaipur: Shruti Publications, 2004. Print.

Pinjar...beyond boundaries. Dir. Chandraprakash Dwivedi. Perf. Manoj Bajpai,

Pritam, Amrita. Oshoworld July 2001. print.

Pritam, Amrita. Pinjar (Hindi). New Delhi: Hindi Pocket Books, 2003. Print.

Raithatha, Kalpana. Amrita Pritam ke Upanyaso Ka Samikshatmak Anushilan. Anand:

Vishvanath, Gita and Salma Malik. "Revisiting 1947 through Popular Cinema: A
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