India, Feb. 28 -- In 1947, Punjabi poet and writer Amrita Pritam (1919-2005) left Lahore, sought refuge in Dehra Dun and then went to Delhi to look for a job. She was 28 years old. While on the train at night, she found she couldn't sleep. It was dark and windy outside, and the small mounds in the flat landscape looked like graves to her. She had witnessed too much horror, seen too many dead bodies and too many people who looked like living corpses. You could get exhausted narrating tales of grief but the tales would last longer than your lifetime. As she sat wide awake in the train, she thought of 18th century poet Waris Shah, known for his great Punjabi epic, Heer Ranjha.

Hands trembling, Amrita Pritam picked up the pen and wrote the p...