‘An effortless simplicity’: Ajeet Cour’s pen portrait of Punjabi writer Kulwant Singh Virk

Virk!

Just the mention of his name humbles me and fills me with a sense of inferiority. In Punjabi literature, the three writers I hold in the highest regard are [Kulwant Singh] Virk, Duggal, and Sekhon. Sekhon Sahib stopped writing stories long ago, but Duggal and Virk have been writing continuously.

After reading many of Virk’s stories, I often find myself thinking, “Why didn’t this idea come to me? This event had happened around me too. Why couldn’t I capture it?”

Virk is the Waris Shah of Punjabi short stories.

My first meeting with Virk was an accidental one. It happened in 1952.

I had just been married. I felt lonely, being surrounded by doctors. One evening, my husband asked, “Do you know Virk?”

I began to mentally search among his friends for some Dr Virk. “Kulwant Singh Virk! The one who writes stories?”

“Virk!” My enthusiasm was hard to contain. “I don’t know Virk personally. But I have read his stories.”

“Would you like to meet him?”

And so, he took me to meet Virk, at his house.

Virk was sitting cross-legged on a sofa, reading something. He had an open beard, a lean body, a small knot of hair tied atop his head, and sharp hawk-like eyes that seemed to pierce right through a person.

He stood up hastily, greeted us with a formal “hello” and quickly went inside. Moments later, he returned after wearing a turban. To this day, I remember the colour of his turban – it was somewhere between rust and brown.

My husband introduced me. “This is my wife, Ajeet. She also writes stories.”

Virk simply said, “I know.” He spoke in such a quiet, emotionless tone, without even smiling, as if he were giving a testimony in court.

Many years passed by.

Then, one day, I received a letter from Virk. It read, “I’m writing an article about you. Please send me something about yourself.”

I wrote a brief note and sent it to him, adding, “It’s an honour to know that a distinguished writer like you is writing about me. But honestly, I don’t think I’m worthy yet of having an article written on me by you.”

I can’t recall exactly what else I had written in that response, but I do remember writing something about crows: “When I was little, I used to lie on an old, loosely woven cot on the open terrace of our house in Lahore and watch the crows come home at dusk. It always made me feel inexplicably melancholic. I didn’t know why their flight home made me feel sad. At that time, I didn’t realise that for the rest of my life, I would be asking those very crows: Where is my home?”

Before the article, Virk had sent another letter, one filled with warmth and affection. In that letter, he had extended his friendship and shared things he had never shared with me in all the years I had known him.

Virk is the master of short stories. Like Chekhov, he weaves his tales around small incidents and seemingly insignificant details. But he never lets you feel that he’s weaving a story. Instead, it feels more like someone from the family had gone out, met a few people along the way, and upon returning, casually told you about it. Almost like, “I met so-and-so on the way, and they said this” or “this happened on the journey”. That’s it.

This effortless simplicity and spontaneity are what make Virk’s stories so unique – unadorned yet deeply personal and distinct.

There may be many storytellers, but Virk’s style is something entirely his own, Virkai.

His friendship, too, is like the gentle warmth of the winter sunlight – not flamboyant and overwhelming. Often, there’s no need for words. Like the warmth of the sun, Virk’s presence alone is enough to let you feel that he is near.

And his quietness and reservedness aren’t due to pride. In truth, he’s genuinely shy.

Many of his stories have already become classics in Punjabi literature. “Chah Vela”, “Toori Di Pand”, “Dharti Hethla Baulada”, “Opri Dharti”, and “Khabbal” are among them.

In “Opri Dharti”, Hazara Singh was a skilled thief. No one can scale the wall the way he does. To him, a wall was like a piece of soft cake. His knack for breaking and entering was famous in the neighbouring villages. Cattle theft was his speciality; no one could match his expertise in the matter of stealing cattle. His reputation for stealing cattle had spread across sixty villages. He found it thrilling because it felt like a tough and worthwhile challenge. Stealing live animals, especially clever ones, was no easy task – chains would clink against their horns – but he’d still manage to unchain them. He would sneak into barns and, with precision, lead the animals away overnight, moving from one village to another before locking them up in his hideouts after covering great distances by nightfall. He was so skilled that even the morning would find the head constable entering the empty barn, exclaiming with admiration, “Hats off to that thief!”

But when the Partition happened, Hazara Singh found himself displaced and wandered to Karnal with a refugee caravan. He felt trapped from all sides and was constantly trying to hide from danger. With no work and no prospects, life seemed unbearable and only poverty remained. Someone reminded him of his skills, saying, “Uncle, a person with a trade can always fill his stomach, right?”

Hazara Singh responded, “Oh no. On this alien land, I can’t even find my footing, let alone steal.”

This story beautifully captures the pain of uprooted individuals and is considered one of the finest stories in Punjabi literature.

Another brilliant story about displaced and uprooted people is “Khabbal”.

This time, the setting is Pakistan, where the government has assigned the narrator the task of finding and retrieving abandoned livestock. “Everything in Pakistan seemed displaced, even the animals that have been left behind in abandoned homes, looking around with their forlorn eyes and stepping cautiously in unfamiliar places.”

This is the beauty of Virk’s genius and vision – he captures not only the despair of people but also the melancholy of the animals left behind. His keen eye doesn’t even miss the sadness of the animals. Such sadness can only be perceived by eyes that share a bond with every living thing – sensitive and insightful eyes that penetrate deeply into the soul. It’s a rare kind of empathy that only someone deeply connected to every living thing can express.

The story of “Khabbal” continues and takes you to a woman who has been left behind in a desolate hut – sick and feverish. She cannot be moved in her current state. The narrator tells her, “I’ll come back for you another day, sister.”

But the woman makes him sit beside her and pleads, “You are my Sikh brother now, even though I have become a Muslim. I have no one left in this world. I am in a lot of trouble; hold my hand. I have a little sister-in-law. She was taken away by someone from Chak 11. Please, find my younger sister-in-law for me. I’m her older sister-in-law and she will come for me. I’ll marry her off with my own hands. That way, I’ll strengthen my bonds and my connection with this world will grow.”

And the storyteller recalls an old Jatt’s words, “Look at the ‘khabbal’ during the ploughing season. When the plough first turns the soil, it leaves nothing unturned. Everything gets uprooted and thrown aside. But after ten days, a little sprout emerges again.”

Only Virk could write such a story.

Excerpted with permission from The Blue Potter: The Creative Genius of Punjab, Ajeet Cour, Aleph Book Company.