Amrita Pritam was the first prominent 20th century Punjabi poet, essayist, and novelist. She wrote both in Hindi and Punjabi.

She has been awarded many awards like Padma vibhushan, Sahitya Akademi award, Padma Shri, Bharatiya Jnanpith, and Shatabdi Samman.

We all are familiar with India-Pakistan partition and as an aftermath an increasing hatred between the two nations. But the state that was terribly affected was Punjab. After the partition of Punjab, Amrita Pritam ji migrated from Lahore to India. But her work was equally loved in both the nations. It's been rightly said that language of love can break all the borders. Her art was a string which united two nations on a deeper level. She felt anguished by the partition which has been seen in her work “Aaj aankhan Waris Shah nu”.

Well in the era of 20th-century she was a progressive writer and a headstrong woman. Her audacity to express her emotions was appreciable. However, during that period of time, such behavior from a woman was not acceptable in society.

Her thoughts and the power to express demarcated the beginning of the new dawn which lighted the way to feminism.

She was born in a Sikh family to Raj Bibi, who worked as a teacher at a local school and Kartar Singh Hitkari, who worked as the editor of a literary journal. Kartar Singh Hitkari was a respected man as he served as a preacher during his free time, apart from being an esteemed scholar. After her mother demise, she found solace in literature and started to play with words. After partition, she served the Punjabi programme in all India radio.

Her books like ‘pinjar’, ‘dharti sagar te sippyian’ and ‘ unhan di kahaani’ were adapted into movies.

Pinjar was a huge success and was awarded for the best movie as it highlighted the plight of women during partition. It showed humanity at its core during partition.

An unrequited love story

Amrita Pritam was betrothed to a wealthy businessman in Lahore named Pritam Singh.

Amrita Kaur was an early teen when she got married and became Amrita Pritam.

Her marital life was not a happy experience for her. Her writing which used to be on partition and humanity paved its way towards feminism reflecting her unhappy married life. Her poem “Wedding chamber” was a piece of conflicting emotions sewn in words clearly representing her unhealthy relationship with her husband.

After migrating to Delhi from Lahore she met a fellow poet Sudhir ludhianvi who later became a famous film lyricist. She felt a pull towards him. However unable to resist the affection she felt towards him she decided to break her 25 years of marriage and move on.

However, she was heartbroken when she heard about rumors of Sudhir ludhianvi and Sudha Malhotra being together.

In her heartbroken condition, she met Imroz who was an artist and a writer. She spends the rest of her life with him. However, the couple never got officially married but they spend four decades together. She used to be the inspiration of Imroz most of the arts. He even used to design the front covers of her novel.

She wrote her entire journey from her married life to her being head over heels for Sudhir ludhianvi in her autobiographical work “ticket Rashidi” and black rose”.

She even had a book on her life with Imroz written by Uma Trilok titled as “Amrita Imroz: a love story”.

During that period when she was with Imroz, she penned a total of 28 novels, 18 anthologies (prose), 16 miscellaneous volumes of prose, and five short stories.

In 2007, eminent Indian lyricist Gulzar released an album which was a compilation of Amrita Pritam's poetry.

In her last stages of life when death was staring at her she wrote a poem for Imroz which seeks for eternal reunion titled as “main tenu Phir milangi”.

In 2005 she took her last breath and left the world with her inspirational work and literature which touched millions of hearts.