Shiv Kumar Batalvi
Romantic poet of pain, the youngest winner of India's Sahitya Akademi award, for his verse play Loona.
Shiv Kumar was born in 1936 at Bara Pind Lohtian in the Shakargarh tehsil, now in Pakistan, and came to Batala after Partition, taking its name. He became the most loved Punjabi poet of the twentieth century.
His poems are of birha, the pain of separation: lost love, death and longing, in simple, singing language. His verse play Loona retold the legend of Puran Bhagat from the point of view of the stepmother Luna, presenting her as a young woman married to an old king. In 1967, at thirty-one, he became the youngest winner of the Sahitya Akademi award.
His poems were sung by Jagjit Singh, Mahendra Kapoor, Surinder Kaur and many others, and he sang them himself. He drank heavily and died in 1973 at thirty-six.