'Unwanted child’, Paul Kaur made poetry weapon against patriarchy

All Paul Kaur remembers of her father is — he didn’t speak to her for years after she was born. Nor did he speak to her mother for a considerable period of time.

“I was born after five sisters and two brothers and grew up with this abiding sense of being unwanted. It was only when I found poetry that I felt I had finally found my voice. Poetry became my weapon against patriarchy,” says Paul, 69, who will receive the 2024 Sahitya Akademi Award for her work “Sun Gunvanta Sun Budhivanta: Itihaasnama Punjab” (in Punjabi) on Saturday.

One of the four Sahitya Akademi award winners for 2024, Paul ’s life has been a story of struggles for existence.

Born in 1956 to Surjit Kaur and Surain Singh, a poet and a granthi, in Patiala, Paul had to wage a daily battle to seek education. “I was constantly reminded that everything costs,” she recalls, with memories of selling Surf as a child just so she could save up for school. “I was lucky to have a progressive elder brother who backed my dreams to seek higher education,” says Paul, feted by late Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s wife Gursharan Kaur at Bhai Vir Singh Sahitya Sadan in Delhi today.

Paul ultimately went on to attain a PhD and recently retired as a lecturer in Ambala where she is now settled.

Asked to list her inspirations along a lonely path, Paul, who chose to stay single, said she grew up idolising Amrita Pritam. “Amrita Pritam won the second Sahitya Akademi Award for Punjabi in 1956, the same year as I was born,” she recalls with pride, reflecting on how she used to devour “Preet Lari”, the legendary Punjabi magazine.

The turning point in Paul’s life came when “Nagmani”, the Punjabi literary magazine founded by Amrita Pritam, began publishing her work. “Those days it was said whoever is published by ‘Nagmani’ gets established,” said Paul, who has eight anthologies of poems to her credit.

Her latest work — “Sun Gunvant” — is a daring pursuit of tracing Punjab’s history through verse. The 300-page work which Sahitya Akademi will translate into all official Indian languages, traces Punjab’s cultural roots from pre Harappan times to the reign of Maharaja Ranjit Singh.

The compilation employs the metaphor of the mystic Saraswati to explore the history of Punjab — a land that endured invasions, enabled cultural assimilation and yet braved isolation for its relentless pursuits against injustice. “I have delved into the ideological and cultural influences that swept Punjab, from Vedanta, Buddhism and Sanatan traditions to Naath Yogis, Islam and Sufism,” explains the writer.

A particular verse in “Sun Gunvanta” sums up her case of Punjab’s pluralism. “Charkha kookeya teh sunke utar aaye, Jogi Sufi teh peer fakir vekho; Usar paiya dargahan teh khankaahan, Gaddi gaddi teh baithe peer vekho; Aidar Vasant audar navroz aaye, Ursaan meleyaan chh pakdi kheer vekho; Kaddan taaziye moharram dey ral milkey, Devaan ateh khwajan daa seer vekho,” it reads.