The most common term or phrase his fans use to describe him is Birha Da Sultaan (The King of Sadness). In this post of the Blog, we will talk about the stories associated with the name of Shiv Kumar and the opinions of fellow poets and his friends.
Once Shiv Kumar Batalvi mentioned that he was sitting with Amrita Pritam (Punjabi Poetess) and Achla Devi (Bollywood Actor), when he started singing his poems in front of them they both got emotional and he could see tears in their eyes. To break the sadness in the environment Shiv stopped his singing in between. When Shiv released his first anthology Peeran Da Paraga (The Scarf-full of Sorrows) in 1960, Amrita Pritam was so touched with his work that she wrote a letter to Shiv, a copy of which can be seen in the photograph below.
Amrita blessed him for the pain in his poems writing, “May the Pain in your Poems live Forever. I don’t know whether your Pain is a Blessing or a Curse”.
Bhushan Dhianpuri, a fellow poet, who was in Chandigarh when Shiv moved that city talks about him saying, “Shiv was enemy to no one and he had no friends too.” According to him, whenever Shiv talked about any of the deep regrets of his life while sitting with his friends, he used to get lost in his own sentences.
One of Shiv's friends once told in an interview that they both were traveling through the city together in an auto rikshaw and suddenly Shiv asked for a pen and paper from him. It was late night so arranging a pen and paper was not possible, so Shiv stopped the rikshaw, took a stone and started writing a Ghazal (an Arabic form of Poem) on a nearby wall. After finishing the poem, Shiv asked his friend to come back at that place on the next morning and to write the Ghazal down on a paper.
“It was certainly a matter of pride for me as one and all eulogized Shiv as a poet of eminence. But at home he was a devout and caring husband and a doting father. He loved me and the children with such honesty that I never had the slightest doubt over his sincerity. He used to hold our son Vicky (Dr Meharban) when he had fever in his arms throughout the night, without sleeping for a moment,” is what Aruna (his wife) told a local newspaper about him.
Shiv’s father always wanted him to get the best possible education and do a respectable job, but his bohemian lifestyle always stopped him from doing so. Shiv also wanted the same for his kids, during the days when Shiv had critical health, he asked his wife to promise him that she would provide the best education to their kids. Fulfilling his dream Aruna told that both the kids (Meharbaan and Puja) hold the doctoral degree and settled abroad.
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