Mamaji and his unrelenting love for Amrita

Iloved ‘Mamaji’ and more than him the house that he lived in.It was a small firstfloor flat in Patel Nagar, Delhi.The house was just a few minutes’ walk from where we lived. My parents visited him often and I tagged along.

Imroz, who was then known as Inderjeet, was not my real maternal uncle, but his sister and my mother were close friends.

He was an artist and lived alone in his bachelor’s pad. The house looked more like an art gallery with several paintings on the walls.The air was always full of sweet scent of ‘agarabatti’ which was regularly lit near the bookshelf where books written by a particular woman writer were stacked.

The walls were adorned by framed sketches and paintings of that woman. The pretty, petite woman was captured in different moods by Mamaji on the canvas. Besides the young faces of the woman was a portrait of an old woman in light brown salwar kameez captioned – ‘Amrita after 20 years’. Yes, it was Amrita Pritam, the Punjabi poet that became a legend in her lifetime.

Though I, as a ten-year old, was not very interested in what the elders talked about, I knew that the woman whose books and paintings were displayed so lovingly in the house was invariably the topic of discussion between my parents and Mamaji.

As I grew up I realised that my parents were given the unpleasant task of wooing Imroz away from Amrita as I often heard them telling him to forget her and get married as wished by his father. He was apparently in relationship with her.

The relationship was the talk of the town and was resented by his family as he was a handsome eligible bachelor and Amrita, ten years elder, was a much married woman and a mother of two. In 60s, the Punjabi society was rather conservative and such relationships were not accepted kindly.

Imroz’s father who lived in a village near Amritsar was particularly upset as his eldest son was not agreeing to marry and settle down.

There were often agitated conversations between my parents and Mamaji, who addressed them as ‘Bhaji’ and ‘Bhainji’.

He would listen intently and then give a disarming smile to tell them that he did not want to hurt anyone, but cannot agree to what they wanted.

On being challenged that how can he love Amrita who had openly confessed her love for others (read Sahir Ludhianvi), he would answer that he knew about their relationship and that was no reason for him to love her any less.

While talking about Amrita, a strange smile played on his lips. He said he did not believe in possessing her as she was a free spirit and he wanted his love for her to be liberating, not binding.

As Amrita’s love for Sahir remained unfulfilled, she started living in with Imroz, and with the passage of time their relationship became exemplary.

Imroz stood by Amrita through thick and thin and took constant care of her when she was on her death bed. Even as Amrita passed away in 2005, Imroz, now 93, is still living with her memories making their love eternal, as wished by the poet in her last poem ‘Main tainu pher milangi (I will meet you again)’.

MY PARENTS WERE GIVEN THE UNPLEASANT TASK OF WOOING IMROZ AWAY FROM AMRITA