This is Amrita Pritam’s “Last Letter” that she wrote to her beloved poet Sahir Ludhianvi after his death.
This letter by Amrita is a literary masterpiece, where only the destined ones arrive.
“My beloved, whenever I start writing a song, I feel like I am writing a letter to you… Lok Geet (folk songs) sometimes become messengers for someone, and sometimes they wrap messages in the wings of pigeons. The old times have passed when a feather from a peacock’s tail was torn off and tied with a passerby’s message. Those people are fortunate who follow the footsteps of a kite flyer. But when it becomes impossible to send a letter to someone, only the winds remain, which wrap messages in their wings… Like Kali Das’s letter got lost, each of my songs has become a letter.”
I remember when I first saw you, I was in a strange village and I started thinking that the village was strange, but why aren’t you a stranger?
One day, your footsteps touched the threshold of my house. I heard your voice and felt a breeze that carried your breath, and in that air, a fragrance started to emanate.
One day, you came with a paper in your hand. I asked, “Will you read it out to me?” And you recited your poem to me. I felt that I had never heard a voice like yours before. I had never heard a melody like yours.
“I will come again,” you said, giving the first promise in my life.
I received your first letter in my life. It said, “I will come on the 30th. It felt as if your single line had filled my waiting with colors.”
But then your letter never arrived.
Today, my beloved, I am writing you a final letter… After this, I will never write again. And when you read my wild songs, don’t think that I have forgotten to write you letters. I will only write wild songs with these hands and await a new morning that changes the dark system. Change the system of the world that gives birth to hunters and killers. And if a new bright morning comes into my life, then I will write you a golden letter of my love.
“When Saahir is no longer in this magical world,” and the bitterness of memories is being printed, so the publisher wanted me to write its preface. I won’t say much about the poems, as Saahir’s poetry has become part of people’s souls and the veins of history. I was indebted to Saahir. Since the day he asked me to write a preface for his collection of poems and didn’t write to me again. Today, I am repaying that debt. After his departure, it’s been a long time.
“Oh God, it’s been so long, It’s been so long.”
Amrita Pritam
