The Khan’s men bore his body back to the farm. He was given a decent burial and the maulvi intoned a suitable eulogy to his goodness, his kindness of heart and his concern for others.
The Khan, returning from the burial, turned to his wife and said with great sadness. “Never again will we find a mahiwal who will do so much work for so little pay.” And she added, with equal sadness, “Nor one who ate so little.”
And there the story of Sohni and Mahiwal may have ended if it had not been for Moti, who caused the tragedy and who alone knew of its secret. For two years and more, she carried the secret of the tragedy in her heart and guarded it jealously from all others with her usual patient strength. Deep in her heart, she also carried a heavy burden of guilt at what she had done and a deep feeling of awe at the great love Sohni had had for her Mahiwal. But she gave no sign of these. She never spoke of Sohni and, when others spoke of her, she only smiled and said not a word. But she modelled her life on Sohni’s. She worked hard and reached out to others and gave them what help she could. She spared time for the children and told them stories and played games with them.
Life went on and the villagers soon got absorbed in their mundane tasks. The business of eking out a living, made them put the tragedy out of their minds and, if once in a while, one of them did remember it, he sighed to himself:
“Strange are the ways of Allah that He should will that the good die so young while those who are evil live on to a ripe old age.” But such thoughts, too, became rarer and rarer with time, and the web of life slowly wove itself to mend the rent that had been caused by Sohni’s death.
A year after the tragedy, Sheru married again and at the end of nine months, his wife gave him a handsome, bonny son. The baby was so beautiful that the women never tired of passing him one to another and dandling him on their knees.
By the close of the third year, Moti realized that Sohni had been forgotten and it was as if her great love had never been. The more she thought about this, the more it worried her. The world would be a poorer place without the knowledge of this love, she mused. She alone knew of it and she felt it was her duty to tell the world. But if she did, she knew that she would have to tell of her own role in the tragedy and she feared that people would come to hate her for this. For many months, this prospect kept her silent but her conscience would not be stilled. It gnawed at her constantly and she found she could not sleep, nor eat and for the first time in her life, she began to shed some of the hated fat which had made life a misery for her.
Finally, she could deny the promptings of her conscience no more. At one of her storytelling sessions, she told a group of youngsters the story of Sohni and Mahiwal and of their great love for each other. With brutal honesty, she held nothing back, not even her own role in the tragic story. To her amazement, she found that her listeners did not hold this against her; if anything, they admired her for telling them the truth. They left the session with stars in their eyes. All at once, Sohni and Mahiwal had become models for the handful of love-struck teenagers among them.
They repeated the story to others. When they went to visit relatives in other villages, they told the story there and soon the legend of Sohni and Mahiwal and of their great love became very popular in the Punjab.
A few years later, one of the youngsters used the story to compose a song. It was a simple song with simple words and a simple melody. Perhaps, because of this simplicity, it became immediately popular, and was taken up by all who heard it. The singing of it became an essential part of all social functions: weddings, births, festivals and village fairs. The farmer sang it to relieve the burden of his arduous and monotonous labour and the traveller sang it to relieve the loneliness of his solitary journey. Moti, now in her old age, listened to the song, and smiled at the irony of it all. She, who had caused Sohni’s death, had also been instrumental in giving her no small measure of immortality. She had atoned for her sin. She was content.
The song travelled further than the story and soon passed into the folklore of the land. Everywhere it was carried; people embroidered on it, added their own details and made it their own. A poet, listening to this ballad, was inspired by it and composed an epic poem about Sohni Mahiwal’s love. The poem became a part of classical literature. And yes, every time this epic is read or parts of it are sung, Sohni and Mahiwal live again; as does their immortal love.
Two
HEER RANJHA
The village of Takht Hazara was as still as a ghost village. It was late morning. The sun beat down in all its intensity and the heat hung over the freshly ploughed fields, in shimmering waves. In the flat, brown landscape, nothing stirred, not even a leaf on the dust-laden trees. As the minutes stretched into hours, the sun silently rose in the heavens. When it was at its fiercest, a figure appeared from the village and made its way across the fields. At first, it moved slowly, as if hampered by the soft, newly turned earth, but once free of the shadow of the village, it broke into a run and headed straight towards the thick grove of trees, which stood a mile or so away from the village.
As it approached the grove, the dress, the litheness of the figure and suppleness of movement, made it clear that it was a young woman. Closer still, one recognized that it was Nooran, the youngest daughter-in-law of the late Mauju, the head of the Ranjha clan. The ground she was covering now, close to the grove, was hard and rocky, in sharp contrast to the soft, fertile soil she had left behind. The surface here looked barren and yet she knew that Dhido, her husband’s younger brother, had worked harder on his fields than any of his seven brothers had done on theirs. Nooran stopped and looked down at the hard ground. She knew that these fields would never yield anything beyond an odd ear of wheat, no matter how hard Dhido worked. She felt a twinge of guilt, because she too, like everyone else in the family, had been party to this unfair division.
Dhido, poor Dhido, naïve and trusting, had not even noticed how he had been deceived by his brothers. Night after night, she had seen Zubaida, the wife of his eldest brother, dress his blistered hands with turmeric paste and wrap them in bandages. But even as she did so, she exchanged amused glances with the others, glances that mocked Dhido’s futile efforts. He was not cut out to be a farmer. He should have been left to his task of grazing his father’s herds, playing on his flute, the while – a task that he enjoyed and performed to perfection. Pushing her guilt aside, Nooran involuntarily readjusted the bundle on her head and moved on towards the grove.
The trees grew thick and close now, and their dense foliage enveloped her in cool, refreshing shade. She stopped, momentarily, to wipe the sweat from her brow and then, wove her way amongst the trees, to where she knew she would find him. He lay on a patch of ground that he had cleared of all twigs and thorns, his head pillowed on his left hand, his right forearm across his eyes to shield him from the dappled sunlight that broke through the leaves. He was fast asleep. Nooran took the bundle off her head and sat down beside him, loath to waken him. Her eyes fell on his flute and she smiled as she thought of the magic that lay trapped in the charmed reed. When Dhido put it to his lips, there was not a soul that remained unstirred. Men, women, the old and young, even cows and goats stopped whatever they were doing to listen, undistracted, to the divine music that flowed from it. Dhido himself seemed entranced when he played. A strange look would come into his eyes, mirroring untouched depths of his soul. The look held vulnerability, challenge, over-powering tenderness. More than a dozen girls, maddened by the music and unable to resist that glance, had given themselves to Dhido.
Nooran’s eyes turned from the flute to Dhido’s face. It was soft, delicate, and almost effeminate in the fineness of its features. Slowly, her eyes travelled down to his frame, familiar to her in its nakedness. Often, unnoticed, she would hide behind the little hut, that stood near the well, and watch him as he bathed, after the labours of the day. The whiteness of his skin never failed to startle her. Her eyes would caress his body – the shoulders, not broad like her father’s or her husband’s,
the back slim, with a big, black mole almost in the dead centre, the hips slender and arms and legs, sinewy and wiry, yet with a strong suggestion of hidden strength and power. He was different from all men she had known, and whenever she was close to him, she desired him with a desire more strong than she had ever felt for anyone else.
She knew she was not alone in her feeling. She had glimpsed similar yearnings in the looks that the other women, all six of them, cast at him when they thought that no one was looking. She had recognized it in the relish and excitement with which they spoke of his affairs with other girls and the manipulative way in which they attempted to glean intimate sexual details from these girls. It was only his persistent, yet gentle rejection of their overtures as well as the fear of their husband’s wrath, if they were discovered, that held their desires in check.
Now, alone with him in the grove, Nooran felt the desire rise up within her. The unbearable pain of it tore at her heart and gnawed at her very being. She had come often to the grove with his midday meal, more often than any of the others, and though she had always been alone like this with him, she had never experienced such an intensity of desire. Their meetings had fallen into an easy pattern: they would sit together for a while, indulging in easy banter. He would eat, then she would linger on and, at her pleading, he would often play her a song or two on his flute. Then, with firm politeness, he would say, “Now go, Bhabhi, and let me rest. It will soon be time for me to get back to work.” Reluctantly, she would retrieve her bundle and return to the village.
Now, as she watched him sleeping, she felt the lust rise unchecked, within her. Unable to control herself she reached out and, tentatively, touched his cheek, burnt brown by the summer sun, though the skin was as soft as that of a young girl. He did not move. Her hand slid down to his chest. He stirred. She paused, her heart pounding, then he turned over on his side and was fast asleep again. Her hand resumed its search and, reaching now between his legs, found what she sought. She heard the pause in his breathing and held her breath too. Then, in one swift movement, he turned to her and pulled her down. His mouth found hers, they kissed, his hands greedily caressing her body. There was urgency in his movements as he laid her on her back. As she looked up at him, he stopped and turned away. “What is it? What’s happened?” her voice was little more than a whisper.
He sat, his back towards her, his face buried in his hands. He shook his head in answer to her question. She sat up now and touched him on his back.
“Tell me Dhido, tell me what went wrong?”
“Forgive me,” he said, taking his hands away from his face and turning to her. “Forgive me, both, for what I was about to do and for what I have not done.” Her body tensed. “You are my sister,” he continued softly, “my brother lets you come to me in trust. To betray that trust would be a sin.” He took her hands in his. Looking into her eyes, he said, “You are more beautiful than any girl that I have ever known, more beautiful and desirable. But what you seek cannot be.”
She was stung to the quick by this rejection. A cry rose to her lips, but she hastily stifled it. She snatched her hands away from his grasp, and ran out from the clearing, stopping only when she was halfway to the edge of the grove, from where she turned and shouted, “I will never forgive you for this, Dhido!” Deep, intense anger burned within her and her words came in a long, poisonous hiss. “I will never forgive you, Dhido, and as God is my witness, I will make you pay for it.” She turned and fled back to the village.
Though seething with rage, not by word or look did she betray the anger that smouldered within her. She went about her chores, as she had always done. She brought him his meal, as she always had and he began to believe that he had been forgiven. In Nooran’s heart, however, the desire for revenge still burned fierce and strong, and this brought about a change in her manner, a change so subtle that most people did not even notice it. But the other women recognized it and, because they too, each in her own way, had been rejected by Dhido, they were drawn intuitively to Nooran, and were bound together in an unspoken conspiracy. Gradually, their attitude towards him hardened, as rejection crystallized into loathing. Where before they had hoarded tasty snacks and sweets for him and vied with each other to cook his favourite dishes, they now delighted in being stingy towards him in his helpings at the evening meal. His midday meal was soon reduced to a few stale rotis and a small onion. Where, before, they had sought occasions to be alone with him, they now avoided him and answered his questions in cold monosyllables. The easy banter, the light-hearted teasing, that had earlier brought joy to their lives, became a thing of the past. Dhido realized this with hurt shock when he, one day, teased his third sister-in-law and was answered with a bitter stinging reply.
“Bhabhi, what’s happened to you?” he had said, “You are becoming fat. Take care or my brother will soon look for another wife!”
“Don’t worry about me,” the woman had snapped, “and don’t worry about your brother, either. Worry about yourself. You’ll earn the right to talk like this only when you bring a girl like Heer Sayal home as your bride!”
Heer, at sixteen, was already a legendary beauty of the Punjab, and reference to her became a refrain in the women’s taunts.
“If you think you are so desirable, why don’t you bring back Heer as our sister-in-law?” one would say. “If you don’t like our cooking,” another would add, “go get Heer to cook for you.”
The jibes became more bitter and hurtful with each passing day. The women joked about his effeminate looks and vanity, they mocked him for his failure to plough his lands and they even scorned his music, which they had once loved. No matter how hard he tried to ignore them, or stay out of their way, Dhido found it increasingly difficult to escape their taunts.
The climax came one morning, as he was about to set out to work. He was wrapping his turban around his head in front of the small mirror, which hung on a wall in the verandah. “Look at him, preening like a peacock,” Nooran said loud enough for everyone to hear. “He thinks he is the most handsome of men. But look at his swaying walk, his delicate face, his soft girl’s hands, I doubt whether he is a man at all.”
The cutting remark was greeted by peals of mirth, both from the men and women. The laughter broke Dhido’s control. He stopped tying his turban and pulling it off his head, threw it to the floor. Stung by the unfairness of Nooran’s words, he silenced her with uncharacteristic harshness. “Be quiet woman, you know very well how much of a man I am!” he said. He saw, with satisfaction, the fear that spread across her face. Then he turned to the others. “Yes, laugh at me, all of you. Laugh as much as you like, for I deserve to be laughed at. I have been a fool. You gave me the poorest piece of land and I accepted it without protest. You taunt me and treat me with contempt and I lower my head and make no rejoinder. But not anymore. Today I leave this house, the home of my father, never to return.”
A shocked hush fell at this announcement, a hush that was finally broken by his eldest brother, “Go, go,” he said, sarcastically, “When you have to earn your bread with the sweat of your brow you will sing another tune – and come running back here.”
“And pray, how will you earn your living?” Zubaida called out. “By playing your flute?” Again there was loud, unbridled laughter. Dhido turned and glared at her and, for a moment, it seemed he would strike her. But the moment passed, Dhido’s shoulders drooped with weariness and he turned and walked away across the courtyard without a word.
“Look at him strutting off,” Nooran’s husband called after him. “For sure he will return a wealthy man and put us all to shame.”
“So wealthy that he will bring Heer Sayal back as his bride.” Dhido quickened his pace and left the house, the cruel remarks ringing in his ears. He ran across the fields, impatient to get away from Takht Hazara. But once clear of the village, he stopped and turned to look back, for the last time at what had once been his home. It loomed dark and low against the morning sun. He shrugged sadly and turned away. As
he strode off, one by one, memories of his life in the village came chasing each other through his mind. Suddenly, a wave of regret swept over him. He realized, with a start, that all his reminscences were of the kindness and love he had received and accepted without a trace of gratitude. He had taken it all and given nothing in return. Lost in his own selfish, self-centred world, he had rarely thought of giving joy to others except, perhaps, through his music and even this had been purely incidental. He admitted to himself that he had played his flute not because he sought to give others pleasure but because it pleased him to play. He could think of no one in the village who would be sorry at his departure. He was filled with sadness and then, as if in an attempt to leave it quickly behind, he increased his pace and came at last to the road. He did not know if he should turn to the left or the right. The sun blazed high in the heavens. He felt the sweat trickle down his neck. The moment stretched on, as did his indecisiveness. Then once again, he shrugged his shoulders. It mattered little which road he took. He turned left. That decision was to make all the difference to his life ….
All through the day, Dhido walked along the dusty path. He passed a few people along the way and once, he stepped aside to make way for a marriage party escorting a bride in a palanquin. Another time he stopped at a well for a drink of water and the farmer, who drove his oxen round to drive the Persian wheel, asked him his name and from where he came. Dhido answered politely enough, though his manner conveyed that he did not wish to be drawn into conversation. The farmer soon lapsed into silence and Dhido resumed his journey.
Late in the evening, he came to a small group of trees and stopped to rest in their shade. A teenaged boy, tending a few scraggy goats, joined him. Dhido smiled, for the first time that day and reassured, the lad drew out a flute and played a few tentative notes on it. Dhido felt an ache in his heart and wished he had stopped to pick up his own instrument before he had left. The boy stopped in his playing and looked at Dhido again. Dhido held out his hand and, wordlessly, the boy handed him the flute. As Dhido put the reed to his lips, once more, as so often in the past, charmed music flowed out of it; the boy sat enchanted. Melody followed melody, yet the boy sat on as if he would never have his fill. Darkness gathered. Dhido stopped playing.
Love Stories from Punjab Page 7