In this election season, when thousands are losing their sanity and, with it, control over the words they use, it is important to retain one’s equanimity. Think back to the Partition and the much-worse times that visited us. In such challenging times, there were people who retained their humanity, their sense of right and wrong. Mohinder Singh Sarna, known to today’s generation as Navtej Sarna’s father, is an eminent humanist and a perceptive Punjabi writer-poet. The recent publication of a translated collection of his short stories set into motion a trail of nostalgia. Though Mohinder penned his experiences, he could well have been expressing our own. Navtej says, “In terrible times too some people retain their sanity. There are bad Sikhs, good Sikhs, just as there are bad Muslims and good Muslims. My father talked of both, though he preferred to remember the good ones.”
It all comes through splendidly in Savage Harvest . Recalls Navtej, “My father hailed from Rawalpindi but unfortunately could never go back to the city. He had a fractured reaction to Partition. He would talk about our house there, food, fruits, the climate. He missed the books that he had to leave behind, particularly early Punjabi literature.” Listening to him, my mind goes back to Babur and his vivid description of Farghana; how he missed its climate, fruits, and people. Baburnamah is as much about Central Asia as it is about Hindustan; as much about the place and people Babur left behind as the new place he used to revive his fortunes.
For Mohinder, though, it was different. He had not set out from Rawalpindi to conquer Delhi; he was forced to begin anew. Navtej frankly admits, “At another level, my father probably did not want to go back to Rawalpindi because he had barely escaped with his life.” Unlike Gulzar, I.K. Gujral, Kuldeep Nayar, Mohinder never set foot in Pakistan once he made India his home. Adds Navtej, “I, however, did go back. I went to his college, found the road, the cinema he used to talk about. The house where he lived was not there. But there was still Raja Bazaar. Also Trunk Bazaar. There was Rose cinema, Imperial cinema. It was all very emotional for me.”
And so he decided to bring out the collection of stories. “My father wrote about the Partition but also wrote epic poetry, novels, social commentaries.” The most fetching, though, were stories of his childhood. Those were the stories of the good times, of happy memories of the places where he played, his mates.” One particularly engrossing story is Winter Evening; Deccan Evening which links 1947 and 1984. Hardly surprising considering Mohinder counted Krishan Chander as a major influence on his work.
The collection has been noticed in literary circles and those who know Mohinder Singh are not surprised that the work of the Sahitya Akademi winner still commands attention. Confesses Navtej, “I am surprised when I read the stories at readings/launches. The audience has many youngsters. They have questions too. While age-old memories have to be kept alive, hatred has to be killed.”
Amid all the talk of Savage Harvest , has Navtej ever thought of continuing his father’s ways by writing in Punjabi? “I have not felt competent enough to write in Punjabi. I am fluent in the language but not steeped in its literature.”
