Just like the holocaust seems inexhaustible in its (re) interpretation in literary and cinematic spaces, Partition, the evil twin of Indian independence keeps rearing its head in various genres from time to time. In this context, it is a useful exercise to go back to the writers who experienced the partition and documented it first hand: Amrita Pritam’s oft-quoted dirge Ajj Akha Waris Shah Nu is a lament of the collective consciousness.
Nanak Singh, from the same generation as Amrita Pritam, a towering presence in the Punjabi world of letters in Amritsar, became witness to the horrors of partition as they were unfolding, and rose as an unwavering, sane voice, documenting the unspeakable. A Game of Fire by Navdeep Suri is a translation of the Punjabi original Agg di Khed by Nanak Singh. Suri is his grandson.
Cover photo of A Game of Fire.
Nanak Singh’s super human oeuvre, at 59 books, which included 38 novels, is singularly extraordinary, especially knowing that he did not have any formal education. His prolific nature can be surmised from the fact that he published Khooni Vaisakhi (1920), the epic about Jallianwala Bagh massacre (of which he was a survivor) in a year after its occurrence. That it was promptly banned by the British and then its fate largely unknown for a good sixty years and later revived through translation by Suri himself, is a tale for another day.
The present novel, Agg di Khed, along with its prequel Khoon De Sohile (1948), that came out months after Partition speaks volumes about Nanak Singh’s commitment to a promise of steady writing despite the calamitous conditions upending normalcy of life in every way.
Navdeep Suri has been a career diplomat and happens to be the grandson of Nanak Singh. Deeply influenced by the imposing litterateur in a personal and intellectual capacity, Suri has made it a mission of sorts to translate his works and bring them to a wider audience. Since then he has translated Adh Khideya Phool 1940 ( tr. A Life Incomplete) Khooni Vaisakhi 1920 and Khoon de Sohile 1948 translated as Hymns in Blood.
When reviewing a work of translation, the book has to be seen at both levels: one, at the level of the original and the other as an efficacious translation. The book opens in the city of Amritsar undergoing the pangs of Partition. At the centre of the story is a young man Satnam Singh, given to the promise of communal harmony through his organisation, Unity Council. By and by, his belief in a harmonious social set-up is shattered in the throes of separatist violence rocking the city. Separatist ideology fuelled by nasty newspapers and a grapevine feed a cycle of violence that consumes the regular lives of its denizens. In this brother- kill- brother world, where blood calcifies into boulder, Satnam is faced with a deep existential crisis about his secular beliefs. When he hears chilling accounts of innocent Sikhs and Hindus being lynched and murdered, he is tempted to forego his commitment to the Unity Council and instead join a group of lusty compatriots vowing to avenge the wrongs through violence. He begins to organise clandestine meetings and store illegal explosive materials on shelves that earlier could have easily stored books.
In the midst of this, a refugee pair, an old man and a young girl, Krishna, find protection in Satnam’s home. The young woman soon wins the trust of the family by her ways and affectionately tending to Satnam’s baby sister. However, when she finds out about Satnam’s new fangled inclination towards violence, she offers to attend one of the meetings of this new group he has joined. She comes across as quite progressive with her calm, collected manner and waxing eloquent on the virtues of upholding communal harmony. Young men are quite enamoured of her by the end of it. So is Satnam, who hides a soft spot for her, that, despite him addressing her as sister, is not exactly platonic. The eloquence with which she brings these facts to light, without sentimentality or theatrics, imbues her with a silent power.
Nanak Singh’s sterling human qualities and a solid secular ethos beams through this work. In fact his emphasis on democratic functioning of the Unity Council, sounds quite contemporary. However, as for the delineation of Krishna, it does get mired in the traditional gender roles of her portrayal as a gentle, tending woman, gaining the family’s trust. Plus, how the ideal marriage is seen to operate within the confines of a faith also reinforces a certain irrevocable nature of faith. Which, however, is also turned on the head with Krishna turning out to be a Muslim. In a way, the author smashes pre-conceived notions about the ‘other’ religion in the midst of the conflagration of hatred. There is an all familiar janus-faced tendency: the nameless, faceless horrid violence of the dark alleys, offset by the gentle sacrificing human bonds that hold together a dying, gasping humanity. Similarly, the cycle of violence unleashed on the hapless city where perpetrator becomes victim and vice versa captures the characteristic quality of this brutality. Who was victim, who was perpetrator?
Navdeep Suri’s translated text flows with an ease and heartiness that characterises the original too. Being a grandson of Nanak Singh, he obviously has access to layers between lines. It is by all accounts a decent translation that more than fulfils its purpose: that of carrying forth Nanak’s word under a new sky, from alleys to apartments, inside younger hearts made tough and gentle by turns of history. But Nanak Singh’s heart is in the right place, his words will resound in these new winds that blow today, and perhaps give an answer or two to those who seek clarity. Much like Satnam.
Sakoon Singh is a novelist and academic based in Chandigarh.
