An era gone by: Shiv Kumar Batalvi
AJ’s post about the song from Chitrelekha reminded me of a poet whose poetry I’ve always found to have an underlying sense of sensitivity, the kind I haven’t experienced in anything else. Shiv Kumar Batalvi was a punjabi poet, who in many ways personified his poetry.
Shiv Kumar (born July 23, 1936 in Bara Pind Lohtian, Shakargarh Tehsil, Punjab [now Pakistan], died May 7, 1973 in Kir Mangyal (Pathankot), Punjab in India) was a Punjabi poet. Shiv Kumar Batalvi, a young man of barely 20 years of age, appeared on the scene of Punjabi poetry in East Punjab. By living a brief and intense life that was devoted to writing deeply profound, passionate and enchantingly lyrical poetic expressions of the pathos of his time, and dying young at the age of 36, a fate that he had predicted and romanticized throughout his poetry, he attained the charisma of a modern day saint and a fallen-hero in the eyes of many of his admirers.
- from Wikipedia
I wasn’t familiar about his work until a commenter on Rabbism informed me of how Rabbi’s ‘Ik Kudi’ was an interpretation, and I guess in some form, a dedication to Shiv Kumar, who was the original writer. I stumbled on to Batalvi’s narration of the poem from there, and hearing Batalvi narrate it was a touching experience. Listening to that narration, I could finally understand what people mean when they talk about living on through your work.
After the jump, I have a couple of videos: The first is the narration I am talking about, and the second one is an interview with Shiv Kumar taken during his trip to England, months before he passed away.
Shiv Kumar Batalvi - Ik Kudi
Shiv Kumar Batalvi - England Trip Interview
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[...] is just an annexe to the original post by Sameer on Shiv Kumar Batalvi. I just cannot read, listen to this one a lot. And whenever I do listen or read it, I regret my [...]