That Man

by Amrita Pritam

A story of a compelling account of a young man born under strange circumstances and abandoned at the altar of GOD, penned by Amrita Pritam

80 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2013

About the author

Amrita Pritam (Punjabi: ਅਮ੍ਰਿਤਾ ਪ੍ਰੀਤਮ, امرتا پریتم ) was considered the first prominent woman Punjabi poet, novelist, and essayist. She was the leading 20th-century poet of the Punjabi language, who is equally loved on both the sides of the India-Pakistan border. With a career spanning over six decades, she produced over 100 books, of poetry, fiction, biographies, essays, a collection of Punjabi folk songs and an autobiography that were translated into several Indian and foreign languages.

She is most remembered for her poignant poem, Aj Aakhaan Waris Shah Nu (Today I invoke Waris Shah - "Ode to Waris Shah"), an elegy to the 18th-century Punjabi poet in which she expressed her anguish over massacres during the partition of India in 1947. As a novelist, her most noted work was Pinjar (The Skeleton) (1950), in which she created her memorable character, Puro and depicted loss of humanity and ultimate surrender to existential fate. The novel was made into an award-winning eponymous film in 2003.

When British India was partitioned into the independent states of India and Pakistan in 1947, she migrated from Lahore to India, though she remained equally popular in Pakistan throughout her life, as compared to her contemporaries like Mohan Singh and Shiv Kumar Batalvi.

Known as the most important voice for the women in Punjabi literature, in 1956, she became the first woman to win the Sahitya Akademi Award for her magnum opus, a long poem, Sunehe (Messages). She received the Bhartiya Jnanpith, one of India's highest literary awards in 1982 for Kagaz Te Canvas (The Paper and the Canvas). The Padma Shri came her way in 1969 and finally, Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian award in 2004, and in the same year she was honoured with India's highest literary award, given by the Sahitya Akademi (India's Academy of Letters), the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship given to the "immortals of literature" for lifetime achievement.

Reviews

[Himanshu]

Well in short this book is simply the "poop" inside author's head spread over a bunch of pages. Here's why: After reading a significant portion of book one thing will be clear to the reader(who has a fair understanding of Indian culture & Hinduism) that just how much the author likes to hate the "saffron" both as a colour b& as a religious identity. At every point here & there she mentions how stupid & crooked the people who wear saffron actually are. She tells how the Yogis of India are all about smoking marijuana & writing & speaking just whatever comes to their mind. According to her anyone can become a yogi(an enlightened being) by getting high in marijuana & Mahabharata (world's greatest epic) was also written by ved vyas when he was high. She has utmost hate & disgust for the Hindu/Indian culture which she has spread evenly all over the book(but in a calculated way) so that it's not too evident at any single point. Just to gain credibility & authencity in the mind of reader she quotes the various "puranas" almost everywhere. By this she seems to be trying to tell how logical & authentic her thoughts are. The problem arises when she tries to show connection between completely absurd thoughts & actions of protagonist & some story of "Puranas" & then claims that how the protagonist is s doing the right thing as it's also mentioned in the Puranas. Now even a layman with some basic knowledge about Hinduism can tell that her comparisons are as absurd as they can be. Also she(the author) doesn't forgets to malign the Puranas bbut while doing it she intentionally hides the fact that the word purana means "Ancient stories" the story is not the goal but the message it delivers is.
The author till the end tries her level best to malign the image of Yogis & India as a spiritual hub, seems like she must've suffered an identity crisis as she might not have been able to digest the fact that her religion (Sikhism) too is an extension of Hinduism.

[Ami_is_tired]

This was my second book by Amrita Pritam and while it was similarly thought-provoking as Pinjar (The Skeleton), it wasn't nearly as engaging. Pritam has a distinct style of writing, which is quite similar to bildungsroman but unlike that form of writing, which showcases the continuous process of growth of a character(s), her works seem to have this disjointed feel about it, where one part of the character's isn't allowed to completely end before she goes on to another. It was something I had trouble with during Pinjar as well but I felt this even more during this particular book, primarily because this book is less plot and more philosophical musings behind the thin veil of a story.

Though, there was one thing that I really did enjoy which were the references made to various religious books of Hinduism. As a person who's not into religion too much, I still enjoy reading the mythological stories that epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata provide so I did have fun reading those but apart from that, this was quite a dragging read. I'd rather she wrote an essay encompassing all her philosophical thoughts than a story that's made for the sole purpose of incorporating those thoughts.

[Vaibhav Kumar]

meh, I couldn't understand much