Mother of Modern Dogri Poetry A Literary Profile of Padma Sachdev

Shivanath

collection of Dogri poetry, Soviet Land paper Sandesh edited by Ved Pal Nehru Award, Hindi Academy Deep, a prominent Dogri poet, twelve adma Sachdev is a charming, Puraskar, U.P. Hindi Academy years senior to her. They fell in love delightful person, full of Pruaskar, Raja Ram Mohan Roy with each other and got married Pbubbling liveliness, home- Puraskar, Joshua Poetry Award, and against the objections of relatives on spun fun and laughter (rather loud for the & Kashmir Government’s both sides. Padma was at the romantic more refined ears). She is also a Robe of Honour. age of 16 then. A few months later lovable person with the homely Padma was born in Jammu in 1940. she suffered the first bout of her qualities of a good housewife, an Being the eldest of three children of serious illness — tuberculosis of the excellent cook, an entertaining Professor Jai Dev Badu, a Sanskrit intestines — and had to remain in a hospital at Srinagar for about three hostess and an interesting talker - scholar who became the victim of years. But she had already made a hugging attention all the time. She is India’s Partition in 1947, she started name for herself with her poem Raja a successful writer with a wide her education in the primary school Diyan Mandiyan written at the age readership among a certain class. All of her ancestral village Purmandal, these mutually supportive elements of 14. It is a remarkable poem from the situated on the banks of the sacred pen of a girl so young, for its combined with an irrepressible lust for stream Devaka celebrated in Agni life, a positive attitude, strong will craftsmanship, content, tone and Purana, about 39 km to the north-east power, tremendous energy and single- texture. It voices the feelings of the of Jammu. She grew up memorising oppressed and the exploited poor, minded commitment to achieve, to and reciting Sanskrit slokas and Hindi symbolised by an old woman, against carve out a name for herself have couplets on her father’s knees at the the inhumanity and insensitivity of enabled her to survive three serious age of four or five, and later, singing the powerful. The poem has been setback to her health, and yet produce Dogri folk songs with local groups of included in almost all the anthologies a sizeable amount of literature. Writing women to the accompaniment of of Dogri poetry and occupies an both in her mother tongue Dogri and dholak and composing simple verses important place in the repertoire of the national language Hindi, she has on the pattern of Dogri folk songs. Padma’s works. This poem and seven to her credit six collections of Dogri smaller pieces of her verse appeared While studying in first year poetry, eight books of Hindi prose in print for the first time in a selection including two novels, one collection college, she became the first poetess of Dogri poetry of the most promising of short stories, an autobiography, a of Dogri when she shared the stage young poets titled Madhukan travelogue and more than half a dozen with established Dogri poets and published by the J & K Academy of translations. She also writes an recited a song composed by her in a Art, Culture and Languages in 1959. occasional article in Hindi for kavi sammelan at Jammu before a Its editor Prof. com- newspapers and journals. She is quite large and distinguished audience, mented on her spirit of revolt, an achiever with several awards like including the chief minister of Jammu courage, sensitivity, intensity of the at the and Kashmir state. The song was experience and sweetness of young age of thirty for her first published next morning in a local Urdu language.

36 MANUSHI After feminine sentiments of a young Dogra out of a sensitive feminine sensibility recovery from girl — nostalgic reminiscences of deeply rooted in her native Dogri soil- her illness, childhood days, anxieties of budding love and yearning, held taut in silence Padma retur- youth, feelings of a girl married far and suffering, stirring pain and ned to Jammu, away, desire for motherhood, nostalgia for vignettes of Dogra life and worked as yearning for and love of the soil, love in the hills of Shivalik, celebration of a staff artist for Dogri, Dogra way of life and flora beauty of nature, all bathed in with Radio and fauna of Duggar. emotional intensity and etched in Kashmir, Tawi Te Chanhaan in two parts memorable imagery. The sea is a surge Jammu. Soon after, she separated from contains two type of poems, rhymed of tears held in a woman’s eyes, the her husband. This step alienated her and unrhymed, also of two rivers— moon is a silver nose-ring quivering from the conservative middle class one of Dogri feminine sensibility in the sky, the evening is a daughter- society of Jammu and she lost her job. symbolised by the river Tawi, ancient in-law with whom the night slowly With a letter from Bakshi Ghulam Taushi, Suryaputri, daughter of the descending a mountain trail stops to Mohammed, the-then Chief Minister sun on whose bank, Jammu is situated chat with, and midnight is the time of Jammu and Kashmir, addressed to and the other, Chenab epitomising when moonlight is held in the embrace the Director General of male Punjabi consciousness full of of the clouds. Delhi, she came to Delhi and got vigour and passion, and associated The second category of poems employed as a Dogri newsreader. In with romantic tales like those of Sohni shows the poet’s concern for due course she got married to a long Mahiwal. Here one notices maturing environment and humanity—snows time friend Surinder Singh, a famous of love with of the Himalyas, Shiva’s abode singer of Hindustani classical music. melancholic covered with drops of red blood and In 1969 Padma Sachdev published shades. enemies of humanity spreading her first collection of poems with an The mood poisonous particles over the Dal Lake, introduction by a stalwart among of Nehriyan on the pine needless and in the eyes Hindi poets, Ram Dhari Singh Dinkar. Galiyaan of Nargis flowers. The poems with a He wrote : “Padma ki kavita sun kar (Dark Lanes) is mystic element reveal a yearning for mujhe laga mein apni kalam phaink one of intro- the finite to become infinite, of the doon kyoonki jo batein Padma spection, drop to become the ocean, a longing kahati hai, wahi asli kavita hai”. some disenchantment, irrepressible to die for a while in the beauty of the (Reading the poems of Padma, I felt I yearning and also a certain concern evening star, a desire to fill the should throw away my pen because for enviro-nment. In Pota Pota emptiness within with the splendour the things Padma says is real poetry.) Nimbal, the poetess looks at the sky of a flaming tree. The book got her the Sahitya slowly clearing up, the clouds being Her last two books of poetry — Academi Award. Thereafter she has lifted by the finger-tips of some Uttarbaihni and Tainthiyan — came published five more collections of her invisible hand and she looks at the after she had suffered the second poems at regular intervals — Tawi Te sea with rivers losing their identity serious setback to her health. They Chanhaan in 1976, Nehriyan and merging with it. There is self- are a mixed bag—some good lines, Galiyan in 1982, Pota Pota Nimbal exploration in some of the poems here, some weak lines. The quality of her in 1987, Uttarbaihni in 1992 and revealing the development of a new work here seems to have suffered; Tainthiyaan in 1999. The titles of her dimension in her sensibility, a mystic perhaps her health has had something books are tell-tale, symbolic and awareness and a certain reaching out to do with it or her preoccupation with significant. They reflect her to something ‘beyond the sphere of output in diverse fields—Hindi predominant moods and concerns of our sorrow’. journalism, Hindi literature, translation the moment. Meri Kavita, Mere Geet In my view, the book contains and writing in Dogri. sounds like My Toys, My Dolls with a some of her best poems. There are All in All, Padma Sachdev has sense of childlike pride of three types of poems in this won a distinct place for herself and possessiveness of knick-knacks. The collection—one, poems in the for Dogri poetry on the Indian poetic pieces here are soaked in romantic mould emerging naturally literary scene. 

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