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CHAPTER III

PASH: A DISSENTER

Section I: A Brief History of Punjabi Poetry:

Like other modern Indian languages, such as Hindi, Marathi and Bengali;

Punjabi language in its present form, is said to have developed between 9th and 11 th

century of the Christian era. Punjabi literature can trace its lineage to Baba Farid, who

wrote in 12th century A. D. and is considered as one of the leading protagonists of the

Sufi cult in Northern India. Service of humanity was an inseparable part of mystic

discipline for him, “Don‟t say a harsh word; God dwells in all men”, (quoted in Kohli,

The Influence of the West on Punjabi Literature 14) he had written.

Nourished by Sufis and saints and above all by the Sikh Gurus during the

medieval period, Punjabi writing can claim a rich fund of creativity in every genre of

literature. But it is the poetry, which had come out as the most powerful medium of

communication in the medieval period. In Guru Nanak‟s times (1469-1539), every

sage who had set out to propagate his message, was a poet. Unlike a typical religious

preacher, Guru Nanak Dev takes note of oppression and exploitation of the people in

his poetry. As is mentioned by Sant Singh Sekhon and Kartar Singh Duggal in, A

History of Punjabi Literature, Guru Nanak Dev writes: “When the people were being

thus oppressed did it not hurt you, O Lord?”(32) Besides a religious and didactic

poetry, the folk songs of the Punjab, form an invaluable treasure of the country‟s

heritage. Actually, because of its unique geographical features; the salutary waters of

its rivers, neighborhood of the lofty mountains and its green fields, poetry comes

natural to a Punjabi child. People of Punjab express their needs, their hopes, their
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aspirations and their love in the form of beautiful folk songs. They tell the tales of

battles and brave warriors and sing in the praise of sword and spear. Along with it

they narrate the tales of fond lovers and fairy like sweet hearts. Punjabi folk songs

describe festivals and fairs, fearless competitors in wrestling bouts and horse races,

which are written and sung in the form of qissas and ballads of war and strife.

After early 40s of the 20th century, there is a sharp decline in the poetic themes

of God and religion in the modern Punjabi poetry. However, the modern poets, like

Pritam Singh „Safeer‟, exhibit an awareness of the dichotomy between the sacred and

the profane. “A distrust of life, a lack of faith in heavenly justice, a consciousness of

sin in beauty and a futile search for truth, are some of the recurring themes of his

poetry” (quoted by Attar Singh, Secularization of Modern Punjabi Poetry 95). There

is, therefore, not much movement forward in the evolution of ideas on religion, in

modern Punjabi Poetry. Amongst the new poets, there was an attitude of comparative

indifference to these themes. God and religion as such were no more live issues,

although, the poets still responded to the Sikh history and tradition in a culturally

significant manner.

Under the influence of Persian poetry and Sufi ideology, strengthened by the

contact with the modern progressive Urdu poetry, exploiting the traditional symbols

and imagery; Mohan Singh, another modern Punjabi poet, had started presenting the

dichotomy between the personal love and the revolution i.e. the love for others. He

had a deep influence not only upon his generation of poets, but also upon the poets of

the coming generations. The medieval ideology which believed in the duality of the

mind and brain, emotion and intellect and the being and consciousness is considered

as the prime source of this oppositional dichotomy. In the traditional Persian and Urdu

poetry, the personal love was presented as something, constituting a downwards pull
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i.e. a thought, which was directly derived from the pre-humanist medieval sensibility

in which indulgence, was a sure way to damnation. The predicament of the

revolutionary, as of choice, as to whom to follow; the heart or the intellect, is

projected well by Mohan Singh and his precedence to consciousness over being,

clearly indicates his adherence to the traditional thought. Another Punjabi poet, who

had shown the adherence to the traditional thought and who preferred to give

importance to consciousness over being- like Mohan Singh, and who carried forward

the tradition of love and service of humanity of Baba Farid and Sikh Gurus in his

poetry, is Pash, who wrote in the 70s and 80s of the 20th century. The present chapter

aims at studying, Pash‟s contribution to Indian Literature, especially, Punjabi

Literature, as a poet of protest and dissent. He not only questioned the traditional

Punjabi folklores and myths, but he also presented them in the light of the present day

challenges and conflicts.

Section II: Life and Poetry of Pash:

Pash, whose real name was Avtar Kumar Sandhu was born on September 9,

1950 in Talwandi Salem, a small village on the Southern fringe of the Doaba region in

Punjab. He was born in a Jat Sikh family which had been living for generations in this

peripheral village. His father Sohan Singh Sandhu, though poetic and imaginative by

nature, had joined the Indian army both to serve the country and to carve out a

supplementary source of income for the family. After passing his middle examination,

Pash, rather than seeking admission for matriculation, joined a technical school for

doing a vocational diploma in the nearby city of Kapurthala. But he did not complete

this vocational schooling. He left it in between and to do his matriculation, he joined a

high school in Jalandhar cantonment. But instead of doing matriculation, he resolved

to seek recruitment in the Border Security Force, but leaving that also in between, he
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came back only to find himself at the cross roads of life. At this stage, he had no

alternative but to settle down in his village. As T.S. Gill writes about Pash in Makers

of Indian literature:

If its natural scenario, simple mode of livelihood and seasonal

ceremonies had enchanted and enthralled him, its utter poverty, torpor

bleakness and its slow and retarded growth had completely

disenchanted and disappointed him (3).

How deep and intense was the effect of the simple and serene life of the

village, on the mind of Pash, can be clearly seen from the excerpts taken from Pash‟s

Diary, which was posthumously published:

So beautiful was the night today! All through I had intimate talk with it, with

dew covered wheat lying asleep on the earth‟s vast bridal bed, with heaps of

sugar cane stalks aglow in the moonlight, with carts standing still like orphans.

(quoted in Gill, Makers of Indian Literature 7)

During this period militant movement had spread out in Bengal, Kerala and Andhra

Pradesh. Isolated and secluded in the village, Pash had started writing what he came

to term as “bellowing Poetry”, (quoted in MI 7) and became a votary of armed

struggle in Punjab. On May 10, 1970, Pash, who was not even twenty at that time,

was arrested allegedly for committing the murder of an owner of a brick kiln and was

kept in the prison for more than a year. This experience had forced him to reflect

deeply upon the concepts of violence, revolution, socialism, cultural heritage, social

institutions and political ideologies. For imparting cultural awakening and an

ideological direction, Pash started publishing a journal named Raging Arrows, (Rohle
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Ban). But soon he realized as he has mentioned in his Letters that around it “had

conglomerated disparate elements of insurrectionary type”, (quoted in MI 7) so he

completely dissociated himself from it. His another journal called, Furrow (Siar)

aimed at publishing literary and cultural matter, but again as written by Pash in his

Letters, since its supporters were “mostly unemployed young men, sons of peasants

and students themselves incapable of rendering any financial assistance”, (quoted in

MI 7) so this more promising venture also came to its unwanted end. The last one to

come out was, Call (Hoka) in the same year, which again on account of financial

constraints could not continue for long.

The net result of all these failed ventures was that the poetic practice got the

better of his political activity. But still any strike announced or agitation launched

signaled his arrest. He was put behind the bars during all such events: the students‟

unrest of 1972, railway employee‟s strike in 1974 and Emergency in Punjab. During

his stay in the prison, Pash got to see the steep contrast between the wretched

treatment meted out to the ordinary prisoners and the great care taken of the political

leaders, irrespective of their party affiliations. All the political leaders were regarded

as the living martyrs whereas the ordinary prisoners were treated as wretched corpses

by them.

Pash got deeply involved in the Naxalite movement around the time of editing

his first journal, Raging Arrows (Rohle Ban). The poems of his first collection, Iron‟s

Tale (Loh Katha) published in 1970, were written under the Naxalite spell and these

poems articulate the sighs and wails of the exploited people. The poems of his second

collection, In Pursuit of Flying Eagles (Ud de Bajan Magar) published in 1974, seem

to raise his poetic act to the level of a revolutionary project. His close study of Leon

Trotsky, a votary of permanent revolution, had replenished Pash‟s view of

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revolutionary poetry. Rather than some propagandist, he visualized, Pablo Neruda, as

an authentic revolutionary poet. Poems of his third collection, In our Times (Sade

Samian Vich) published in 1978, has drawn motifs from all walks of life and these

poems very clearly unravel the role of economy, politics, history, religion and

ideology in life.

Even after doing a teacher‟s diploma course, his revolutionary nature and

ideological commitment did not let him fit into the normal routine of rules and

regulations of a professional life. In order to earn a living for himself and more than

that in order to inculcate the ideals and values in the children of his village, he started

his own school. He used to perform all the jobs; from a peon‟s to that of the head,

with a rare feeling of candor. The mottos that he had placed on the walls of his

school- (i) God is by cowards invented (ii) Mutual strife is what religion teaches, (iii)

Only fools dream of life beyond, (iv) Illiterate women will forever remain servile (v)

Humanity observes no caste system, give the clear evidence of his revolutionary

nature. Undeterred and undaunted, he would have carried on with educating the

village children; had the socio- political conditions in Punjab not, first, forced him to

leave India, and ultimately, to put an end to his life. After leaving India, he became

the editor of Anti-1947,1 a journal bitterly opposed to the activities of the accomplices

of the Sikh terrorists in Punjab, in USA. In the very first issue of the journal he had

offered such a powerful critique of the Sikh terrorists and their accomplices in USA:

their evil designs and perverse intentions, that he became an eye-sore for all of them.

On March 23, 1988 he was gunned down at his tube-well where in the

morning he had gone to have his bath in the company of Hans Raj, his bosom friend.

This also happened to be the martyrdom day of Bhagat Singh who had laid down his

life for the freedom of the country in 1931. Thus ended the valuable life of a person
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who in his poem, “Now I take Leave of you” (Main Vida Hunda Haan) had so

poignantly articulated his overflowing desire to love and live:

You drop all this from your mind, my love,

Except this

That I had intense, longing to live

That neck-deep I wanted to delve in life,

You live my share of life, my love,

Live my share of life, as well. (Trans. Gill 69)

Section III: A Glimpse of Modern Punjabi Poetry:

In order to study the element of protest in Pash‟s poetry, a glimpse of the

history of modern Punjabi poetry and the socio-political conditions of Punjab at the

time of Pash are must. If we closely study the history of Punjabi literature we find that

after the independence Punjabi literature; both thematically and stylistically, is

powerfully pushed towards the portrayal of the rural realities and idioms. Especially,

the Pragativadi Punjabi literature, mobilized a large number of writers from amongst

the lower and the lower middle class, particularly from the rural areas, thereby

widening the popular base of literary activity. Pragtivadi poetry which was

considered as the poetry of social protest was proclaimed to be the poetry of the

people, by the people and for the people. A conscious effort was made to re-discover

the rural folk forms and myths. A total denial of the relevance of the subjective world

of human consciousness and aspiration is the other characteristic of Progressive

poetry. As Mohinder Pal Kohli mentions in his book, The Influence of the West on

Punjabi literature, that after the World War I, the intellectuals of the west led by

Gorky, Thomas Mann and Forster etc. had raised their voice for liberty, “I want

freedom for writers”, declared Forster, “both as creators and as critics ---for the
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maintenance of culture”. He appealed to the writers to be “courageous and sensitive”,

to fulfill their public calling (59). Prem Chand, a renowned Hindi writer, in a big

conference of writers at Lucknow had expressed his disapproval of the art that failed

to present the truth. He maintained that literature should reflect the reality of life and

uphold the cause of humanity, nobility and justice.

After the Pragtivadi and Prayogvadi movement, the next important

movement, which again, is confined only to poetry, is ultra-leftist in nature. This

poetry writes, Attar Singh in his book Secularization of Modern Punjabi:

is popularly known as Jughar (militant) poetry that captures the

imagination of the young generation and has successfully assimilated

all the different strands and tendencies. While accepting the vision of

man disinherited from his heavenly abode, the Jughar poetry visualizes

a possibility of restoring a meaning and significance to this absurd

situation. This poetry assimilates and gathers up all the strings of social

commitment from post Progressive, Prayogvadi modernistic poetry, a

vital and vigorous rusticity and rural ethos, revolutionary evocation of

the Sikh myths symbols and history from the latest phase of neo-Sikh

revivalism. (144)

This new type of poetry, popularly known as, revolutionary poetry, resonant

with sounds of clanging swords and thick with the „smell of gun powder‟, is very

sharp and loud. Jagtar, Pash, Sant Sandhu, Darshan Khatkar, Lal Singh Dil are the

prominent amongst the votaries of this new wave poetry. Their poems are remarkable

for “articulating a reaction against the sophisticated introvert, highly personalized

poetry of the urban poets” (quoted in Singh, Attar. Secularization of Modern Punjabi

151). The new poetry seeks to respond to the rural ethos “with a distinct emotional
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involvement with the exploits of the Sikh revolutionaries of the late 17 th and 18th

centuries” (quoted in Singh, Attar. Secularization of Modern Punjabi 151). The group

of these poets wrote against the age long orthodox religious faiths. The cause of the

communal hatred and accent on caste discrimination and the wide gap between the

„haves and have nots‟ was attributed to the Britishers and the policies and the beliefs

adapted from them. This poetry was inspired by their vision of freedom, prosperity

and equality contrasted with the penury and misery of the land of their birth. They

wrote in candid, plain, straight forward and unsophisticated language which the

highbrow critics may frown at. Their plainness of thought and style created a feeling

for freedom among the Punjabi masses.

Section IV: Socio-Political and Economic Conditions of Punjab in Pash’s Times:

The reasons for the Nexalite upsurge in Punjab were economic, political,

historical and cultural. No doubt the „Green Revolution‟ in Punjab had resulted in

doubling production, but the excessive increase in the prices of fertilizers, pesticides

and insecticides had withheld its gains from reaching the small farmers and even, the

medium farmers. The financial conditions of the farmers now have, even, worsened.

The inability of the small farmers to pay the loans taken from the banks on time, force

them to take their lives. Finding himself at the crossroads, Pash responded to these

developments with enthusiasm and vigor. He writes about it very clearly in his Diary:

That India be the personal property of a few marauders dealing with

the people as if they were buffaloes and cows is not at all acceptable to

me. Nor do I concede that ordinary person be coerced and beaten at

will. India is close to my heart but closer are the people numbering

crores who as labourers and farmers are coerced and dispossessed of

all their belongings. (quoted in Gill, Makers of Indian Literature 19)

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The promises done by all the democratic institutions, including, educational programs

and industrial projects in a post-Independent India, had failed in bringing a socialist,

classless and free society, in which everyone; despite his class and caste is free to live

a respectful life.

Pash‟s village background, peasant upbringing, and his commitment to human

relationships had enabled him to speak on behalf of the village folk with a remarkable

conviction and clarity. Pash‟s poetry, deeply embedded with ideology; successfully,

portrays his emotional responses, awareness of changing relationships, doubts about

traditional values and his intense desire to change or renew them. Punjabi writer and

critic, T.S. Gill writes about Pash‟s poetic carrier in his book, Makers of Indian

literature:

finding that the ideological orientation that Pash gathered under the

impact of Naxalite upsurge had failed to reckon with the human

impulse to turn the world upside down, so to redirect the people to

human and humane ideals, he turned to Leon Trotsky. This was also a

temporary phase because cultural immanence so engrossed Pash in the

subsequent years that what mattered for him then was politics of even

the invariant factors of life i.e. religion, patriotism, marriage, culture

and their other configurations. Had he lived longer, even this would

not have been the ultimate stage of his ideological orientation. (15)

Section V: Pash’s Protest against the Idealistic Portrayals of Folk Life:

Pash, who was earlier, strongly influenced by the Naxalite upsurge, while his

stay in the prison, had got completely disillusioned with its schematic and perverse

propaganda. By now, Pash, had realized the importance of actual experience rather

than an abstract ideology. He started studying life in all its diversity. He not only
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observed, but had clearly brought out the difference between the city and the

countryside life in many of his poems. He was totally against the idea of

romanticizing the village life. There is nothing beautiful or romantic in his description

of the beginning of the day in a village. Instead of “cooing of doves”, (Trans. Gill 18)

the day, begins with the sighing of “Bachna, the addict” (Trans. Gill 18). He writes in

the poem, “This Day”:

Nothing began with the cooing of doves,

The day has begun with Bachna, the addict,

Sighing, for the cat has overturned the bowl

----------------------------------------------

The day has begun with Karmu‟s withering crop. (Trans. Gill 18)

Pash has, nowhere, eulogized or glorified the naivety, simplicity and nostalgia

of a romantic and idealistic type, which is so commonly found in the poems written

on country life. It‟s not that he did not want to sing the songs of the flowers, hills and

water falls, actually, his circumstances had forced him to write about the naked truths;

which were not only ugly, but were equally difficult and hard to accept. This strain

comes out very clearly in the poem, “Beautiful Prison Wall – Papers”, when he

accepts this:

I have repented a lot

When, under cover of words,

Meanings bared their fall. (Trans. Gill 20)

It is not easy to accept this nakedness, starkness and ugliness, neither for the reader

nor for Pash himself. It is not the internment or any physical affliction, which has

forced him to probe his existence, but it is his unbeaten attempt to catch the various

voices; that had always been raised against the inhuman oppression, which has made

him forget and ignore his true self. Though, fighting like Napoleon, Changes and

Sikander, his true self had always desired to stand by the side of Asoka and Gautama,
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who had shun the path of affliction. To Pash, like Gautama, all the things of pride and

beauty seem useless and worthless, and like him, he has denounced the beauty of this

world to explore- the reality of his true self, along with the bitter realities of his times.

He writes in the poem, “Beautiful Prison Wall Papers”:

I see from the everest top

Broken Taj Mahal and

Somnath of bare stone. (Trans. Gill 21)

Pash‟s Problem is that his eyes can‟t find beauty and richness in the objects of this

world unless and until everyone has that privilege and leisure to enjoy that.

Similarly, in the poem, “To the Night”, the calmness and the quietness of the

night, in the village, becomes the symbol of peace before a thunder storm. The serene

and silent night symbolizes the poet‟s self who is feeling sad about the plight of the

village. The one, who enjoys the silence and calmness of the “village air”, and talks to

the stars and fields, would never want any blood to be shed in the fields in which he

has seen the „millet-crop‟, growing and dancing. Pash complaints against the

circumstances and destiny, which have placed him in such conditions in which he has

to cease and replace the peace of these serene nights with a cry for the revolt.

Section VI: Pash’s Interpretation of Love:

Generally, the love poems are considered as the utterances of love if the lovers

are united with each other or, they become the expressions of sadness and pain; if the

separation is their irrevocable destiny, which no worldly comfort can compensate.

While commenting on the kind of love poetry written before Pash, T.S.Gill writes:

Usually in love poems, the addressor reckons with the addressee in

such a way that the monologic address has to go without dialogic

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response howsoever willed it is from the beginning itself. Such was the

leitmotif of love poetry that Amrita Pritam and Mohan Singh on the

one hand and Harbhajan Singh and Shiv Batalvi on the other had then

written in Punjabi. For all that, love poetry, written in Punjabi around

the time that Pash appeared on the scene wore such a recognizable

identity (quoted in Makers of Indian Literature 47).

In the Poem, “In Her Name”, the young and passionate lover sacrifices his

love for his beloved, for some more important and substantial cause. Though the

revolutionary lover, who never bows his head in front of anyone, bends down when

he crosses his beloved‟s door while going to the prison (such intense is the lover‟s

respect and veneration for his beloved) but he holds even more care and respect for

his fields, crops and villagers. More than his beloved‟s face, his eyes cherish the

beauty of, “the sunlight relaxing on the flowing water”, “the moon kissing the

sleeping trees”, “fragrance chanting from wild flowers”, “the “fodder crops

chameleon – like changing hue” and “the evening descending on mustard crops”,

(Trans. Gill 53) of his village. More than his beloved‟s beauty, Pash is concerned

about his fields and crops. He writes:

My every joy is tied to the freedom of the crops,

Every peasant‟s tale tells the story of your smile,

My fate is one with the fate of the changing time,

My tale is but the tale of the shinning sword. (Trans. Gill 53)

Unfortunately, instead of tying his knot with his beloved, the circumstances have tied

his fate with swords and guns. The feelings of sweetness, softness and romance are

replaced by the bitterness, rudeness and hatred against the ones who are robbing the
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villages of their innocence and beauty. Pash laments the loss of this softness in these

lines:

Bitterness has so hardened my face

That moon light gets scratched at its sight,

My life‟s bitterness reserves for history

The challenge to awaken the people‟s might. (Trans. Gill 53)

Like Faiz, in the poem, “Don‟t ask for that love, Beloved”, Pash is stating

clearly his concerns and priorities in the poem, “Now I Take Leave of You” and his

other love poems. He clearly states that he too wants to write of “sugar canes rustle”,

“wheat fields” (Trans. Gill 67), trees, love, waterfalls, and birds and about everything

that is beautiful and pleasant, but Pash chooses to take a leave from all these things.

As before writing a poetry, which has a soothing and rejuvenating effect, he will have

to rage a war against all those, who are exploiting and looting the beauty of his

village. While doing this he will have to take a leave from the entire human and

divine qualities and will have to nurse and nurture the bitterness against the exploiters

to “awaken the people‟s might”, (Trans. Gill 67). At the same time, raging a war,

against the exploitation and injustice becomes a means of reposing faith in life.

Anyone, who does not react or respond to this injustice, is as good as dead, for Pash.

Undoubtedly, Pash gets comfort only in the company of his beloved, and the pure and

untouched beauty of his fields and crops and the moments spent in their company

provide a new lease of life to the otherwise dying human spirit of Pash. He expresses

the feeling of gratitude towards all these things in these lines:

At this moment of farewell, I want to thank

All those things of beauty which

On our rezendevous like a tent would stretch,

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And all those random places

Which made our meetings beautiful. (Trans. Gill 67)

Actually, it is their company, which provides some solace to Pash from the

scorching heat of anger and rage. Like a true romanticist, he declares that these are the

things which complete his life and give meaning and purpose to his life, and without

which, there is no survival for Pash. Similarly, in the poem, “Without You”, Pash

does not hesitate to accept, that it is the company of his beloved which saves him

from the “humdrum” of this world, and her company becomes an abiding place where

he is relieved from the worthless and dry ideals of Science, Philosophy, socialism and

communism, which otherwise keep haunting and troubling him:

Without you I overflow with so much,

With all its humdrum, this world

Crosses the threshold of homeless Pash. (Trans.Gill 64)

A keen desire to live a complete and wholesome life clearly reflects in his

poems. But at the same time, in the poem, “An open letter”, he clearly discards the

poetry which is solely written in the praise of the beloveds. He says, “You who write

letters to beloveds/Refrain from committing paper abortion. (Trans. Gill 16) He

considers the „points of‟ the „pens‟ of such writers as, “impotent”, as they have failed

to produce or create any change or revolution through their writings, which according

to Pash is the most important thing for a writer. Like a true revolutionary, Pash does

not believe in finding the middle path. He does not believe in negotiating the things

which need an immediate disposal or removal. He declares:

That Manshevik is another name for man

Disposed always to seek the middle path,

But such is the pity of it all.

That in life there is no middle path. (Trans. Gill 64)

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Pash‟s love poems hold out the promises of love poetry‟s generic re-

orientation in Punjabi poetry. His poems seek to uncover and subvert the motifs

popular with the love poets of Punjabi poetry. T.S. Gill, while commenting on the

poem, “Waiting”, writes, “the interlocutor in the poem disputes the fact that nature

can ever remain a source of warmth and comfort, as love poetry, has held without any

contention to the contrary” (MI 49).In the poem, “Waiting”, Pash contends the view

that it is the human initiative and will and not the indulgence in nature, which can

reduce the life‟s bitterness. Fed up with his helplessness, when the speaker starts

burning himself with continuous smoking, it is his own inner voice, which guides and

consoles him that probably one day the bitterness and the darkness of these nights

would end. It is his own will power and inner human strength, which directs and leads

him a way out from this darkness. He writes:

Likely to happen though

The poison of the nights may wither

When victory over darkness is won.

It may not be essential then,

To burn the inner self with smoking. (Trans. Gill 51)

In the poem, “Only a Few Moments More”, Pash has presented a fatalistic

view of life. Pash is fully aware that the beauty of his beloved‟s face, “song the stars

sing” and “multi-coloured clouds”, (Trans. Gill 118) are all fleeting and transitory in

nature. Though like a romanticist, Pash is asking for „a few more moments‟ to enjoy

in their company, but he states very clearly that it is their apocalyptic ending that

awaits them:

Grant only a few moments more

To listen to this song the stars sing,

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For dumbness of the sky

Will engulf everything then. (Trans. Gill 118)

Similarly, the poem, “To you”, challenges and disputes the image of the

beloved that the traditional love poetry has so far projected. The conventional love

poetry deals only with the glorification of the physical beauty of the heroine. The only

aspect of her mind that is mostly considered or talked about is her innocence, which,

supposedly, beautifies her physical charm. Instead of showering praises on his

beloved‟s beauty, Pash gives more importance to her intellectual powers and he even

challenges her to grow, so as to be, worthy of his complaint.

To disclose to you the true heart,

Is to pour insult on it

Is to profane the truth,

To complain is to humiliate love;

Go to get worthy of complaint

So far your stature is too short

My complaint to face. (Trans. Gill 117)

Pash‟s definition of love varies from the love of a typical Punjabi poet, which

can be recorded in the eyes of his beloved, or the yellow flowers of „sarson‟

blossomed in the fields. Love for him does not flow like water in the waterfalls or

rivers. Love, for Pash, is not soothing like the shade of a tree which provides comfort

and ease to a person working in the burning sun, in his open fields. Instead of gifting

peace and solace to his soul, his love makes him restless and anxious. Instead of

making him sit under the shade of his beloved‟s hair, Pash‟s love exposes him to the

scorching heat of injustice and exploitation and instead of making him sing love

songs; his love makes him cry and scream at the top of his voice. Instead of providing
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security, his love not only poses danger to his life, but it, actually, takes his life.

Despite knowing all this, Pash is not ready to calculate the pros and cones of being in

love. Once he is in love, he is ready to lose his everything on its altar. He writes:

“Pyar karna aur jeena unhein kabhi n ayega jindagi nei jinhein bania bana

diya.”(Trans. Chaman Lal, Sampoorn Kavitayein Pash 139) Nowhere in his poems

does he complaint or regret for having pains and sufferings in love, though, his love

which is for his village; village folks, peasants, fields and crops, has never let him sit

at peace.

Section VII: Traces of Disillusionment in Pash’s Poetry:

Pash is disillusioned with the social and cultural motifs, which instead of

decorating and refining our life; spoil and deteriorate the already poor economic and

financial conditions. The poem, “The Flock of Sparrows”, presents the utter

helplessness of a father and a brother who due to financial constraints is not able to

marry his daughters and sisters off. Pash writes in the poem:

Flock of sparrows will not take flight

For some far, far off land,

Will always suffer the fodder‟s itch,

Spot of menses on white sheet

Will mock it all its life. (Trans. Gill 88)

He presents the Punjabi folk songs in an entirely different but more real than idealistic

context and provides a new meaning and relevance to the songs which are sung on the

occasions of marriage and other ceremonies. T.S .Gill writes:

“Chirian da Chamba” (Flock of Sparrows), exposes how female

desire for union with the male remains blocked in the pre-marital stage.
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All the smiles, glances, complaints, embraces and swoonings which are

meant to adorn this union vanish into thin air. The folk songs which

record these motifs in words more gestural than semantic prove hollow

of purpose and devoid of promise. The actual life in which scarcity is

deeply embedded shatters the village maidens altogether. As a result,

their living ends up as interminable monotony from which no reprieve

or respite is possible. (MI 61).

Through the poem, “Strange does it Seem”, Pash portrays the feelings of a

village girl who with great passion and care had embroidered and decorated the things

to be taken with her in her marriage, as a token of love from her parents, but how after

her arrival in the house of the in- laws, she has to face an alien situation. Not only

reprimands, rebukes, censures and criticism become a part of her life, but also

thrashing by the husband becomes her daily routine. Pash presents the ugly but a real

side of a cultural and social institution called marriage, where “the ducks” of the

maiden‟s dreams everyday meet with their death, and where the “consummation in

nothing more than a quietly burning Pyre.”(Trans. Ghai 171) He writes:

It is strange

One should let henna‟s transient colours mock

The dreams long nurtured on one‟s palms

Or weave into one‟s breath

The deafening silence of the desolate foreground

After the crowds have dissolved. (Trans. Ghai 171)

Similarly, the poem, “Grass-like Person‟s Tale”, presents the feelings of a

helpless and hapless brother who wants to go and meet his married sister, but he is

unable to do so as he does not have the money to buy presents for his married sister.
174

He laments that he cannot visit her because, “the camel”, which signifies here- the

social, cultural and economic constraints, have grazed away his identity. He says:

While grazing camels, your loving brother

Is by camels grazed.

Sister! He will never come to see you now. (Trans. Gill 113)

Written in the same vein, the poem, “Sister‟s Song”, presents the inability and

the helplessness of a married sister who would not be able to sing the songs of her

brother‟s marriage, as the expenses of her marriage have left her brother in such a

wretched condition that he may have to remain single all his life.

Your songs are welcome

But they, my sister, will not provide

Your brother with a bride,

The shade of father‟s small holding

Will not get him anywhere. (Trans. Gill 114)

This tension and strain between the folklore and the ideology is quiet immanent in

Pash‟s poetry. As is mentioned by T. S .Gill:

These poems no doubt take up specific motifs from the folklore but

instead of reiterating and re-affirming them, Pash uncovers and

exposes the patriarchal power that animates them and now under the

burden of economic privations, social compulsions and cultural

stereotypes has started contaminating life itself (MI 64).

The marriage of a sister or a daughter which otherwise should be an occasion

of happiness and pride, becomes merely a formal ceremony. It leads the father to

depravity and utter poverty and hence casts an evil shadow not only on the life of the
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sister, but also of the brother who will have to toil hard throughout his life to repay the

loan taken on his sister‟s marriage. In a state of utter helplessness, Pash says, “Sister,

we have only songs as our own/Over Time, there is no control!” (Trans. Gill

115)Through such poems, Pash protests against these cultural and social motifs which

neither enrich nor decorate our life, but like “crocodiles”, “close their jaws” (Trans.

Gill 115) to engulf and kill the happiness and joys of the poor and innocent people.

Pash uses legendary and historical resources in poems like, “Mirza‟s2

Utterance” and “Joga Singh‟s3 Self Analysis”, but he uses these legends to show how

the erotic love and the divine sacrifice so much embedded in Punjabi ethos, are faced

with, at the modern historical juncture. Pash‟s “Mirza‟s Utterance”, begins at a stage,

when he had not yet felt the drive of Eros. Instead of undertaking the challenging task

of abducting Sahiban; so as to secure her from social abduction, as per the historical

resources, Pash‟s Mirza struggles to save himself from the abduction that the social

system does through its economic and social restraints. Pash, says in the poem,

“Before you elope with me/Bread may kidnap we instead.” (Trans, Gill 84)

Everything including educational apparatuses and poetic practices, actually, operate to

actualize this abduction.

For Pash, thus, erotic love, so much celebrated and glorified in the popular

ethos takes a new shape, form and meaning in the modern context, in which man not

only has to fight just for his love, but he has to fight for his survival also. The only

thing that is common between this legend and Pash is the end, which Pash meets at

the age of 38, as the consequences of being rebellion like Mirza, though in a different

context and in different situation. Pash was fully aware of these kind of consequences,

and he had no doubt that no one would even, have time to take notice of his death,

because the modern, middle class, common man who is represented by, „Pilloo‟ in the

poem, (with the same title) is so engrossed and lost in earning a decent living for
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himself that he has no time left at his disposal to observe and take note of the things

around him. Pash writes:

I heard the plan to kill me was hatched

In the capital much before my birth,

And the modern Pilloo

Doing job for a living

May find my death

Worthy of no notice at all. (Trans. Gill 84)

Even, the word revolution, which is so glorified and romanticized in Sikh folk

songs and myths, is presented with all its nakedness and ugliness. Pash states clearly

that, “Kranti koi dawat nahin, numaish nahin”, (Trans. Chaman Lal, Sampoorn

Kavitayein Pash 66) those who flaunt and enjoy being called revolutionaries should

understand that:

It is a brutal clash of classes and concepts

It is killing and being killed

And the overcoming of death. (Trans. Gill 16)

He gives a new meaning and purpose to the word revolution. Actually, Pash was not

only fighting with the system and the tyrannical powers, but he also had a tough fight

with himself. If one part of his self wants to set everything right by violently

subverting it, the other part of his self, wants to sit for the meditation. Torn between

these two parts; Pash seems to have lost his fight against his latter self, when he says

in these lines: “Listen to the arithmetic of my rage/Here is the corpse of my civilized

behavior.” (Trans. Ghai 106) He is not only carrying the corpse of a dead and rotten

system in which these is no peace and justice for a common and poor man, but he is

also carrying the corpse of his civilized behavior: his gentleness, his virtues and
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goodness, which is being killed under the strong and powerful feet of the „elephant‟,

of Time. Pash says:

I ask the sun flying across the skies”

Is it destined that events marching

Like a drunken elephant

Should trample under their feet

A man‟s whole being?

That only those who toil

Be charged with every offence? (Trans. Ghai 79)

Revolution, for Pash, is like a „havan‟ in which he is ready to give his „ahuti‟

and this „havan‟ is meant to purify the environment of all its impurities of ignorance

and indifference. Revolution, for Pash is more out of compulsion and need than by

nature. The idea of the wasting of, “the youthful days in rage” (Trans. Ghai 74) comes

out in many of his poems. While clearly stating his will in the poem, “The Last One”

he says:

We would not have taken up arms

Seated on top of Hemkunt.

We would have meditated. (Trans. Ghai 74)

These lines are the clear evidence of the strain that had torn Pash‟s self in two and in

order to keep going with this strain, he even, took help of smoking and wine.

Section VIII: Pash’s Poetry- an Instrument of Protest:

Poetry for Pash is not mere words written on a paper, it is an action against the

onslaught of a discourse which is consuming the everyday reality, and the labour of a

common man. For Pash nothing can be a better use of his poetry than to “burn” his

words “like the oil” in an “earthen lamp”, (Trans. Gill 72) whose dim light would be
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able to provide a ray of hope to the rural Punjabi child to carry on weaving his little

dreams in this pervasive darkness. According to Pash, if poetry cannot be this type of

positive intervention, he does not care for any other use or meaning, it might have, he

says:

Of boys studying in the light of oil lamps.

I want my words to burn in those lamps like oil.

I don‟t see a better use for my poetry (Trans. Gill 72)

In the poem, “I Refuse”, Pash clearly states, “I cannot become the bellows for

your harmonium” (Trans. Ghai 132). Pash refuses not to sing the songs in praise of

the advancement and modernization which has robbed the children from their

innocence and natural beauty. He further says:

Don‟t hope that I, a son of these fields,

Shall talk of your chewed and spat-out tastes

That drowns in their flood

The baby-talk of our children

And the innocent laughter of our daughters. (Trans. Ghai 132)

Pash declares that being the “son of these fields”, he would always speak on behalf of

his people; the poor farmers, the cobbler, the blacksmith, unmarried village girls who

have “buried their maiden dreams” (Trans. Gill 88) under the loads of their father‟s

loan, and an aged hawaldar who has lost his one arm while doing his duty and is

being discarded and rejected by the system. The emotions and feelings of these people

find voice in Pash‟s poetry. He is so occupied with their struggles and pains that the

development and the progress, which is confined only to a particular section of the

society, and which is devoid of moral values and ideals and hence, being worthless;

remains unnoticed in his poetry. The ideal village beauty portrayed by many writers,
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in their poetry, finds no place in Pash‟s poetry. The only beauty that he can see is, the

“beauty of the jet black lips of the woman labourer”, the beauty of the, “maize

chapatti laced with salt”, “the innocent laughter of the village girls” and “the beauty

of the night and its silence” (Trans. Ghai 131). The only music that his ears can listen

to is the music of, “the low caste water woman scrubbing kitchen utensils” (Trans.

Ghai 132). He has nothing to do with the History and Geography that the world is so

occupied with as the only History, that he can capture, is the one which is “imprinted

on the sun-burnt shoulders” (Trans. Ghai 132) of his father.

Similarly, the poem, “Commitment”, clearly shows his disillusionment with

the ideas of socialism, communism and Marxism. He believes that neither the residual

structures of culture like: traditions, religion and ritualism nor the dominant

institutions of politics, power and ideology, have been able to help his men in this

state of utter helplessness and misery. All these ideas are worthless and useless unless

they are able to provide a life of dignity and contentment to all the people-

irrespective of their religion, caste, community and even location (village or city). He

clearly states:

To taste something bitter in tear gas

Or one‟s own blood on the tongue,

Is not a recreation for any one;

We don‟t want anything for form‟s sake,

We want everything actual

Life, socialism and what not- (Trans. Gill 92)

Pash is also against the poetry written in the form of slogans for the

propagation of silly and worthless ideas of political interest. Similarly, the impotency,

mechanical routine and an indifferent attitude of modern man, is a matter of grave

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concern for him. While discarding the romantic ideals and aesthetic aspects of poetry;

Pash deals with the real concerns. The kind of life that Pash got to live was covered

under the beautiful wraps of ideals like, “Telling lie is a sin”, “Knowledge is the third

eye”, “God is one” “All human beings are equal” etc. These ideals, actually, create a

picture of the society, which is entirely different from the one, in which, Pash and his

people were struggling to make a place for themselves. But instead of lamenting in

despair and to let the things take their own course, he chose to expose the naked truths

in his poetry.

Be it war or peace, life had always remained an occasion for celebrations for

Pash. He believed in accepting life in its every form and shade. These lines taken

from the book, Sampoorn Kavya Pash, clearly reflect his attitude towards life:

Dharti Par dhoop ki tarah khil jana,

Aur fir galbahiyan mein simat jana,

Barood ki tarah bhadak uthna,

Charon dishaon mein goonj jana

Jine ka yahi salika hota hai. (Trans. Chaman Lal 128)

Pash through his poems share a dream of an ideal world, in which, man, in order to

fulfill his basic needs, would neither have to compromise with his ideals nor he would

have to sacrifice his dignity and self-respect. His poetry is an attempt in search of an

idiom, through which he can define this new world and his search for such an idiom

motivates him to go behind the „flying hawks‟ (the title of Pash‟s poem).

Only a poet, like Pash, who had an intense and direct experience of life could

make use of images like, “nirdhan ki chati ki tarah pichak gai Ikh” (Trans. Chaman

Lal 143), the one who has suffered at the hands of bank managers and sarpanch could

write about the, “kapti muchein bank kei sachiv ki aur sarpanch ki thane tak lambi
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poonch” (Trans Chaman Lal 144) and a person who had really struggled to make the

both ends meets could write, “tan khwahon ke munh par thukti keematon ki basharm

hansi” (Trans Chaman Lal 144). Pash‟s poems pose a challenge to the poetry written

by the so called intellectuals, who claim to write on burning issues and emotions of a

common man, but, actually, their poems are full of stereotype images and

conventional equations. The freshness and boldness of these lines clearly suggest how

emotions, feelings and real life experiences combine to take the form of poetry. These

lines could only be written by a disillusioned village lad, like Pash:

hum to desh ko samghe thei ghar jaisi pavitr cheez

Jis mein ghutan nahin hoti,

Aadmi barsatei pani ki goonj ki bhanti galion mein bahata hai

Geihun ki balion ki tarah kheton mein jhoomta hai. (quoted in Parihar

Akshar Akshar 161)

A boy who himself has run in the village streets like rain water and who has

blossomed like “wheat in the fields”, (Trans. Gill 151) could use these images to

convey the sense of freedom, enjoyment and security which a person gets or should

get in his country.

In the poem, “When Poetry does not End”, Pash even challenges the

scriptures, philosophies, various ideologies and the concepts like “Stealing is a

crime”, “Education is a person‟s third eye” and that “All human beings are

equal.”(Trans. Gill 58) Through this poem, Pash, is, actually, reminding the society-

the age old forgotten ideals of considering everyone equal and to give respect to the

virtues, qualities and labour rather than class. It is, actually, not Pash, who is showing

doubts on the mercy and kindness of God, it is rather we, who have forgotten that God

had created everyone and he had given all the resources for the use of everyone and

not just for a few who could get it by their birth or by their cunning, shrewd, mean
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and selfish nature. Pash, actually, is representing the modern man trapped in the cages

of exploitative truths and ideologies, which are constructed and are used to develop

consensus by the powerful and tyrannical forces. It is not Pash, who is “a mouse

caught in the talons of a kite”, (Trans. Ghai 135) but it is the common man who is

prayed by the „kite‟ of the exploitative powers and the irony is that the man is not

even aware of this danger.

When Pash says, “Boys once I too was like you”, (Trans. Ghai135) it reflects

his helplessness of not being able to enjoy a carefree life, like his friends. Actually, it

is his acute mental and emotional sensibility, his sensitivity and ability of feeling the

pain of others, his love for the village and its innocent villagers, his ability to perceive

the shrewdness and meanness of the corrosive powers around, and his ever vigilant,

bold and defying spirit that would not allow him to be as carefree as his friends. How

could Pash bless such boys, with a long life and happiness, when there are traps of

pernicious powers around? He could say only this:

My voice is not poetry but rain falling on dirt,

You have neither my blessings nor my advice. (Trans. Ghai 135)

How could he advise such boys, who because of their carefree nature, indifferent

attitude and innocence, cannot even see these ruining powers working! The music,

rhythm and rhyme of the poetry lose its meaning and significance in such contexts.

Pash, who is using his poetry as warning sirens, is, actually, alarming everyone to

come out of the cozy and comfortable couches of apathy. The disease with which

Pash is afflicted and which even took his life is, unfortunately, not contagious. The

pain that he is going through and which is clearly reflecting in his poems is not at all

infectious. Had it been contagious it would have spread everywhere and everyone

would have been desperate to bring the type of life that Pash had always dreamed of.

If we can‟t feel the pain, hunger and sufferings of our fellow human beings, we are
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not worth being born in a human form. If Pash, who was trying to arouse the

sympathy towards the fellow beings and was spreading awareness against the ruining

powers; was declared a danger to the state (Pash was declared a Naxalite poet) then

we all must pose danger to such a state which instead of providing an environment for

the manifestation of the qualities of a true human being; ostracizes, oppresses and

exploits. If we can live with so much of injustice and exploitation around, without

getting disturbed or agitated, it means we are worse than animals or we are as good as

dead. While expressing the helplessness of a modern man, Pash says:

Caught in this mechanical pushing and shoving

Where relationships in reckless motion

Collide against their own meaning

I who simply wanted to be a man

Have become this! (Trans. Ghai 135)

These lines clearly reflect his helplessness of not being able to keep his

innocence and carefree nature, intact. What Pash has become, should be of great

concern not only for him, but also for the whole society, that forces someone to leave

his refinedness and softness and turns him into such a sharp, naked weapon who

wants to violently change the things around him. Pash rather opts to go back to the

days of his childhood where once he had possessed an innocent and carefree nature.

He wants to get rid of the burdens of all the philosophies and ideologies which instead

of making him a better human being- have left him, crippled and helpless.

Through the poem, “Journey” he measures his poetic, intellectual and

emotional growth and expansion. This poem is a clear and direct reply to all the critics

and writers who had criticized him for teaching violence and for singing the songs of

fake and swanky heroism. Unfalteringly, and having no traces of any kind of guilt, he

accepts the blame of “mutilating Galib‟s gazals”, (Trans. Gill 45) but he also says that
184

instead of holding him responsible for this it is the age or the time that should be

blamed. He clearly mentions that he had an ardent desire, “to play upon the flute at

the village pond”, but circumstances have turned him into just a, “brute traveller”,

(Trans. Gill 45) who is now neither worried about the pain nor even about his death.

He is so absorbed and devoted to his journey of protest that the destination itself has

lost its meaning and significance. Pash writes:

From where does the journey begin?

How many colours does the raised dust reflect?

Such question and as many or even more

You can ask from Aflatoon only,

For I am just a brute traveler.

Who has only this to say:

--------------------------------

Journey is not a tale of pain

-----------------------------------

Destination has no meaning at all. (Trans. Gill 46)

Pash‟s protest is also against them who assert that pens should not play the

roles of guns and who advocate that words soaked in the smell of „gunpowder‟ and

blood can never be called poetry. While commenting on Pash‟s poetry, Dr. Harbhajan

Singh, a renowned Punjabi poet and critic had said, “What sort of poetry is it, o

friends? /that grows from the barrel of a gun?” (quoted in Gill, MI 40) But Pash does

not hesitate in accepting the reality, howsoever, ugly and detestable it may be, he

declares:

fine papers

I have consigned to fire

And with a bayonet fixed to the pen

On the jail walls I want to write. (Trans. Gill 20)

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Despite all this chaos and ugliness around, Pash‟s eyes do not fail to see the

vision that takes him beyond this turpitude and depravity. His vision transports him

into the world where on his, „fine papers‟, he will be able to write the songs in praise

of the beauty of his village and “the fragrance of blossoming mustard”. (Trans. Gill

30) He writes:

That beyond the distant horizon,

Hills are there

Fields are there

Upon whose terrain

Rays and pens

Can very well cohere. (Trans. Gill 20)

He also cherishes the vision in which pen would not be used as a substitute for the

weapon for bringing light to the world. As Kesar Singh „Kesar‟ writes in his article on

Pash, “Pash ki Kavita ka Vichardhark Parivesh”, published in the book Akshar

Akshar, that progressive poetry written before Pash, had laid emphasis only on the

power of the upper middle class in bringing changes and revolution and had presented

the lower sections of the society, including, the labourers and poor formers, as the

subjects of their sympathy. But Pash‟s poetry not only rejects this feeling of pity and

compassion, while showing his deep faith on them and their power; he considers the

lower sections of the society as indispensable for bringing changes and subverting the

social order.(67) (Translation is mine)

Neo-colonial powers, politicians and bourgeois have been using modern

technology against the working class people and have been making such policies

which are completely against the common man. The mass culture, which has been

corrupting and defiling the social, cultural and religious ethos, had started spreading

its roots in 70s. This was an era of naxalism, emergency and establishment of
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communist parties and government and non-government militancy. Pash‟s poetry

works violently against such militancy which is taking place not only on physical

planes but is also coercing on the mental, emotional and psychological levels, as well.

He opposed the poetry written in the form of folk songs for the purpose of luring

votes for the political leaders which help in strengthening these coercive powers.

Even, the poetry written in the praise of the beauty of the beloved is condemned by

Pash. He writes:

Shabd jo rajaon ki ghati mein nachte hain

Jo mashuk ki nabhi ka tshetrafal naapte hain

Kavita nahin hoti. (quoted from Akshar Akshar 84)

Pash in the poem, “Time is not a Dog”, sarcastically comments, even, on the

worthlessness of such news, which are published in the newspapers to create

sensation and earn money. He compares these news mongers and money making

journalists with vultures, who without making any effort in finding out the truth; just

feed on the sensational news. While challenging them Pash says that, “Time is not a

dog” (Trans. Ghai 60), which can be tamed by them, and while warning them, he says

that we are answerable to Time and Nature for whatever we do.

Similarly, while talking to the police constable, Pash says that, even, while

sitting in the prison, he is free as he could dare to do what he had strongly felt. He is

free from the guilt of being an inactive and silent onlooker. So Instead of him, it is

this constable who is a prisoner as he is trapped into the prisons of his comfort zone,

personal gratification, complacency, indifference and cowardice. He writes:

And ye rulers

Ask your policemen and tell me,

Who is in prison?
 187

I, who am behind the bars

Or the constable these outside? (Trans. Ghai 162)

Similarly, in the poem, “Bharat”, instead of relating India to any mythological

king like Dushyant, Pash clearly asserts that the peasants and the laborers are the true

“sons of the soil”.(Trans. Gill 1) No doubt illiteracy, backwardness and deprivation

have condemned them to mere vegetative existence but, actually, the country belongs

to them. It is their sweat and blood which has made the soil of this country fertile.

Pash, like a Post-Modernist, protests against all the meta- narratives like, „unity in

diversity‟, nationalism and patriotism etc. The concepts of modernization,

development, tradition, mythology, culture, values, ethics and education which the so

called educated and elite people flaunt as the greatest blessings bestowed upon them

by the country- carry no meaning, no sense and no value for the village folk, who are

deprived, even, of their basic necessities. Pash‟s deeply felt concern for his people

reflects clearly in these lines:

When someone of one Bharat speaks

Or national integration flaunts,

His cap in the air to hurl

Is all then that I so much want. (Trans. Gill 01)

His anger against those, who claim to be true patriots, but, actually, hardly

care for the fellow Indians, is quite evident in these lines. Written in the same vein, in

the poem, “For Withered Flowers”, while speaking on behalf of the illiterate,

backward, and deprived people of the countryside, Pash warns the so called elite class

of the cities who are enjoying the facilities, comforts and pleasures drawn from the

sweat and blood of the poor villagers. He writes:

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Be on your guard now!

Those chewing base bread with onion

Are arrived

To swallow cities, roads, rooms

Your dining tables, trays and all. (Trans. Gill 2)

The speaker of the poem, “Two and Two Make Three”, has lost his faith in the

concept of the country as a sacred or a hallowed entity. The idea of „Bharat Mata‟,

which had come into existence when we were fighting for our freedom, has

completely faded away from the hearts of the people and the words like „tricolor‟,

national anthem, national song, along with the word „Bharat Mata‟ are nowadays

used by the politicians and the neo-colonial powers to exploit the emotions and

sentiments of the people. Exploitation and corruption has taken the place of selfless

love sand sacrifice for the country. He writes:

And man like a spoon is cast,

In courts, bus stops and parks

You must have seen

Hundred rupee notes afloat. (Trans. Gill 08)

He even questions the purpose of modern education which rather than teaching

general human values, teaches dry concepts and ideals of socialism, communism and

existentialism. Instead of spreading awareness and enlightenment, education today

turns man into money making machine that has no human values left in him. He asks,

“What had gone wrong with you the literate one?”(Trans. Gill 02) According to Pash

it is better to be illiterate, naïve and uneducated rather than being educated exploiters

who put to use their knowledge and wisdom to exploit the innocent masses. While

expressing his anger, Pash writes:

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But with full regard to you

To the existentialism you flaunt,

We shall hurl you to the moon,

We are naïve village born people

With neither Apollo nor Luna at our side. (Trans. Gill 02)

Unlike a village lad, who finds city, coffee houses and offices attractive and

fascinating; Pash is able to see the ugliness lurking behind its apparent beauty. Pash is

not a mute spectator, who would just talk about this ugliness, but he has the courage

to enter into the pool of slush to clean it. He challenges the stereotypes of beauty and

grace in the poem, “My Mother‟s Eyes”. The powerful, influential and the most

sought after people, in the poem, who were considered as handsome, in the beginning

of the poem, are nothing, but a part of that ugliness, which Pash wants to be cleaned.

He is least bothered about the stains and scars that he would get while cleaning this.

He affirms:

I got into ugliness,

Waged a war against it

With my face be smeared with scars,

-------------------------------------

That very girl gone forty

Calls her darling son ugly

And I smell a defect in her eyes. (Trans. Gill 09)

Pash is even protesting against those, who believe that things are beyond our

control, and hence are not willing to take any initiative on their part to improve the

situation. Rather they just choose to brood over the fact that, “Steps can‟t consummate

the journey”, (Trans. Gill 10) and hence take no step forward. For them, who think
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that things have turned so worse that, even, “words have lost their powers” (Trans Gill

10) and hence nothing can be done, Pash clearly says in his poem, “I contend”, “Don‟t

talk of the part the journey entailed/Provide me space for the next step to take” (Trans.

Gill 10).

By using the imagery of a drug addict, in the poem, “Dissolution”, Pash

conveys his own restlessness and anxiety for change. His will power or intention to

change the conditions is like opium for Pash. But unlike a drug addict, Pash‟s opium

does not provide him with any substitute and, instead of, transporting him to any other

world; it brings him face to face with the contradictions of this very world. Like a

drug addict, whose life becomes hell without opium, Pash‟s restlessness also increases

when he tries to forsake his desire or intention for change. Pash writes, “When the

adult forsakes opium/he rushes into the pond at midnight” (Trans. Gill 11).T.S. Gill

writes:

The deprivation the addict feels is extremely painful there is a

blockage within, which tends to weaken him mentally and physically

and it is humiliating to come to terms with this enervation. Pash‟s

dilemma of living a life with tender and soft feelings or to react

violently to the exploitative forces persists like constipation which not

only causes physical discomfort but it also induces mental enervation

from which there no escape at all (quoted in MI 34).

The poems like, “My Mother‟s Eyes”, “Time Has Come” and “Dissolution”,

show, how, Pash outgrew the spell of the Naxalite ideology and how he had

internalized all the disruption and distortion of life. Similarly, in his poem, “An Open

Letter”, Pash openly declares that this age cannot have the leisure to enjoy Waris

Shah‟s4 spiritual songs, but this is the age of wars and conflicts. He writes:
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It is a brutal clash of classes and conflicts

It is killing and being killed

Where war is waged for our right now. (Trans. Gill 16)

Pash, like a true social activist and humanist spreads the awareness of human

rights and equality. In the poem, “We and they”, he affirms that we ourselves are

responsible for our exploitation and oppression. Speaking against the apathetic,

indifferent and complacent attitude, he says that by closing our eyes and ears towards

everything wrong; we have turned ourselves into dead bodies that have no spark of

life left in them. He compares the mute and silent people with the trees which have,

even, stopped whispering with each other. He writes, “Trees when to each other don‟t

whisper/and stand still like Indian citizens” (Trans. Gill 15). Pash warns in the poem

that political and religious authorities come forward and seize the control of the lives

of such mute spectators and hence make their life miserable.

Pash in his poems protests, even, against the wars which have proved to be the

source of authority and power for the few and bring no respite for the common man.

In the poem, “In the Test Tube”, he asserts how the concepts of nationalism and

patriotism are used by the political parties, government and authority to involve and

engage more and more people in the wars. In the name of duty and love for the

country, people are exploited and forced to make sacrifices. Pash through this poem

warns such people, who declare wars just to get the political benefits, advantage and

sympathy of the innocent and ignorant people; who are ready to sacrifice everything

in the name of „tricolor‟. While warning against such people, Pash says:

Though friendly, you have always defiled us,

----------------------------------------------------

Sometimes to the slaughter house you led

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And sometimes with flag‟s colour as a ruse,

You have our youthful songs profaned. (Trans. Gill 17)

In his second collection of poems, In Pursuit of Flying Eagles (Udhde Bajan

Magar), he articulated the feelings of prospective revolution. His internment had

provided him with an opportunity for gathering an awareness of life. As T.S. Gill, has

mentioned in his book that under the influence of Leon Trotsky, who had believed in

the autonomy of culture, literature, philosophy and language; Pash re-defined the

nature and role of revolutionary poetry.

In the poem, “In Pursuit of Flying Eagles”, he wants to get away with all the

factors, including, family ties, political compulsions and ideological blockages; which

constrict and restrict his initiative and will for the revolution. Being totally absorbed

and lost in their daily struggle for survival; people‟s dreams lose their meaning and

charm and the sheer enervation becomes the order of their life. Pash writes:

In this dungeon of life

When your voice to yourself returns,

Dreams like old ox‟s unstruck neck

--------------------------------------------

And the dirt of streets sticks

To life‟s most beautiful years. (Trans. Gill 28)

„In his this pursuit‟, Pash would not allow anyone to take charge of his

thoughts, poetry and his life, either by showering false praises on his poetry or by

demeaning him by putting him into the prison. Eagles in the poem symbolize

swiftness and strength and Pash has used it as a metaphor for the strength and urgency

of the revolution. Eagles, at the same time, become the symbol of authority and power

who has stolen the moments of peace and sound sleep from his life. Pash says:
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Eagles have flown aloft taking in their beaks

Our desires for a moments life of peace

Friends, let us indeed

In pursuit of flying eagles proceed. (Trans. Gill 27)

Another poem, “To Ahmad Salim”, is a polemical and exhortatory

composition. At the time of Bangladesh‟s uprising against Pakistan, Ahmad Salim,5 a

Pakistani poet, sided with those who had revolted against the country of his birth.

That way, he had given an evidence of moral courage and human sympathy which

most of the Pakistani intellectuals had lacked at that historical juncture. Through this

poem, Pash appreciates and encourages, Ahmad Salim, for his courage and bravery.

While giving him his due, he clearly states that poets and writers of his integrity,

actually, do not need any national and anti- occupationist stands as the arbicler of

their convictions. A poet should, actually, be a poet of the people. He does not belong

to just one nation, one community or one religion. Pash, while supporting Ahmad

Salim, clearly states that like him, he also believes in justice and peace for all the

people- whether they belong to Pakistan, India or Bangladesh. While encouraging

him, Pash writes: “I am also a poet of the prisons in love with people/you‟re sought

by arrows from Pindi, I by arrows from Delhi” (Trans. Ghai 107).These lines clearly

reflect the pain of a poet who has to pay the price for writing against the authority and

power.

Political leaders, in India, have always thrived on evoking the sentiments and

emotions against Pakistan. In order to win the favor of the people and in turn the

elections, they declare wars to divert the attention of the people from the national,

political and social issues of- corruption, injustice, exploitation and scams, to the

other vital issues of security, honour , prestige, patriotism and sacrifice. While making
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an attempt to awake the innocent and poor people of both the countries who had

always been cheated by the political leaders of the both sides, Pash says:

Neither have we won, nor has Pak lost the war

It was only the puppet dance of hungry stomachs

We are nothing more than hungry bellies, we‟re not human yet

As yet we‟re neither enemies nor friends to anyone.

As yet this crowd of warmongers is having fun.

-----------------------------------------------------------

They‟re in love with the earth‟s smouldering face. (Trans. Ghai 108)

Similarly, the poem, “Tragedy of a Letter to be Censored”, expresses Pash‟s

concern for the perverted political system in a bitter, but in a controlled manner. In

this poem, through his beloved, he draws people‟s attention towards the distorted

meanings which the policemen will draw after reading her innocent mention of the

things that had been keeping her engaged and worried in his absence. As has been

mentioned by T.S.Gill:

that, her complaint about not having met for long will be construed as

her comment upon the system getting worn out from the seams.

Likewise her sorrow over the time gone awry will be taken as her

mourning over the death of those, killed in police firing. So, strategic

and sinister meanings will be read in her offended mention of price rise

and sorrowful remembrance of her brother killed in Bangladesh. (MI

52)

Pash, very critically and bitingly, makes clear how the things are constructed,

manipulated and changed, politically. Even, a poet (Pash) who speaks on behalf of the
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poor and deprived is considered as a Naxalite and a danger for the nation and is put

behind the bars every now and then. Pash writes:

In your wail of price- rise he will detect

A sign of changes in the revolutionary tactic,

In your mourning over your brother

Killed in Bangladesh, he will discern

Espionage for the Chinese regime. (Trans. Gill 83)

The censoring policeman at the end goes to the extent of imputing to her even anti-

nationalist motives. Pash thus mourns the declining state of the system, which rather

than being a generative and a regenerative organism, has declined into a disciplining

and punishing mechanism.

Written with the same feeling of disappointment, this time, not with the

system, but with the human nature in general- the poem, “This is What It Daily

Happens,” describes how the rhythm of life which begins on a positive note of

expectation and hopefulness ends up in utter helplessness and boredom. Pash writes:

Each day floats in the gums of the oxen

The shrunken taste of fodder‟s stalks,

As a hen dying of spreading epidemic

Has a grain stuck in its throat,

Daily hope dies in the dog‟s eyes,

Daily in the belly of the peasant and his dog

The longing for the last morsel arises:

This is what daily happens. (Trans. Gill 25)

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The images of, „brooding oxen‟ with „fodder stuffed in its throat‟, and „dogs‟,

with „desire dying in their eyes‟, aptly and clearly, convey the feelings of blockage

and confusion, along with, the guilt of not doing anything worth, meaningful and

substantial. The non- human world of dog, ox, and hen has been used to compare the

worthless, meaningless and frivolous life of modern human world. As has been

mentioned by T.S.Gill:

There is no stopping at this blotched and blocked stage. After all, a

more hopeless and hapless change is, yet to happen in the form of

everything ending in ennui and aridity. To convey this pitiable stage

two gender specific changes are employed in the poem. The first, is of

virgins whose erotic desires smoulder into nothingness for sexual

fulfillment is a taboo strictly embedded in their minds. The second is

of old persons who, on the one hand, can only brood over lice in their

palsied heads and on the other hand, are too forgetful to recite the

scriptures which for year they have reposed in their minds. (MI 54)

Similarly, the poem, “The Wound of The Thorn”, also focuses on the dull,

boring and creaturely existence of an anonymous villager who lacks the will power

and even the intention to improve his conditions. Pash has always protested against

such vegetative existence of the villagers, in which, neither there is any room for the

improvement nor there is any scope for the growth and evolution. The life of these

villagers is just confined to their own little world and they show awareness, only, of

their little piece of land, on which they have to toil hard, day and night, to survive.

But this innocence becomes a curse when they fail to understand the political and evil

designs and intentions of the landowners, contractors, money lenders and other

opportunists who always look for an opportunity to exploit them. Not only this, when
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the interest on the money borrowed by them mounts and reaches beyond their

capacity to pay, the only thing that they can think of doing is; committing suicide.

They don‟t even make an attempt to make their exploiters realize that being the part

of this country; they also had a right to live in this country, with dignity and respect.

Pash portrays this ordeal of theirs, in the following lines:

But himself he got eaten without a bet,

Years of his life like ripe melons

Were as such eaten away in full,

Like milk milched a fresh,

His goodness was gulped with relish,

The awareness never dawned on him.

How prosperous was he in health. (Ttans. Gill 55)

While commenting upon the limited awareness and the knowledge of the village folk,

Pash further mentions that throughout his life, he could appreciate just three hues;

“the hue of the earth”, “hue of the sky” and “hue of his wife‟s cheeks” (Ttans. Gill

55), the only three sounds that his ears could register were:

One was the crowing of the cock.

the other was the muffling of animals,

And the third was of morsel chewed. (Trans. Gill 55)

His another set of poems, which includes, “After Emergency Was Imposed”,

“Risk that One‟s Own Security Poses”, and “In Our Times”, uncovers the nature of

politics and the oppressive and repressive roles that the institutions and agencies play

in the name of security, peace and well-being of the people. Emergency imposed in

1975, was considered as a well intentional measure to safeguard the civil life from

disruption being caused by anti-social policies. But, in reality, while suspending all
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the democratic rights ordained by the constitution, it proved to be a source of deep-

despair. Pash in these poems has, effectively, portrayed the condition of the common

man who seems to have caught between the actual terror that permeates the

environment and the imaginary joy that is held forth in the form of fake promises and

policies.

Like the second half of the rising swing

One is muffled in expectation.

Holding his fear and joy betwixt his thighs

The prayer for its uninterrupted ending

Pours molten lead in our ears. (Trans. Gill 93)

Same disillusionment and despair is conveyed through the poem, “Risk That

One‟s Own Security Poses”. To accept things as it is, by killing or ignoring one‟s

conscience, in the name of peace and harmony, is not at all acceptable to Pash. Such a

country in which, people are not able to voice their feelings; are not able to enjoy

peace, comfort and the feeling of belongingness; are not able to secure a decent life,

despite all their hard work and labour; are not able to give a true meaning and purpose

to their life, is not at all adored and respected by Pash. A country, which can provide a

life which is safe, secured and full of dignity, deserves and draws the feelings of

reverence, respect and even sacrifice from its people. On the other hand, when in a

country the policies and the system intend to produce such dumb and submissive

robots, which neither oppose nor question anything, then, such system and policies

according to Pash, pose a great threat to the security of the people of the country. He

says:

We regard the country as intimate feeling

As some stimulant like toil.

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As some faith like sacrifice.

If it is a factory for bonded labour,

A laboratory for owls to manufacture.

All this then poses a danger to the people. (Trans. Gill 94)

In other words, Pash wants to say that life without both consciousness and

conscience is a perversion, which can never be justified in the name of discipline and

peace, as behind such apparent peace- always lurks the roars of revolts, which

ultimately leads to chaos and destruction. The poem presents the degenerative effects

of the authoritarian approach (Emergency) of the political leaders of Pash‟s time. This

authoritarianism had led to social enervation, political servility and impoverishment

of the people. Pash states how, even, the custodians of revolutionary ideology fell

succumb to sycophancy, which had not only contaminated the intellectual strata, but

also the people at large. Pash writes:

This shame-faced event was to happen only to us,

With the most sacred words of the world

Becoming stepping stones for powers.

Only we were to see Marx‟s leonine face

Roaming and bleating in the labyrinths of Delhi,

Only we were to see all this.

Friends all this was to happen in our times only. (Trans. Gill 96)

Pash carries forward the feelings of shock, disillusionment and helplessness in

his poem, “Against Defiled Language”. Through the wounded swan in the poem, Pash

uncovers all the issues which having acquired religious, spiritual and metaphysical

meanings, have always enslaved man. He delineates how the motifs of religion,

ethnicity, history, time, art and literature have dragged the humanity in a state of utter
200

confusion. Instead of awakening and enlightening man, they have, only, led the

people astray into illusions, from which there is no escape at all. The monuments of

civilization become the vehicles of barbarity and cruelty. Pash in a state of confusion

asks, “Why is it so that knowledge is nothing/ But a twist in the rope around our

necks?” (Trans. Gill 78) Pash complaints that even scriptures, instead of providing

any solution and answers to our doubts and problems, have just blinded the modern

man, like smoke. He finds knowledge of Science, Religion and even, literature as

suffocating and degrading. Development and civilization have become merely the

names given to the wounds which the modernization and technology have bestowed

upon us. He wants to throw and return back all the concepts and ideals taught by the

English people and the English language as they have not only taken the purity and

innocence of the Indians, but they have also corrupted and suffocated their simple

life.“Return to East India Company all the Orientalist lore” (Trans. Gill 80), he

exhorts.

Pash imagines a utopian piece of land where his people can live peacefully.

Actually, complexities of the modern life have taken him and his village folk,

completely, under their control and which instead of refining and decorating their life,

have taken away the pleasures of innocence from it. Though Pash‟s dream of such a

land cannot come true as there is no returning back to some wholesome past, as there

is no such thing as a whole past where we can go back to or what we can retrieve. His

anxiety and ardent wish for such a peaceful life, reflects quiet clearly in these lines:

You may then settle in any bare corners of the earth,

------------------------------------------------------------------

From Mansarovar I shall send you,

Messages melodic as are gypsy songs

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Sweet as Godly pollen dropping from roving eyes. (Trans Gill 80)

Pash‟s poem, “Talking to a comrade,” focuses on the decline of Marxist

ideology in India. The addressor represents the young boy whose pleasures of youth

are marred by his acute awareness and experience of the harsh and bitter realities of

life which had, naturally, come to him as a result of his hyper sensitive nature and

sensibility. The person to whom he is addressing is highly doctrinal by nature. By

effectively using various metaphors, he portrays life as a contradictory complex. He

writes:

Salute to you O‟ cold kettle,

And to times boiling in you!

Salute to you O‟ crowling bird

And the sky petrified in you. (Trans. Gill 102)

By using the metaphors like, “ascetic driven to the jungle by his sexual instinct”

(Trans. Gill 102) and “the youth finding life‟s purpose in flaunting his moustache”

(Trans. Gill 102), he presents this poem as a discourse of fact versus ideology. The

addressor does not hesitate to state clearly that it is always better to live by the actual

and concrete experiences, rather than, being guided or controlled by any doctrine.

Comrade, how counter to revolution and class

Has our sister grown!

She hides her pebbles

Underneath my erudite books.

For all the wisdom drilled into her head

She is worried more about play

Then society‟s future. (Trans. Gill 104)

Actually, this poem is used by Pash as an opportunity to make his stance clear about

revolution and to justify his call for the protest. The sufferings and the brutal
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treatment meted out at the hands of the so called custodians of discipline and peace

are as real and actual as, the indifferent and callous attitude of the people in the

power, who can otherwise play a vital and important role in bringing out changes in

the society. He says:

Would that I had not suffered

The terrible Callousness writ so large

Upon subordinates scrutinizing face,

Only if I had not seen the nap

In which the judges swathe

Before and after their lunch break. (Trans. Gill 105)

Pash does not want his poems to take the shape of any theory or ideology.

Being born from real and actual experiences, he wants his poems to dissolve into life

i.e. to animate them though their annihilation. He hates all the theories and ideologies

as neither of them has been able to improve the condition of his people. He says:

For a moment I wish that from somewhere

May come the hermit, Newton‟s diamond

And fill the candle headlong.

In the open slit of my brain

And reduce them to ashes

Before certain incomplete reports

Get moulded into a theory,

For too much risk rests in their non-burning. (Trans. Gill 111)

Through this poem, Pash conveys that the ideas and theories are useful, only, when

they take the shape of action.

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Similarly, his poem, “Application for Disinheritance”, expresses the feelings

of anger and outrage evoked by the massacre done of the ordinary Sikhs, in Delhi, in

the wake of Mrs. Indira Gandhi‟s assassination. He feels so angry that he no longer

wants to be a part of such a country, where the death of its popular political leader is

mourned by doing such horrible massacres.

If the whole country mourns the death of one,

Against whom I thought and wrote all my life

Then my name off its register do strike. (Trans. Gill 98)

It‟s not that because of any personal enmity or hatred, Pash is saying that, “I have

always killed her” (Trans. Gill 98). But he speaks against the then prime minister of

such a country, where if progress and development are serving as humble maids in the

cities, then, witches of poverty, ignorance and depravity are engulfing the masses in

the villages. According to Pash, she had failed to make policies for such, “pitch dark

India of fields, brick-kilns and mines”, (Trans. Gill 98) where people are exploited

and oppressed and despite toiling hard, fail to make for a decent living.

In the poem, “Ominous”, he clearly states that all the discursive means, which

the institutions, including, state apparatuses and educational structures employ, are

dangerous, as they deprive the human beings from their dreams, visions, emotions and

feelings. The physical sufferings and exploitation that he had been delineating in his

earlier poems seem less dangerous as compared to the mental conditioning done by

such apparatuses. Physical tortures remain just confined to the body, whereas the kind

of mental make over these apparatuses do, actually, ruin the very roots of the

humanity. Pash, in this poem, shows his deep concern and anxiety for the intellectual

depravity and the interpolation of the minds which goes in favour of these apparatuses

and which in turn leads to cultural and economic hegemony. He writes:

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Ominous is not the loot of the labour,

Or torture by the police,

Even greed that betrays is not ominous at all. (Trans. Gill124)

This poem clearly marks how his poetic art was opening to the new aspects of life like

mechanical life style, routine, molecular living, rationalization, sheer professionalism

and lack of concerns, emotions, feelings and dreams. According to Pash, ominous is

in fact:

To be filled with dead silence,

Lose concern and bear all unconcerned

To become the slave of routine,

Ominous is infact

The death of our dreams. (Trans. Gill 124)

As Darshan Singh writes in his thesis on “Post Modern turn in Punjabi Poetry”:

This mad rush of the so-called civilization and commercialization has

commodified life so thoroughly that even, the basic human

relationships have nothing but blind passion left to them. The poet

almost laments this poetic awakening into an awareness of all loss of

meaning and humanness, with a highly ironic nostalgia for the lost

innocence which could frown from at the complexity of the world

where now reality, textuality and politics are so inextricably mixed up

that it is impossible to believe any underlying presence or truth which

might anchor our hopes of any authentic personal or social life (98).

In order to support the cause of his struggle, Pash in the poem, “Jafarnama”

takes help of great personages of the past who had waged such wars against the
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injustice and exploitation. The poem is a search for the historical antecedes to

legitimize the revolt.

In the whole Sikh history, there was no struggle as paradigmatic as the one launched

by the saint poet-warrior, Guru Gobind Singh. As is mentioned by T. S. Gill:

The attributes of those, who remained steadfast with the guru in the

Naxalite rebels and who mindful of torture in the interrogation- centres

do not desert their cause. For Pash, the cause espoused by the Naxalite

rebels, share ideologemes with the Guru‟s struggle. It seeks to embed

the conviction that the present day Naxalite cause continues the Guru‟s

paradigmatic struggle for ameliorating, the miserable condition of the

suffering humanity (MI 36).

Pash writes, “O guru! Who are the other Sikhs/who haven‟t at all disowned you?”

(Trans. Gill 23) Similarly, in the poem, “Epilogue”, Pash makes an effort to strike a

figural connection between the Guru and his own poetic practices.

Just as, the Guru was sent to improve the conditions of the humanity- inflicted

with pain and injustice, in the same way, Pash cannot afford to live at peace in

solitude, as at the present juncture, the bourgeoisie and capitalist tendencies are

spreading their tentacles wide, and are engulfing the whole humanity. Pash is even

ready to sacrifice his life for this noble cause. Pash writes:

Let us descend to the earth below,

For burden of sins so awesome gets

And here are we arrived:

Take from us our Jafarnama.

In return for the dagger; our due,

The belly is ready for the stab. (Trans. Gill 24)

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Pash presents a historical character in the poem, “Joga Singh‟s Self Analysis”,

in an entirely new and modern context. As per the story, the fourth i.e. the final

marriage song was going on when the call from his Guru, who was in dire need of his

support, reached him. Rather than waiting for the marriage ceremony to complete,

Joga Singh, immediately, left the ceremony and proceeded to the battle field of

Bhangani. The poem begins when he is on the way to the battlefield, but Pash‟s Joga

Singh, as Pash himself writes in his Letters is:

A Sikh of a new orientation …. So this Joga Singh so intent on taking

part in battle is not a mercenary soldier and as a result warfare is not a

singularly total ideal with him. Within him lurks the urge to live in

harmony with the world as the final marriage song calls upon him to

do, but at the same time, he has got doubtful of its veracity. (quoted in

MI 66)

This Joga Singh represents Pash himself, in whom, dwells the urge „to live in

harmony with the world‟, but he has to go for the war because it is the need of the

time, as the circumstances, even more than that, his own conscience would never let

him sit at peace, under such conditions. As T.S. Gill has mentioned:

The link between the spiritual or the divine and the random or the

mundane, howsoever problematic in the eighties, seemed to have

broken in the nineties when Punjab was gripped by terror of the

horrendous sort. Pash found the spiritual or the divine turn demonic at

this new historical juncture (MI 67).

This also becomes evident from one of his last poems, “Begging for Alms of

Faith”. The poor village woman, whose husband and one son have already fallen

victims to the terror, so rampant in Punjab in the 80s, is the interlocutor in the poem.

After losing her elder son and husband, she does not want to sacrifice her younger
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son. The hapless and helpless woman beseeches the so called defender of faith and

religion to spare the life of her only surviving son. The poem is a bitter satire, which

is meant to challenge and question the role of these defenders and contractors of

religion. In the process of invoking them as the sole provider of humanity, she

promises to act upon all his fundamentalist dictates. She pleads:

I shall worship totems you prescribe,

And recite psalms you have approved,

Your roar for faith‟s triumph,

Has dissolved the mist of disbelief

My feeble self will believe in nothing else,

Only you will be the eternal truth for me. (Trans. Gill 122)

The poem indirectly presents the alleged defender of the faith as a Devil, who plays

with the emotions of innocent people. By invoking the feelings of sacrifice and

penance in the name of faith and religion, he has put to shame all the attributes, which

the Sikh Gurus had invoked of the Almighty, in their Gurbani.

Section IX: Pash’s Prison poetry- a Narrative of Assertion:

The deep respect for human values and concern can be clearly recorded in his

poem, “Hands”. Though during his stay in the prison, Pash was deprived of shaking

hands with anyone in the jail, but, in reality, he had the company of so many weak,

sad and aged hands, who had not only touched him physically, but had left a tenacious

impression on his mind and spirit. While acknowledging their presence, Pash says:

None can grab from me,

The play of these hands;

Inside or outside the pockets

In handcuffs or on rifle‟s trigger

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Hands have their essence to retain,

Hands have their faith to proper. (Trans. Gill 32)

The audacity and profoundness, with which Pash speaks against the

oppressive powers is drawn from his love for his village folks: the tailor, teacher,

barber, the midwife and the labourer of his village, who had always done their duties

with love and sincerity and the touch of whose hands he can, even, feel in the prison.

Pash because of his sensitive nature holds himself responsible and accountable for

repaying the concern and the love that he has been receiving from these simple

minded villagers. It is this feeling of accountability and duty, which motivates him to

fight for the equality and justice, denied to his people. Pash clearly says that hands

lend support to them who care and love, but hands are equally strong to strangulate

and throttle them who deprive his people of their rights. He writes:

Hands are given not merely to toil,

They are also given to break a tyrant‟s hands

Those who fail to do the duty given to hands,

Those who insult their grace,

Arc cripples.

Hands are given to lend support

Hands are given to say „yes‟. (Trans.Gill 32)

In the poems, “Jail” and “This Part of the Sky,” he clearly states that the

authorities who had attempted to make him feel deprived of his elementary living, by

confining him to the four walls of the prison, have, actually, failed in their mission.

Pash identifies himself with a tiny portion of the sky that like him can never be

controlled by any prison or authority. This piece of sky seems to configure all the

vastness, variety and patterns of the whole sky, for Pash. Just as no one can control

the hues, patterns and shades of that piece of sky, in the same way, no authority, no
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deprivation and no confinement can erase shades of revolution from the heart of the

confined Pash. Despite all the hard walls and bars, Pash‟s spirit is as free as this piece

of cloud. While challenging the authorities, Pash says:

Why don‟t they ask it then to petrify

And discard from its body

The shades of all the seasons,

This portion, that on its shoulders,

Carries the whole sky. (Trans. Gill 41)

Similarly, in the poem, “Birthday”, Pash uses his 20th birthday, which he is

celebrating in the jail with his jails mates, as an occasion for setting an agenda i.e. an

objective for an authentic and meaningful life, without which all these celebrations

are worthless and futile. The year, in which he gets an inspiration and awareness of

doing something for the deprived people, becomes the year of his true birth i.e. the

birth of true Pash. He writes:

When the feeling of not yet born

Turned into unbearable pain,

Then I took the twentieth step

To fill life‟s desperate letters with music. (Trans. Gill 47)

In the same way in the poem, “Charity”, Pash clearly states that despite all the

mental and physical afflictions imposed upon him, the authorities have completely

failed in their objective of turning him into a miserable and helpless creature. His

journey, which exists on mental and spiritual planes, can never be stopped or

restricted by his physical confinement. He firmly declares:

It‟s for me to measure,

How many steps becomes a mile

And after how many miles,

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The wall no longer remains a wall

And becomes a journey. (Trans. Gill 39)

Pash would not allow anyone to decide upon his behalf, either about his life‟s journey

or even, about his death. Confinement and death are the maximum two things which

the authorities can impose upon Pash and he succeeds in defeating them, on all these

scores.

Written in the same vein, the poem, “Not Acceptable”, clearly states that the

time spent in the jail, is not more than an interlude for Pash and that he will set it aside

while taking a true measure of his life. He says:

Like rust marking the boat,

You can corrode my body,

But what will you do to the journey.

That cares for what to it is entrusted?

What will you do to the winds,

Which, somewhere their account to give

Blow over the room‟s debris here? (Trans. Gill 42)

In his poem, “To a Police Constable”, Pash is exhorting this low paid

government employee to discard his role of „a guardian of peace‟ in the country.

Instead of following the commands of the authorities, blindly, he should develop

some awareness and know his real class character. Pash is pleading and requesting

him to identify his true self, which is as miserable and helpless as Pash. By addressing

him as brother, he wants to open the eyes of the constable who has become, merely, a

puppet in the hands of the authority. He asks:

Do I look so dangerous even to you?

O brother, be honest

Don‟t you see

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On my whip skinned body,

In my bleeding mouth,

A glimpse of your own self? (Trans. Ghai 118)

The beaten up and the bleeding Pash becomes an image of the corroded and eaten up

self of the constable himself. Pash further asks:

When the bribes drunk by you

Corrode your inside,

You too wish to slash

The state‟s jugular vein-

The state has eaten away

In a few years

Your sandal wood body

Your rishi like temper

Your family happiness. (Trans. Ghai 119)

By using the words like, “sleepy eyes”, “stony forehead,” “worn out shorts”,

“pockets soaked in tobacco stench”, Pash is portraying his miserable condition and is

trying to draw his attention towards the cost that he has to pay for the uniform and the

authority with which he is dragging Pash to the prison. Generally, the rebels and

revolutionaries curse the police and the authority, but Pash, instead of doing this, is

trying to relate his helplessness and misery with that of an unaware constable who is

treating Pash as an enemy and a great danger to the system. Pash is hopeful that

somewhere deep in his heart, the constable is still convinced of his innocence and

righteousness. He seeks his co-operation and help in achieving the goal of justice and

equality for everyone. He pleads:

I cannot reach the lighthouse all alone

I need you

And you also have to reach there. (Trans. Ghai 121)

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Section X: Pash, a Great Humanist:

Pash, even, in the times of utter despair, faithlessness and disloyalty, never fails to

have faith on humanity and the essential goodness of human nature. Like Nirala and

Faiz, Pash never fails to see the ray of light, behind the dark clouds of hopelessness.

He writes in the poem, “Face to Face with the Past that I fought Against” (Lade hue

Vertmn ke Rubru)

Kisi na Kisi din jaroor apne chumbanon sei

Hum mausam ke gallon per daleinge nishan

Aur sari ki sari dharati ek ajeebo garib akhbar banegi

Jismein bahoot kuch honei ki khabrein

Chapa karengi kisi na kisi din (Trans. Chaman Lal, Sampoorn

Kavitayein Pash 167).

The images of, „old mother‟s glasses,‟ „the muttering of a child in his deep

sleep‟, „the worn out shoulders of bulls‟, „the cataract in the eye of old farmer‟, „the

tapping of soldiers feet,‟ etc., not only lend freshness, newness and openness to his

poetry, but they clearly reflect Pash‟s love and concerns for the humanity. He does not

even forget „a stinking pocket containing a piece of cigarette‟ and the „tear laden

mental of a village girl who could not pass‟ her exam. All types of failures big or

small, scarcity, helplessness and despair find place in his poetry, but he uses them

only to provide an evidence of his deep rooted faith on humanity. His desire and

dream for a better world inspires everyone.

As Prakash Manu writes in his article on Pash in the book, “Vartman Ke

Rubru”, that every writer should ask himself if he is ready to pay the price for the

words that he has written or he is just a stump; extending his hands only to receive

rewards (141). (Translation is mine) Pash was, undoubtedly, one of those few poets

who would never let the poem take the shape of a cheap and shallow political anxiety.
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Harbajan Sohi, a Punjabi writer and critic, had written about Pash that he is a rebel

poet with an ascetic‟s eyes who always sings the songs of life, of dignity and self-

respect. (quoted from Vartman ke Rubru 157) (Translation is mine) He has often been

compared with Saint Kabir, who being a preacher of true human values, had opposed

the age old rituals and practices of his time, which were taking place in the name of

religion and customs. Even Kedarnath Singh, a renowned Hindi critic and writer, had

written about Pash in the preface of, “Samay O Bhai Samay” that Pash‟s poetry is a

rare combination of iron and silk. The hardness of the bitter truths is successfully

combined with the tenderness and fineness of emotions and feelings (8). (Translation

is mine)

Though, physically, Pash is not here, but by following and understanding the

ideals for what he had lived, and, even, sacrificed his life, and which are conveyed so

clearly through his poems, we feel his presence, because till there is injustice and

exploitation with the laborers and the farmers, Pash will remain here. Pash‟s murder

at the age of 38 undoubtedly evokes the feelings of great loss and disappointment in

them who have concern for life- for the people and for their joys and sorrows. It is this

concern and this passion which he had always wanted to be his heritage to his friends.

As he writes:

I have no face

No voice of my own,

Blind passion for the earth is mine.

--------------------------------------------

Friends!

To my concern hold on tight

After I have passed by. (Trans. Gill 126)

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While paying tribute to Pash, the Hindi writer and translator, Chaman Lal writes in his

book, Vartman ke rubru:

Pash sach mein hi darvesh bhi tha aur dabang bhi aur shan sei jeenei

ka kayal bhi….agar Kabir jaisei Pash kei yeih tatv-darveishi, dabangta

aur shan sei jeena, hum thode- thode bhi apnei bheetar smaa lein to

shayad Pash hum sei kabhi juda na hoga- kyuon ki „juban chup karai

ja sakati hai, ruhein nahin dabai ja sakati‟ (158).

Being a true rebel, Pash, fought and protested against everything: be it the

exploitative and oppressive powers, or the dogmatic religious beliefs, education and

knowledge, which instead of liberating human beings from their narrow selfish selves,

actually, blind them. Pash though speaks on behalf of his village folks, but he has not

even spared them in his poetry. While holding their own indifferent attitude

responsible for their misery, he even protests against their complacency and

ignorance. In short, Pash‟s love for the true human values makes him protest against

everything that is inhuman, unkind and unjust.

Notes and References:

1. The journal Anti-47 Front was formed among Punjabi immigrants in the United States,
specifically, in the context of the socio-political situation at Punjab in that time. It derived its
name from its vow not to allow another 1947 i.e. Communal Holocaust and Partition on
religious lines.Anti-47 had in 1987, organized a militant demonstration in San Francisco
(USA), against communal terrorism.

2. Mirza: The hero of the love story, Mirza- Sahiba(n) who was killed by Sahiba(n)‟s brothers,
while sleeping under a tree.

3. Joga Singh: A devoted follower of Guru Gobind Singh from Peshawar. He had gone home to
get married. In the midst of the marriage ceremony, he got the Guru‟s message to return to
Anandpur Sahib without delay. He left for Anandpur sahib without completing the marriage
ceremony

4. Waris Shah: 18th Century Punjabi poet, the composer of the story of Heer- Ranjha, the greatest
and the most popular tragic love story in the Punjabi folklore.

5. Ahmad Saleem: A Pakistani poet. Later on, Pash changed his views about him that were far
less complimentary.