Love Stories from Punjab

by Harish Dhillon

  He held her briefly in his arms.

  “That copse there,” he pointed to a thicket of young, close growing trees. “I will wait for you there. You must come only when it is safe for you to come and then, too, not always.”

  “And if I do not come you will know that it is because I cannot.” They smiled at the memory of his words and he turned and plunged into the river. When he reached the other bank and turned to look, she had gone.

  And so the lovers began to meet again, the way they had met at first, surreptitiously, like thieves in the night.

  But there was now a difference to their meetings. There was none of the tremulous excitement of those early days. And even when they touched each other, it did not arouse passionate fires as it had done before. If they were not able to meet even for a month, it caused no restlessness and they were content to wait till the opportunity came their way. Mahiwal would swim across the river after the day’s work was done and wait in the copse for his Sohni. While he waited, he would catch a fish and cut and dress it and keep it ready to cook when she came. And when she did, he would light a fire and heat the piece of slate he had procured for this purpose and cook the fish. He would watch her by the glow of the fire, as she ate, and she saw again the love of the entire world reflected in his eyes.

  But it was difficult for her to get away. On the nights her husband went out with his friends, which were still many, she could not hope to come, because she was never certain when he would return. And on others, there were often visitors and guests, or one of the family members, sleeping in the courtyard, through which she had to pass to reach the door. But sometimes, when her husband lay beside her, in deep sleep and the house was still and silent and the courtyard empty, she would steal forth in the dark and join her lover in the copse. They were brief meetings and it was as she had said – she was content to look upon his face in the dim light of the little fire and listen to his voice for an hour, never more, and then to steal back to her bed. They both drew strength from these meetings and perceived them as harmless.

  One evening, after a particularly tiring day, Mahiwal reached the other side and decided to take a short nap. It would be still some time before Sohni came, and there would be time enough to wake up and catch a fish for her. So he wrung out his wet clothes, curled up under a tree and went to sleep. He was awakened, a short while later, by the sound of peals of thunder and claps of lightening and, even as he awoke, he heard the sound of the downpour and the roar of the raging river. He would catch no fish tonight, he thought sadly. Perhaps she would not come tonight, and if she did, he would tell her what had happened – and he was sure she would understand. It was so small a thing. And yet, when he pondered over it, he realized that it was not such a small thing after all. He had failed her. It was the only way he had of showing his love and he had failed in it. She would forgive him but he would never be able to forgive himself.

  As the night drew on, panic seized him. He could not fail her. He must find a way out. Suddenly, a thought came to him and he acted on it. He took his knife and drawing up his tehmat, cut three slivers of flesh from his right thigh. Then he tore a strip of cloth from the edge of his tehmat and tied up his wound. She would come and eat her “fish” and never know the difference, and he would be content, knowing that he had paid the price for his failure.

  She came, a short while later. The storm had abated, though a few drops of rain still fell from the sky. Under the shelter of a dense overhanging bough, he lit a fire and cooked the meat. When he was done, he handed her the first piece. She raised it to her lips and looked at him. His eyes were averted and he did not look straight at her. She lowered her hand, the food still untasted. “What is it?” she asked and he looked, at last, at her and knew that he could not go through with the deception.

  “The fish,” he said and could say no more.

  “Yes, what of the fish?” she asked looking down at the piece of white flesh in her hand.

  “It is no fish at all. It is my flesh.”

  She looked again into his eyes and he saw the bewilderment there. “I was tired when I came across and instead of catching the fish at once, I went to steep. When I awoke, the storm was raging and there was no possibility of catching a fish. I was overcome by a sense of failure. I could not forgo the pleasure of watching you eat. So I substituted my own flesh for the fish.”

  She put the piece of flesh gently down upon the ground and looked at him again and he saw the understanding in her eyes.

  “It is what I would have done for you. Show me your wound.”

  He drew his 0 up again and undid the bandage. She touched the wound gently and at her touch, the blood came oozing up.

  “Tie it up quickly. Tie it tight.” And he wrapped the blood soaked rag once again around his thigh and drew it tight and tied the ends.

  “It will need the hakim’s skill,” she said. “And till it heals, you must not venture into the river. Wait for me, on the sandbank, where your cattle were that day, and I will come to you.”

  So it was Sohni, now who went across the river to her Mahiwal, while he waited patiently upon the sandbank. She did not know how to swim and used an empty, upturned pitcher to carry her across, in clumsy bobbing movements.

  Moti slept in the verandah outside her brother’s room. Early one morning, she awoke from a restless slumber. She closed her eyes and tried to go back to sleep again but sleep eluded her. She became aware of a soft footfall in the courtyard. She turned rigid with fear. A thief had stolen into the house. As she thought of what she must do, she was aware that someone stood at the foot of her bed looking down at her. She opened her eyes a little and almost gasped with surprise – it was Sohni who stood there, her wet clothes clinging to her body. Moti lay still and, after a while, Sohni stole away into her room.

  Moti lay awake, thinking of the strange apparition she had seen. Why were Sohni’s clothes wet? The sky was clear and there had been no rain for days. It could only be that she had been in the river. But what was she doing in the river at this unearthly hour? She considered all the probabilities and, one by one, discarded them. She had no answer. The morning light painted the sky a gentle rose and Sohni, as always, was the first one up, attending to all the household chores. She went blithely about her work and made no mention of falling into the river said – it was as if she was unaware of it. Perhaps her sister was given to walking in her sleep, Moti thought at last. She had heard of this affliction. She must make sure of this and then seek the hakim’s help in effecting a cure.

  Night after night, Moti lay awake, but for almost three weeks, Sohni did not stir from the house. Then, just as she was ready to dismiss the incident from her mind, it happened again.

  Sohni came out of her room, picked up a pitcher and left the house. Moti followed her. It was a full moon night and the world was bathed in a strong, clear light. It was easy for Moti to follow Sohni down to the riverbank. Once there, she took cover behind a tree and watched her sister-in-law. She saw her turn the pitcher upside down and lower it into the water and then lower herself across it. Then with short quick movements of her arm, she launched herself into the river and steered herself across it. On a sandbank, on the other side, Moti saw something white gleaming in the moonlight and discerned a human figure. As Sohni approached the bank, the figure in white, got to his feet and Moti saw it was a man. He came down to the water’s edge and helped Sohni out of the water. Then, together, they walked across the sandbank and disappeared into the shadow of the tree that stood above it. Moti had seen all that she needed to see and hurried home. This was no incident of sleepwalking that she had seen: she thought bitterly, it was a breach of trust. She laid awake the rest of the night, pondering over what she had witnessed.

  Sohni and Mahiwal sat under the trees and once again, he lit a fire and cooked the fish and watched her as she ate.

  “The monsoon will soon be upon us and you must not come across the river. It will be tempting fate to try and cross the raging waters
.”

  “I know. I will come to you three days from now and then we will wait till the monsoon has abated. It will not be too long – we have waited sometimes for over a month, so to wait for two months or more will not be too difficult. By then your wound will have healed and I will not need to come across again. I will be glad for that, for each crossing has been more difficult than the last.” He put his arm around her shoulder and drew her close.

  All through that morning, Moti’s mind went back to what she had seen. It was a lover Sohni went to meet, of that she was sure. Only that could explain the great risk she took each time she crossed the river and the radiance that glowed on her face after each meeting. But who was the man? She remembered the gossip she had heard just before her brother’s wedding – the talk of Sohni’s affair with the merchant prince from Bokhara; what was his name? What had happened to that man? No one knew. Sohni had wrapped them all in her spell and none of them had cared to keep track of what was happening. Perhaps he had not gone back at all. Perhaps Sohni had been meeting him all along.

  Once she had started on this chain of thought, she could not rest and on the following day, sought a pretext to go into town. She made straight to the serai, where she was greeted by the old caretaker. “What is it you want?”

  “I come to meet the merchant prince from Bokhara. I bring him tidings from Sohni.”

  “Has she not done him enough harm already? From a merchant prince she has reduced him to Tula Khan’s mahiwal. What more does she intend to do to him? You can take the tidings to him yourself.” He turned and walked quickly away.

  As she hurried home, Moti felt a seething rage stir within her, accompanied by a deep sense of betrayal. She had worshipped this woman, loved her above all others, and she had turned out to have feet of clay, to be no better than a harlot. She considered telling her brother, but knowing his temper, she knew that he would fly into a rage, kill Sohni, then go across the river and kill Mahiwal too. Then he would be hanged and the family would be left to cope with the grief of his loss and the disgrace of the whole affair. Perhaps she should tell her mother and let her work out a suitable punishment for the wanton woman. But she knew that her mother was anything but discreet. She would speak of it to someone and soon the whole world would know. No, it was up to her alone to wreak a suitable revenge. The thought of doing this, brought her sweet pleasure.

  Moti was an intelligent woman and a persistent one. All day, her mind churned with various schemes. She considered each, plotted it out in great detail and then, for one or other reason, discarded it. By nightfall, she had her answer. Because of the impending rains, work on the making of pots had been suspended and those that were still in stock, had been shifted to her uncle’s shop in the heart of the nearby town. There were now, in the courtyard, only the few pots that would be required by the household during the monsoon months. When she knew herself to be unobserved, she took all the finished pitchers from the corner of the courtyard and put them under her mother’s bed. For the pitcher that Sohni used, she substituted a fragile, biscuited one. Then she waited. But that night Sohni did not go out. The next evening a storm began to build up and Moti was sure that Sohni would not attempt to cross the river that night. Yet, some instinct told her to go through the motions. Once again, she hid all the pitchers. Once again she replaced Sohni’s pitcher with the biscuit one.

  Sohni knew that the storm that was building up heralded the onset of the monsoon. She would not be able to cross the river again for close to two and a half months. If she did not meet Mahiwal today, she would not be able to meet him till the monsoon had abated. She had told him that she would come and she knew that he would sit through the night, waiting for her. She must attempt the crossing tonight.

  She rose from her bed and went across the courtyard and, Moti still awake, marvelled that she could even think of venturing into the waters in such stormy weather. Sohni stooped to pick up the pitcher. There was a flash of lightning and in the light, Sohni recognized the pot for what it was. The lightning flashed again and she was sure that a trick had been played upon her. She turned and, in the third flash of lightning, she saw that all the pitchers from the courtyard had been removed. As the lightning continued to flash, Moti saw a gamut of emotions race across her sister-in-law’s face and through them, she read the thoughts in her mind as clearly as if she had given voice to them.

  At first, there was surprise at her discovery and then amusement, which was quickly replaced by fear and uncertainty at the thought of trying to cross the river with the half-baked pitcher. For a moment, her face was suffused with sadness at the thought of her waiting lover, which metamorphosed into a fierce determination to go to him, whatever the consequences. Moti read all this and felt a catch at her heart. She had been wrong. This was not carnal lust that Sohni was giving way to – it was a love more strong and beautiful than anything that Moti had ever heard of. Obviously, Sohni preferred to risk certain death rather than keep her lover waiting. She must stop her.

  She got to her feet and ran from the house. But she had left it too late. Sohni had already been swallowed up in the darkness. She ran towards the river, stumbled and fell, then got to her feet and fell again. The storm had built up by now and she could hear the waters of the river raging fiercely. Just once, in a flash of lightning, she thought she saw Sohni, her garments and hair flying with the wind, her fragile pitcher clutched fiercely to her side.

  Then the darkness wiped out everything. She stood up and tried to shout Sohni’s name. But the wind snatched the word, as it came to her lips and scattered it in all directions. At last, she reached the riverbank and went up and down, continuing to shout for Sohni knowing, deep down in her heart, the futility of what she did. She knew that she would not see Sohni again.

  Sohni came, at last, to the riverbank. She looked down upon the raging water, the swirls edged with foam that gleamed dangerously white in the darkness. She steeled her heart against all fear. She must do what she had come to! She must make the attempt to cross. She looked at her pitcher and smiled at the irony of it. She, who had given to others strong sturdy pitchers, had herself been given this weak, fragile thing, which would fall apart at the first knock it received. She, who had drawn all her strength from moulding pots from clay, would now be at her most vulnerable because of a pot of clay.

  She lowered the pot into the raging waters, lowered herself across it and flayed her right arm and her legs, with all her might to push against the current. She felt the strength drain from her arms and felt tempted to give up the unequal struggle and let the stormy waters carry her, whichever way they would. But pushing back the temptation, she struggled on.

  On the other bank, Mahiwal stood peering into the darkness, first one way and then the other. He knew his Sohni well. Having said that she would come, there was no force on earth that would keep her back, not even this violent storm. She would make the attempt to cross, no matter what the risk involved and he wanted to be there to help her when she approached. But there seemed to be no sign of her.

  Sometimes she thought she had made a dent against her enemy, sometimes she felt herself being buffeted and tossed like a rag doll, losing the few yards that she had gained. And yet she struggled on. Dear God, she prayed silently, let not my Mahiwal wait in vain. Get me across just this one last time, and I will be content to die. She lost all sense of direction, and she did not know if she was steering herself across the current or against it, if her attempts were taking her across the river or down it. For a moment she panicked and then she heard Mahiwal’s voice in her ears, soft and gentle. “We can merely attempt to do the best we can, the fruit is not in our hands.” She smiled to herself. Yes, this is what she sought to do, the best that she could. She could only fight the current with all the strength that was at her command. Reaching the other side, was not in her control.

  Something knocked against her pitcher – the branch of a tree that had been carried down by the raging waters, perhaps. She felt the pitcher give
way beneath her and abandoning the piece she still held in her hand, she kicked her legs with all her might. But she was unequal to the struggle. Three times the wild waters closed over her head and three times she broke loose again. God protect my Mahiwal, she thought, her last thought before she gave up her body.

  Mahiwal, peering into the darkness, thought that he saw an object being swept away by the swirling waters, and afraid that it might be his Sohni, he plunged into the river and put up a futile struggle to swim towards his beloved.

  Sohni’s body was found, late the next morning, tangled in a thick clump of bulrushes, two miles downstream from her village. Someone who saw the body recognized her and a message was sent to her village. The villagers had been mystified by her absence and search parties had been sent out to look for her. Now, when the news of her death was brought, a hush descended upon the clan. A group of men went and claimed her body and bore it, dripping still, in silence to the village. There she lay, in the courtyard of Nizam’s house, as the women wept and the villagers crowded at the door and looked in upon her. Sheru sat among the silent men, quite overcome by the calamity that had befallen him.

  By the evening, the conjectures had started, each more wild than the last, and by the time she was borne to the burial ground, they had grown to their wildest. Finally, the maulvi, kind old soul that he was, put an end to them.

  “I want to hear no more of what might have been,” he said sternly to the assembled villagers. “I forbid you, on pain of excommunication, to subscribe to loose talk and wild rumours. Suffice it to remember that for a while, this woman brought the light and radiance of love to our lives and that radiance is no more. It is as if God was in our midst, for a while, and is with us no more.”

  Mahiwal’s body was found three miles down the river, washed onto a sandbank on his side of the waters. It was as if the river that had kept them apart while they lived beside it, and kept them apart even in death. At the time, because no one, other than Moti, knew of their clandestine meetings, no connection was made between the two deaths.