Ajmer Singh Aulakhਅਜਮੇਰ ਸਿੰਘ ਔਲਖ

Early life

Ajmer Singh Aulakh was born on 19 August 1942 at Kumbharwal village in Sangrur district, Punjab, to Harnaam Kaur and Kaur Singh. He grew up in the Malwa countryside that would fill his plays, earned an M.A. in Punjabi, and in 1965 joined Nehru Memorial Government College, Mansa, as a lecturer in Punjabi. He taught there for four decades — but his real classroom became the villages of Punjab.

Career

Aulakh founded Lok Kala Manch — the People’s Art Forum — a touring theatre troupe that performed his plays in villages, mandis and open grounds, in the colloquial language of the Malwa countryside. His drama belonged to the people it was about: farm labourers, bonded workers, small farmers and the rural poor caught between landlords, moneylenders and the state. A committed progressive, he stood for the cause of farm labourers and deprived castes, and his plays carried that politics without ever losing their humour or their music. In 2008 he was diagnosed with cancer; he fought it for nine years with what his friends called the same stubbornness his characters show on stage.

Major works

His first collection of one-act plays, Arbad Narbad Dhundukar (Eons and Nebulae), appeared in 1978, followed by Begane Bohar di Chhan (Shade of the Alien Banyan), Anhe Nishanchi (Blind Shooters) and Gani. His full-length plays include Ik Ramayan Hor (One More Ramayana), Satt Begaane, Kehar Singh di Maut (Kehar Singh’s Death), Bhajian Bahin (Broken Arms), Ikka Si Daria, Jhanan de Pani and Aise Jana Wirale Samsare. The 2006 Sahitya Akademi Award for his play collection Ishaka Bajha Namaza da Hajja Nahi made him one of the most honoured playwrights of his generation; he had earlier received the Shiromani Sahitkar Award from IAPA Canada in 1991 and the Kartar Singh Dhaliwal Award in 1996.

Legacy

Aulakh died of cancer on 15 June 2017 at his home in Mansa, aged seventy-four. In a will written in 2013 he asked that his daughters — Supandeep, Sohajdeep and Ajdeep — light his pyre, a final gesture of the progressive values he had lived by. He is survived by his wife, Manjit Aulakh. His plays are still performed across rural Punjab, and Lok Kala Manch’s model of taking theatre to the village remains his lasting gift to Punjabi culture.