Google celebrated the 100th birth anniversary of renowned Punjabi poet, author and essayist, Amrita Pritam with a Google doodle on Saturday.
Amrita Pritam is most remembered for her poem titled “Ajj Aakhaan Waris Shah Nu,” (Today I Invoke Waris Shah), addressed to Punjabi Sufi poet Waris Shah in which she laments the tragedy of the partition of Pakistan from India.
Today Google has dedicated its doodle to Pritam’s famous autobiography, Kala Gulab. The doodle shows, Pritam sitting in an open area while she scribbles away in her diary with black roses kept in front of her.
Kala Gulab, her autobiography revealed details of her personal life. Her book worked as a force for women to be able to speak out about their experiences with marriage and love.
Pritam’s famous novel “Pinjar”, written in 1950, talks about the social turmoil and the traumatic torture inflicted on women by their abductors in the wake of the Partition. It was adapted into a Hindi film of the same title, which won the National award for Best Feature Film on National Integration in 2004.
In 1985, the poet was nominated for Rajya Sabha. She has also been awarded for her work as a literary marvel. In 1981 she received a Bharatiya Jnanpith literary award. She was also awarded the Padma Bhushan in the year 2005.
Pritam received many prestigious awards including the Bharatiya Jnanpith literary award in 1981 and one of the country’s highest civilian awards, the Padma Vibushan, in 2005.
In 2004 she was honoured with India’s highest literary award, given by the Sahitya Akademi, the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship is given to the “immortals of literature” for lifetime achievement.