L I T E R A T U R E

Stale Waters of Punjabi Letters
Dr. Jaspal Singh

THE first decade of the present century has not been very fertile for Punjabi Literature. There is no dearth of books. Punjabi publishers are overbusy in minting millions without making any investment worth the name. Most of the authors are small time practitioners and writing for them is a casual hobby that they carry more as an addiction rather than a commitment. Hundreds of poems, short stories and novels are churn out day in and day out. There is a ready publisher in the next street. But he publishes for a price. With a few exceptions, no Punjabi writer can see his or her name in print without making a donation to the publisher. The author in return gets a few dozens of complimentary copies that she presents to her admirers and appraisers. Books are indeed good gifts for friends and one can always flaunt the badge of authorship.

The publisher’s print order in most cases is less than five hundred copies. Some of the libraries in towns and colleges do buy books. So a clever publisher manages to sell his first edition with a little manipulation – bribing the officials and the go-betweens. Entire sale is his net profit. So every book adds a few thousand bucks to his kitty. Since the author never writes for money (ignoring a few exceptions), she too is happy.

There are not many professional writers in Punjabi. Those few who have such pretensions conceal the facts. Indeed most of them get remittances from universities or from Human Resource Development Department as fellows. They are paid these fees and allowances either as charity or as hush money for not writing against the establishment. So they have become hacks, regularly getting published to keep afloat in the literary market. The market too requires quickies. Once or twice a month, Sahit Sabhas of various hues, meet over a cup of tea to pay accolades to the author. The author is elated so are the acolytes. The show goes on and on ad nauseam!

There was a time when the Punjabi writers were a toiling lot. Sweet were the uses of adversity. As time rolled on, the writers gathered moss, may not be out of writing. Now they write as an act of diversion. In the evening most of them go on a binge in the tippling company of Bacchus. The day is spent in one’s daily chores or attending to one’s vocation. Once in a while you pick up the pen or the mouse and scribble. The poet tries to mystify the obvious. The fiction writer chews the cud. The publisher runs off the prints in double quick. There is no editing, no proof reading. Why should he reduce his profit on these dispensable pranks? Some persons in order to seek jobs or promotions have to produce and present books that they might not otherwise would have done. This too adds to the publishing business.

The publisher does not publish for the readers but for the library shelves. Most of the Punjabi writers are left with themselves to read their own books. They hardly read anything else appearing in the world literature. So it is  one way traffic. Once a Punjabi writer went to meet a renowned university don carrying his donkey load of books, who fleetingly scanned through the pages and then exhorted the ‘prolific’ author, “You have written more than enough, now read something”. The author picked his load and walked away doubting the wisdom of the don.

If you dare ask a Punjabi writer about the kind of research that he had to do in the production of the book, he would trip over the question. The answer invariably would be, “I’m not a research scholar, I’m a novelist. Others would do research on me and get their Ph.ds”. The poor guys do not understand that no literature is possible without research, without perceiving and conceiving, horizontally and vertically. Nevertheless the run-of-the-mill performance goes on and on. Cheers!

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