Book V/s Movie: PINJAR
Amrita Pritam — The Author of ‘Pinjar’
Born on 31 August 1919, Amrita Pritam was an Indian novelist, essayist, and poet who wrote in Punjabi and Hindi. She is the first prominent female Punjabi poet and a leading 20th-century poet of the Punjabi language. She was the first female recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1956 for Sunehadey and received the Bhartiya Jnanpith Award in 1982 for Kagaj Te. Pritam produced over 100 books of poetry, fiction, biographies, essays, a collection of Punjabi folk songs, and an autobiography that were all translated into several Indian and foreign languages.
“हर लड़की का यौवन उसे अपनी माँ से अलग कर देता है।” — अमृता प्रीतम
As a novelist, Pinjar (1950) was her most celebrated work where she created her most memorable character, Puro, who was an epitome of violence against women, loss of humanity, and surrender to fate. The novel was made into an award-winning film, Pinjar in 2003.
Directed by Chandra Prakash Dwivedi, the movie ‘Pinjar’ is about the Hindu-Muslim feud during the Partition of India starring Urmila Matondkar, Manoj Bajpayee, and Sanjay Suri in the lead roles. Besides critical acclaim, the film also won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration. From the opening scene of the movie to Puro’s abduction to Puro saving her (once could have been) family member and reuniting her with her family to returning back to her family, who didn’t accept her after her abduction by Rashid to coming back to Rashid’s house, the movie keeps the audience at the edge of their seat.
Plot
Set during the period of Partition of India, Pinjar is a story of Puro, a Hindu girl, lived a happy and comfortable life with her family. But things take a drastic turn when she gets abducted by Rashid, a Muslim boy, due to some family rivalry, but his affection towards Puro drove him to take this step. Puro’s parents refuse to accept the defiled girl when she manages to escape from Rashid’s home. After lots of dilemmas, Puro accepted her fate, started to live with Rashid as his wife, and gave birth to their son Javed. In the end, we also see her brother propose a deal to her to come back to her family with Ram Chand (with whom Puro was to wed and who was ready to accept her), leaving Rashid behind. Puro refused the offer and went back to Rashid and her son. This shows that Puro has now accepted her life and has disregarded the people who did not help her when she needed it.
Though not many differences can be seen in the movie, when compared to the novel, the movie has followed almost every incident and event from the novel capturing the essence of the book. Even though the director tries to stay true to the book, there are some changes that are to be made in the movie due to the restraints provided by the change of the medium.
Puro’s Miscarriage
The movie represents that after marrying Rashid, Puro found herself to be pregnant with his child but she had a miscarriage leading to catharsis from the audience trying to understand her life. The movie also presents the now couple of Puro and Rashid as childless throughout their life. But in the novel, when Puro became pregnant, she gave birth to her son and named him ‘Javed’, and lived a life as normal as they could in those circumstances.
Helping Stranger
There is a very heart-warming and yet heart-wrenching scene/chapter in the novel, when Puro readily accepts to help and even adopt the child of a ‘pagli’ (a madwoman) and starts raising him as her own along with her son, Javed after pagli dies during childbirth. This portrayal of Puro’s kindness and humanity despite herself going through all those miseries and sufferings made the reader cry while reading the book. But unfortunately, this incident did not make it to the movie due to time constraints.
If we exclude these certain incidents, all the aesthetics of the characters from the story have been beautifully portrayed by the actors and they brought justice to the novel and the writer keeping her legacy alive. Everything was beautifully written, portrayed, and has been presented in a mesmerizing manner to the readers as well as viewers. ‘Pinjar’ can be said to be a delicate tale of a woman’s dilemma, troubles, courage, and love which resonates well with so many Puros, going through their troubles, out there.
At the end of the novel, Puro end by saying this to her brother after he proposes to her to come back -
“चाहे कोई लड़की हिंदू हो या मुसलमान, जो लड़की अपने ठिकाने पहुँचती है, समझो कि उसी के साथ पूरो की आत्मा भी ठिकाने पहुँच गई।”
