By Tirthankar Mitra
Fallouts of a triangular love affair often lead to bloodshed and retaliatory violence. But that of Amrita Pritam, one of the most significant authors from Punjab, who was loved by poet-painter Indrajeet Chitrakar, better known as Imroz, and Sahir Ludhianvi, was an unusual love story.
Full of affection, generosity and poetry, theirs was an exceptional real life tale. Amrita was a leading voice of the century gone by. Imroz, who passed away early this month, illustrated for the Urdu magazine ‘Shama’ and designed posters for films and had worked for Guru Dutt in the film ‘Pyasa’. Sahir Ludhianvi was also a leading Urdu poet whose lines made Pakistan too hot for him. He settled in India and often ruffled the feathers of the establishment.
“Pyar sabse sara libadat hai, behte paani jaisi – love is the simplest prayer, like flowing water – wrote Imroz in his poem, ‘Ibadat’, one of many he dedicated to his partner Amrita Pritam.
It had gained currency long before Eric Segal penned the line “Love means never having to say sorry” in his bestselling novel ‘Love Story’, oft-quoted by teenagers all over the world. And unlike the lovebirds duo in Segal’s ‘Love Story’, whose lives end in tragedy, these three real-life celebrity characters coexisted in harmony till their last breaths.
Imroz, Amrita and Ludhianvi were comfortable in each other’s company. Theirs was a troika in which two men were in love with the same woman. Pritam had become a household name in the 1950s after her seminal work in 1947 –‘Ali akhhanWaris Shah nu’. It captured the pain and loss of Partition.
She met Imroz, an admirer of her works, who was from Lyallpur in undivided Punjab. He was seven years her junior; yet love blossomed. They started living together even when she was married to her husband Pritam Singh.
Incidentally, her affections were reserved for Ludhianvi. The noted poet who penned profound and popular songs in Hindi films had seen his parents’ marriage break apart. He never tied the knot.
A “romantic drifter”, Sahir’s affections were not concentrated solely on Amrita Pritam. His name was associated with singer Sudha Malhotra, too. For him, there was nothing called a perfect love. Theirs was not a conventional relationship. They knew how much to trim; if they were not in search of how much they could take en route, the outside world did not possess that map.
The trio had worked out a complex emotional equation among themselves. In it, jealousy on the part of Imroz had no place.
Indeed, Imroz had a heavy emotional burden on his shoulders. Amrita would be picked up by him and dropped at the AIR building. He would again take her home on his scooter after her programme. Sitting behind Imroz, Amrita would trace Sahir’s name on his back.
“How he bore the weight of these words on his back I do not know. I only knew he accepted me, my madness.” Amrita wondered in her autobiography, ‘Raisdi Ticket’. A writer once asked Imroz if he was ever jealous of Sahir. “Not at all” he said. “A person who loved Amrita is dear to me too. That is why you will see a picture of Sahir hanging in my room.”.
After nonagenarian Imroz passed away in Mumbai, his last rites were performed by Amrita’s grand-daughter Shilpi. She looked after him till the end. Indeed, Amrita’s love for Imroz went beyond her death. Their love spanned generations. (IPA )
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