Sunday, May 07, 2006

Shiv Kumar Batalvi

Today is Shiv Kumar Batalvi's 33rd death anniversary. The Bohemian Punjabi poet died at the age of 36 on this day 1973. It would not be incorrect to say that there has been no comparable romantic poet in Punjabi after him.


In the Bohemian aspects of his personality, he brings to mind the urdu poet Majaz who too died young. Shiv has often been termed the Keats of Punjabi poetry.

He is a somewhat incongrous personality- a Punjabi poet of Brahmin origins who reached his pinnacle when Punjabi language was becoming the bone of contention in Punjab with Punjabi increasingly identified as a language of the Sikhs in the state and the Hindus called upon by the Jana Sangh, the ancestor of today's BJP, to disown Punjabi language.

Shiv's poetry is characterised by longing and desolation, a melancholy that also surrounded Sahir Ludhianvi. One wonders if this has something to do with the times, partition and the confusion of ideas and identities that reigned.

The most important poets in Punjabi after Shiv have been Paash and Surjit Singh Pattar. Both were influenced, at some time during their career by Leftwing political ideas- Paash was killed by Khalistani terrorists while on a short trip from UK (where he migrated after the violent State repression following the failure of "Spring Thunder over India") to India in the eighties.

Paash's poetry was overshadowed by his political commitment. Pattar's poetry is more sophisticated and tends towards a philosophical reflection on the human condition without disowning his political commitment.

In this context, it is an engima that Shiv's poetry, except some of his very late poems, did not show the impact of the Progressive Writer's Movement or the Naxalite upsurge of the late 1960s and early 1970s that had a major impact on the youth in Punjab.

A very lyrical poet, Shiv has been sung, and popularized by Jagjit Singh's album based on his poetry. Mahendra Kapoor has also sung some of Shiv's poetry very well. Apnaorg has some renditions available online, though I could not get them to play on my computer. Bhupinder and Mitali have sung Loona, the poem that won him the Sahitya Akademi Award. Along with the Sufi poet Bulle Shah, Batalvi is a must sing for any major singer in Punjabi.

The language that Shiv employs is notable for its idiomatic usage of small- town Punjabi and also by his effusive usage of words of Persian origin, a trend that has over the years been discouraged just as Hindi has tended to borrow more heavily from Sanskrit than Persian and Arabic vocabulary. Sikh symbols are strikingly missing even as he brings the usage of urban Hindu rituals and symbols in his characteristic poetry.

Some of his poems are available, in Gurmuki, here. Another good article on Shiv with a critical commentary on some of his poems here.

My own favourites are many, but certainly those that first come to mind are Shikra, Maye ni maye mere geetan de naina vich, Ghamaan dee raat lami hai, Ae mera geet kisey na gaunan. All of these have been sung by Jagjit Singh.

I may end with a warning to anyone envisaging an overdose of Shiv: he can be terribly Wagnerian- effusively dark and deeply sombre.

Technorati Tags: , ,

9 comments:

Bhaswati said...

Thanks for this informative post. I wasn't aware of this poet, even though I have heard about and read a bit of Paash (translated, of course).

Thanks also for visiting my blog. I have added you to my links. Hope to see you drop by often :)

readerswords said...

Thanks for you comment. Glad you found the post on Shiv Batalvi informative!

How do we know said...

This is really nice.. i used to like his poetry, but knew next to nothing about him.. and my personal opinion is that neither mahendra nor Jagjit Singh have been able to do justice to the dard in his words.. its too effusive for their voices..
Thank you again!

readerswords said...

how do we know: thanks for your comment.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for producing this blog.
What is amazing and said about Shiv is that for a vast number Punjabis, not to say Indians, he remains so unknown.
I think he would be the greatest lyrical poet of this century in any Indian language: perhaps its time to bring him into schoolbooks.
Bhupinder, the apanorg site uses Realplayer and works very well, you should really listen to his own recitation: I have been familiar with Shiv since a child (through family-friends connection) but heairng him adds so much more meaning to already familiar poems. None of the singers have done him justice, th closest is Jagjit Singh, but the style is totally differnt to what Batalvi had in mind when he wrote.

readerswords said...

I have not been able to listen, for some reason I have some glitch with the realplayer audios.

I am sure Shiv is there is schoolbooks- if not, its a pity.

Amit Malhotra said...

oh my god! what a voice the guy had.. and what a musical sense. jis tarannum meiN Shiv Kumar Batalvi ne apni ghazleiN aur nazmeiN sunaayii thii.. it was a treat to listen to his poems in his voice. Bhupinder, you should check out what's wrong with your real player and try to listen to him. Currently playing Sikar dopahar sar te mera Dhal chaliya parchhaaNv .. thanks to your article and the comments on it.

readerswords said...

Realplayer conflicts with norton anti virus, and apparently I cannot unistall the anti virus.

I havent heard Shiv, but my mother heard him during her college days when he was little known... and she remembers it still.

There was reason enough for him to have the audacity to launch a diatribe on his audience in Bombay and tell them that none of the poets present there knew what poetry is, and then recite his own.

To a pindrop enthralled silence.

Anonymous said...

Sept/02/2008 where can i get translations of shiv's poetry??.. coz my pbi is not very good :(