The phoenix lives on

Nonika Singh

Indomitable — this is the word most people, who have known one of Punjab’s tallest literary figures Ajeet Cour, associate with her. Yet, as one pores over her autobiography it’s a woman of different mettle and nerve that emerges. A woman who was once a dutiful even meek wife, who is an affectionate and selfless mother and who, like all women, nurses within her all the tender emotions that maketh her.

As a rule, autobiographies usually run into the danger of self-gloating, of becoming I-me-and-myself narrative. Often, there is so much self-eulogisation that it’s almost impossible to sift the real persona from the constructed, crafted, image. Sahitya Akademi award winner Cour spares us the self-praise as she trips down the glory path. This is no compendium of her achievements, the list of which otherwise runs long.

Her intent is not to validate or project herself but clearly to tell her story. That she has an intriguing and formidable one to narrate goes without saying. What a story she weaves — at once emotional, inspirational and profoundly moving. Though in a translated version it’s hard to tell whose words are creating the magic and whom to attribute credit for the fine word play.

Weaving Water paints a wholesome picture. One can visualise Ajeet Cour as a young girl who was educated in fits and starts, her home in the pre-Partition era. There are significant others in her life as well as those on the periphery but who impacted her life and shaped her world view acquire a life of their own. Daarji, her autocratic father, her indifferent and despotic husband, who never realised the worth of his precious daughters, becomes an object as much of derision as of pity. For he lived (and died) without seeing the zenith his daughter, internationally acclaimed artist Arpana Caur, would touch one day.

A patriarchal society such as ours that both hems women and decides their fate is a consistent thread all through. Not surprisingly, instead of beginning the book with her own birth she starts with the arrival of her younger brother into the family. For isn’t the birth of a son more meaningful and joyous in an average Punjabi household? Besides, as she says, who remembers one’s birth or death? But the death of others can be intensely painful and in this case the irreparable loss of her second-born daughter Candy slices through. Her agony is palpable. One can feel and equate with her anguish.

Indeed, Cour’s life is no fairytale but is marked by vicissitudes, tragedy. Love, too, touched her even though it was ephemeral. But whether Cour is talking about love or loss it’s a woman speaking from her heart, laying bare her innermost emotions for the world to see, and hopefully learn from. The book ends in year 1994 and the epilogue offers a closure to a life that has seen so many ups and downs and yet till date continues to give back to society. Indeed, once again the author doesn’t go to town about her philanthropic initiatives. The Academy of Fine Arts and Literature which she built and which houses a vocational school for slum children is only mentioned in passing.

But this is no story or life that can be dismissed causally. The book holds you in a grip and introduces you to a woman whom life may have continued to deal double whammies, yet who learnt to rise like the phoenix each time to live life on her own terms. No mean achievement for a woman born in another era. Her autobiography may not throw light on Cour the illustrious writer, but the woman she was and is comes out strong, and trumps. Indomitable remains the only word to sum up this woman of substance and steel.