Shiv Kumar Batalvi Moves To Chandigarh

[BoxerBunty]

By 1968 he had moved to Chandigarh, but both Batala and Chandigarh became soulless in his eyes. Chandigarh brought him fame, but scathing criticism as well, Shiv replied with an article titled -My hostile critics-. Meanwhile his epilepsy got worse and he had a serious attack while at a store in Chandigarh-s section 22. In the early 70-s Shiv came to Bombay for a literary conference. In keeping with Shiv-s outrageous behaviour there is a story about his trip to Bombay as well. Part of the conference involved readings at Shanmukhananda hall. After a few people had read their work (one of whom was Meena Kumari), Shiv got on the stage and began "Almost everyone today has begun to consider themselves a poet, each and every person off the streets is writing ghazals". By the time he-d finished with his diatribe, there was not a sound in the hall. This is when he began to read -Ek kuri jeeda naam mohabbat. gum hai, gum hai...-. There wasn-t a sound when he finished either.
Shiv has been called a Bohemian. There were complaints about his drinking and some suggestions that his -friends- had him drink so he would exhibit his outrageous self. Shiv Kumar died in the 36th year of his life on May 7, 1973 in his father-in-law-s house at Kir Mangyal near Pathankot.

Shiv as the traditional poetical phenomenon was born out of the literary conjugation (Kalmi sanjog) of Amrita Pritam and Mohan Singh, to whom he appropriately dedicated his most important creation -Briha too Sultan-. Both Amrita and Mohan had personally suffered in their respective love lives on account of circumstances beyond their control. In their romanticism therefore, a personal tinge of desperation was in-evitable. Punjabi character is far more emotional, both in happiness as well as sadness, than all other peoples- of the Indian subcontinent. To succeed as a poet, therefore, one must succeed in making people cry as well as bursting into hilarious laughter with the flow of the lines. In contradiction to Amrita and Mohan, Shiv therefore, developed the most superb art of recitation. He will be long remembered, like Heer Warris Shah, for this emotional rendering of whatever he wrote. I was deeply impressed by his exposition of this vivid magic in the very first Kavita that he gave at our house - -Ki puchde ho hal fakiran da-. This ren-dering has the touch of Sehgal-s voice - -])ukhh ke Aab din bitad nahin- Shiv like Sehgal had the inborn gift of soul-touching expression. He needed words and lines and in this he had the help of his creators more than anyone else past or present. I feel that in her enthusiasm to present her -poetic-child- to the world Amrita herself became too emotional in giving an unnecessary notoriety to Shiv as a heart-throwing lover (dil-pheank ashiq.).