Agar Hindustan mera desh hai, to Pakistan mera watan. DESIGN: ANUSHAY FURQAN
KARACHI:
It was a homecoming that took 70 years. Having left at the age of 9, Sampooran Singh Kalra returned to his ancestral abode near Jhelum on a cold February morning - barely a few hours away from Wagah, but a lifetime away from the man he is today.
The poet-lyricist, Gulzar, may well have visited Pakistan in 2004 to meet his then ailing mentor, Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi but this was his first journey ‘home’. Having crossed the border to attend the fourth edition of the Karachi Literature Festival, accompanied by director-composer Vishal Bharadwaj and his wife Rekha; Gulzar arrived in Lahore at the start of his visit. What was meant to be a stopover en route to Karachi in turn ended up embodying the very essence of his journey – Dina.
Following a detour to Samnabad to pay respects at the grave of his ‘guru’, whom he fondly refers to as ‘baba’, Gulzar headed home. The quiet hamlet where he was born is now a bustling commercial town. Gulzar’s first stop was the railway station where he recalled seeing off his father on a journey to Delhi – on which he wanted to accompany him very eagerly. Standing in solitude for almost a quarter of an hour, he took in the moment before heading onwards to his home in Data Chowk, Main Bazar. The premises now house the family of one Sheikh Idris, but every archway, every brick, every door, even the one he would use to make his way to the fields – all were too familiar. “I could see myself there”. Over the years, “Dina may have changed but it hasn’t distorted” he adds.
Just a short distance away, in Mian Mohalla, the principal and staff of his alma mater awaited with garlands, anticipating his arrival. The Government Boys High School hadn’t forgotten its most illustrious son. The school’s primary block bears the name of its most famous alumnus – ‘Gulzar Kalra. “I didn’t know”, I was so taken aback and “cried there”, says Gulzar.
A lunch spread laid out for him at one of the village havelis was left untouched as he decided to head back to Lahore in haste. “The entire journey was very overwhelming” – “khaanay ki himmat naheen rahi”, explains an emotional Gulzar. Once again, a farewell to Dina had drowned him in emotion. On the journey back, a companion mentioned a planned visit to Dar-ul-Sakun in Karachi, to which Gulzar responded with a heavy heart: “agar main zehni taur pay sukun main naheen hoon, to kaisay jaaon”.
After a stop along the Grand Trunk Road, a quick meal later, Gulzar was back in the throes of work at a recording for ‘Dedh Ishqiya’ at a studio in Lahore but his time in Dina had stayed with him. “I was obsessed with my motherland, my village and my home” and I was “feeling uncomfortable” and “very uneasy in the chest.” Before the noon the same day, Gulzar escorted by Rekha and Vishal, had crossed the border back into India.
My return “had nothing to do with politics but my own physical and emotional state. I knew I could not carry on the journey further” said Gulzar. Pakistan was “so cordial” – “I didn’t relive partition, I eliminated and erased it - I was in my motherland again”. “Agar Hindustan mera desh hai, to Pakistan mera watan”, he adds
“I am sorry for not informing the festival organisers before leaving,” he says as he apologises to “writers, colleagues and friends in Pakistan” who were expecting to see him in Karachi. “Mujh se naaraaz na hon” requests a humble Gulzar as he regrets his absence. I would like to convey to the people of Pakistan, “my love, my love and my love.”
Earlier, in emails written to Chairperson Karachi Literature Festival Ameena Saiyid, the poet apologised for heading back to India, requested the people of Pakistan to not hold a grudge against him. “Mujh se naraz na hon,” he wrote.
To describe his feelings over the incident of returning to India, Gulraz wrote the following couplet: “Shehr-e-Pak mein agarche ghar banana mana hai; qabr ik basana chahon main wahan toh kyun nahi”
What was previously just another ‘benaam gali’ where his home in Dina stands, proudly flaunts a board that reads – ‘Gulzar Street’ two days after his visit.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 16th, 2013.
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Read the full letter here www.facebook.com/KarachiLitFest/posts/522307941147131?notif_t=like
I remember my father going to Chund Parwana, in Jhang Pakistan and being so emotional, looking at his old home and remembering his mother and sister, that were killed in the 1947 riots , he does not hate anyone, he once told me, only the good loose their land to get the opportunity to travel to new ones. I can understand what Gulzar felt, the trauma of partition and then being their again.
Such a nice poet, when visited his home town was so emotional and overwhelmed by emotions, gave us a new energy toward loving people. Gulzar may be an Indian but his DNA is from DINA which is not a part of a country but part of a world. Just imagine just touching a place a big poet, writer and a film director who made films like Khushboo, changed his personality for rest of his life. The next poetry from him may give a new message to the world now.