3 days ago
Amrita Pritam’s Two Delhis: A City Lived, Written, Erased
Amrita Pritam was a famous writer who moved to Delhi from Lahore in 1947.
She worked there, published a magazine, and built a home with the artist Imroz.
Delhi was also the subject of many of her poems and stories.
In those works, she often described the city as lonely, unfair, and difficult for women.
Her home in Hauz Khas was meant to be preserved after her death.
However, it was sold and demolished about five years later.
Imroz then moved to a nearby apartment.
Today, the house is gone, but Pritam’s books and poems still help people find her.
Her writing suggests that a person’s real home can live in memory and literature rather than at one fixed address.
Amrita Pritam moved from Lahore to Delhi in 1947 and lived there until her death in 2005.
She worked at All India Radio, edited Nagmani from her Hauz Khas home, and later received official recognition from Delhi institutions.
Her poems and fiction portrayed Delhi as lonely, gendered, morally decayed, and hostile to its residents.
Pritam’s home at K-25, Hauz Khas, was demolished around 2010 after her son sold it to a builder.
Although the address disappeared, her writing continues to preserve her connection with Delhi through readers, translations, and secondhand books.
- Who
- Amrita Pritam, her partner Imroz, and the Delhi literary world are central to the account.
- What
- The article contrasts the Delhi Pritam inhabited with the harsher Delhi she depicted in her writing, culminating in the demolition of her home.
- Where
- Delhi, especially K-25 in Hauz Khas, along with the Lahore she left behind.
- When
- Pritam lived in Delhi from 1947 until her death in 2005; her Hauz Khas home was demolished five years after her death.
- Why
- The article examines how Delhi supported Pritam’s working life while also becoming the city she criticized and ultimately the city that erased her physical address.
Key facts
- Arrival in Delhi
- Amrita Pritam arrived from Lahore via Dehradun in 1947, aged 28.
- Radio career
- She worked as an announcer in All India Radio’s Punjabi service until 1961.
- Hauz Khas home
- K-25, Hauz Khas, was a rehabilitation plot allotted to artists displaced from Lahore.
- Nagmani
- Beginning in 1966, Pritam and Imroz edited the Punjabi literary monthly Nagmani from their home.
- Official recognition
- Delhi University awarded Pritam an honorary doctorate in 1973, and she was nominated to the Rajya Sabha in 1986.
- Home’s demolition
- Pritam’s son sold K-25 to a builder five years after her death, and the house was demolished.
- Key works
- Her Delhi-related works discussed include “Dilli is sheher ka naam hai,” Dilli ki Galiyan, Ek Sheher ki Maut, and Rasidi Ticket.
Quotes
Anukriti Gupta
Writer cited for her analysis of Pritam’s novel Dilli ki Galiyan
“In Kamini’s journey, Delhi becomes one big broad canvas on which she draws, erases and redraws her experiences and desires; she critiques this gendered space; questions her vulnerability and draws her own map of the city”
scroll.in
“Yah ek shaap hai, yah ek var hai/ aur jahaan bhi aazaad ruh ki jhalak pade/ samajhna vah mera ghar hai”
scroll.in
Sources
Related news
Amrita Pritam's Bold Exploration of Female Desire
Delhi LG Warns Partition Could Be Reduced To Dates
Why Irshad Kamil’s Songs Continue to Feel Like Home
Indian Filmmakers and Writers Re-Engage with Pakistan Through Compassionate Art
Delhi's Food Memories Reveal a City Constantly Changing
Woman on Writer's Retreat Falls in Love with the Sky
Indian cinema's Partition story, from Garm Hava to Gadar
Rasika Dugal Discusses Industry Work Hours and Diverse Roles
Ajeet Cour's "The Blue Potter" Celebrates Artists and Visionaries
