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A MULTIDIMENSIONAL PERSON
Miter Rasha
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*
First appeared in Panjabi language
in Perdesi
Panjab, Canada, Feb.16, 1979.
It was the summer of 1978 when I read an article about Stephen
Gill in the Ottawa Citizen. I had heard about him before, but it was
this article which increased my curiosity to see him. On my request, a common
friend drove me to Cornwall. While driving he told me
that Stephen Gill belonged to a Sikh family and he had changed his name as many
Sikhs do in Canada. When I asked him the reason, he replied that a Davinder will change his name to Dave; Harrinder
to Harvey; Balram to Bill, Sukhinder
to Sam, Narinder to Nick and so on. The Sikhs, even others, do it because it
becomes easier for them to find jobs. At the same time, it helps them to
conceal their past. Even for Canadians, it is easy to pronounce Anglicized
names.
The answer of my friend failed to satisfy me because
for me Mr. Gill was not among
ordinary Indians. From the information from the article and other
sources I could say that
the person I
was going to meet was unique. While
our car sped towards Cornwall in the brightness
of the sun, many
questions emerged in the sea of my thought. That was
the state of my mind when our car
touched the land of Cornwall.
Stephen Gill's office was in the basement, in the lap
of solitude. I tried to converse in English, but the answer came in Panjabi that promoted me to use the language of our
province, where we both were born. That tore the curtain of strangeness. I came
to know he never changed his name and that he was not from a Sikh
family. Since he did not have to haunt for a job, he was under no
pressure to change his name as several Indians do.
We talked for
hours about the writers of Panjab and about my books.
Our first meeting turned
into a strong bond
of friendship. I offered him my collection of poems Akasama, inviting him to visit me in Ottawa.
I felt he is a man of many qualities. He is cordial,
patient and sober. He has married a Maharashtriyan woman. At home he speaks English and therefore
his children do not know Indian languages. With people from India and Pakistan,
he converses in Panjabi, Urdu and Hindi. He had been
to many countries. At the age of fourteen his first short story was published
in Urdu in Zindagai, a magazine from New Delhi.
He said that Urdu writers follow the old, beaten track. However, he enjoyed
reading literature of the East as well as the West because he found beauty in
them. He believed that at present many
good poems have been written in North America but there is a shortage of good
poets.
After tea, I had the chance to see his scrapbook that
consisted of several volumes. It had both good as well as bad book reviews of
his books. Some of those reviews seemed to have been written out of jealousy
with a myopic view.
After that I made several trips to Cornwall. I found
him always crowded with papers-- sometimes, it was a
long search to find a note or a letter. He was always sure it was safe. When he
laughed, it seemed a puzzle to me because it was sober. His working hours were
long and often he becomes oblivious of the time and place.
Lately when I met him, I found that he has increased
his activities. He does not seem to get tired due to long hours. Rather, seems
to be running faster than before. This time, he was invited by
a group of
poets and writers from
Newzealand
for readings and
talks.
This was not his first serious invitation from abroad.
He had been to the United States with the help of the Canada Council, and also
to India, England and across Canada. I asked him if he gets tired
of these activities. His
answer was that
he returns fresh
as trees appear
after torrential rains. Even his friends, who are all
writers, afford him that desirable freshness. He is a restless soul. I
am sure that a person like him cannot lead a quiet life even if physicians
advise them. In order to live, he has to be involved with his whole mind and
body. His writing is the one and the
only focus of
his life. Perhaps it is the blessing of the water
that he drank in his early life at Sialkot, Panjab, where he was born.
Gill
loves the Panjab, its
people, culture and food. He enjoys extremely spicy and hot foods of the Panjab. Though he writes also
in Panjabi,
he is known mostly as
a writer of English in Panjab. His Panjabi and
Urdu poetry appears regularly in India and abroad.
His Panjabi collection of
poems, titled Aman
Di Kugghi (Dove of
Peace), was favourably received by the readers. He is against wars. He has
edited two volumes in which poets from over eighteen nations speak against
violence. In addition, he has contributed several articles on peace and to
promote harmony. He believes that wars have not been able to solve problems.
They waste money and natural resources. The world needs one government which
will be elected in a democratic way. To foster his ideology, he has joined the
World Federalist movement. For some years, he was a vice-president of the
Canadian World Federalists and also the editor of its newspaper. World peace is
an obsession for him. He says that it took centuries to build human
civilization and may take minutes to destroy it with nuclear weapons.
In 1982, I had a chance to work with him closely on a
serious project. He co-ordinated the Second World Panjabi Conference at the University of Ottawa. The
purpose of the conference was to form a line of communication between Panjabi and Canadian writers. The conference was condemned
and analysed from every possible angle in the world Panjabi
media. In spite of
adverse criticisms it was successful and has paved a way for
future conferences. It was a historical event.
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*Miter Rasha is a prominent poet
of Panjabi language. He has several collections of
poems to his credit.