Dear Readers,This is the story of love,courage,conviction,passion. A love not bound by age,tradition and time. Unconditional and extraordinary,its a love relationship between words and colours,between Amrita Pritam,renowned author and poet and her long-time companion Imroz,the artist. A relationship that continues to live,even after Amrita is gone,for Imroz believes,how can Amrita be dead,when I am alive? We shared and continue to share many beautiful moments,Amrita is still alive in my being. Its an intimate glimpse of this especial relationship of more than 45 years is what you can feel and live through the love letters exchanged between them,which have now been translated into English from Punjabi by Arvinder and titled,In the times of Love & Longing (Full Circle). It was a warm moment,as the book was released by Imroz himself,the backdrop beautifully portraying many pictures of Imroz and Amrita. Organized by Hamshira,writers Neelkamal Puri and Khushwant read out some of the letters from the book,while Nirupama Dutt conversed with Arvinder and Imroz and made the event so personal. Arvinder,who teaches English at Government College for Girls and writes in English,Punjabi and Hindi has been reading Amritas works since her college days,and the origin of the book,says Arvinder is the year of Amritas death,in 2005. We had all read how Imroz looked after her,as a companion,nurse,lover,totally devoted to her and I wondered what about him? How will he cope with the vacuum, Arvinder goes back in time,recalling how she one fine day called up Imroz with a desire to meet him,after reading the letters in Punjabi. He was so forthcoming and warm and there I was in his home in Delhi and suggested the translation of these letters into English from Punjabi, Arvinder recalls how Imroz talked about life and the fact that Amrita was alive. Imroz chose to live in Amritas shadow,there were no ego clashes between them,when Amrita met Imroz,she was a mother of two,much older than him,he devoted his entire life to her,with passion and conviction. In this time of e-mail and SMS,letters,smiles Arvinder,letters are so personal and unusual,and her translation was spontaneous. These letters reflect their yearning for each other,the evolution of their love,the emotional expressions are filled with colour and poetry and express diverse thoughts within the same envelop, the endearments that Amrita and Imroze had for each other,Ima,Imva,Jeeti,Maja,Ami.says Arvinder are simply heart-warming. The universal expression of love,believes the translator will transcend the barriers of age,this is a modern legend of love,and the linguistic and cultural idioms of both the languages are different,but thats the beauty of translation,it has to be a two-way process, Arvinder says the intensity of emotions was very strong and while translating these,she felt from her heart and lived each moment with them. Believe in love.
