Long into the night, he sat beside her, in silent vigil, wondering who she was and where she had come from. He wondered, too, who she had been searching for – this unknown man with the strange name, Punnu.
Then in the early hours of the morning, he dug a grave under the trees and, with the minimum of ceremony, he consigned her to it. When he had buried her, he knelt in prayer beside her and prayed that she would, at last, be granted the peace that had been denied her while she lived.
It took Punnu four days to realize what was being done to him. Each time he awoke from sleep and felt the dryness in his throat, he begged for water. Each time he was given a drugged drink that put him to sleep again. In his stupor, he realized they were carrying him away from his Sassi. On the next day, when he awoke and was given a drink, he poured it away and pretended to fall asleep again. Knowing that he was helpless, they did not care to guard him closely. At the opportune moment, Punnu stole from the camp, and mounting a swift horse rode back towards Bhambhor.
A hard day’s ride, brought him to a grove of trees and the promise of food and water. He was greeted by a hermit who bade him welcome and led him into his hut. He spread a cloth upon the ground for Punnu to sit on and then brought him food and water. While he partook of the refreshment, the hermit attended to his horse.
“You must be tired,” the hermit said. “Rest now.”
“I cannot rest. I am in a great hurry and must be on my way.”
“Rest for an hour,” the hermit said. “I will wake you then. You will travel better when you are refreshed.” In the dim light of the little earthen lamp, Punnu saw the hermit’s face light up with a playful smile and smiled back. “There is sense in what you say. I will rest for an hour.” He lay down and the hermit covered him with a rug. Then the hermit lit another earthen oil lamp and took it out into the night. Punnu thought that he had gone to secure the horse but when he returned, he was without his lamp.
“What have you done with your lamp?” Punnu asked.
“It is Thursday today and the poor unfortunate needed the lamp. She wandered in over the sands three days ago and gave up her spirit here among the trees.”
Punnu felt nothing – no stillness at the core of his being, no premonition, not even idle curiosity.
“I wonder if we’ll ever know who she was,” the hermit mused. “All I can say is that she was exceedingly beautiful and she was searching for a man called Punnu.”
“Punnu?”
“Yes, Punnu. Her dry parched lips formed the word again and again, and though she had no strength left in her body, I caught the sound of the name when I put my ear to her lips. Her eyes opened again and again and searched for him. I have never seen so beautiful a girl.”
“Yes. She was exceedingly beautiful, my Sassi.” Punnu threw the rug aside and left the hut. He stood on the doorstep for a while, then catching sight of the lamp in the darkness, he walked towards the grave. He knelt at its head. He made, once, as if to touch it, then gently drew his hands away and raised them in prayer. The light from the lamp illuminated his face and looking at him, the hermit saw no traces of grief, no pain. His eyes were closed and his lips moved in silent prayer.
After a while, the hermit felt the chill of the night begin to creep into his old bones and he got to his feet. He put his hand on Punnu’s shoulder.
“Come,” he said gently. Just as gently, Punnu shook his head and the hermit left him to his mourning and returned to his hut.
An hour later, when the hermit went out to him again, he saw him still kneeling where he had left him, still praying.
“Come,” he said gently, nudging him, “You must eat now. You must rest.” This time Punnu allowed the hermit to lead him into the hut and put him to bed. Over the next day and part of the night the hermit could not but be aware of the stillness that had come upon his guest. He looked at the hermit but did not see him. He listened to his words but did not hear them. He seemed to inhabit a world that was an illusion and to live a life that was merely a dream. The hermit was filled with deep sadness. He knew beyond all doubt, that the stranger had made up his mind to join his beloved. He could do nothing more for him other than leave him alone and pray that the end would come soon.
It did. Early in the morning, when a group of horsemen came looking for Punnu and the hermit led them to him, it was his body that they found lying in his bed. A hush fell upon them and they were overwhelmed by what had happened.
After a quick, whispered consultation, they rode away the way they had come and the hermit was left to attend to the sad task of digging yet another grave beside the one he had dug earlier.
And so they lie today, side by side – Sassi and Punnu – in the quiet grove of Las Bela, near Shah Bilawal. Together they are joined in death as they were in life, inseparable even by imperial might.
Every Thursday, the kind hermit continued to light lamps on their graves and soon people from the nearby villages, hearing of this, came and lit lamps too and prayed that the lovers would at last be in peace. One Thursday evening, a singer, who had stopped to rest in the hermit’s home, sang a few religious songs and this too, became a tradition. On Thursday evenings, henceforth, people would collect at the graves and there would be the singing of naats and the recitation of prayers. Those who attended these meetings, claimed that they came away with a feeling of great peace.
The fame of Las Bela spread far and wide and the graves became a place of pilgrimage for those who were troubled in love. And so it is, that long after they are gone, Sassi and Punnu continue to live: to spread the message of their love and its unconquerable power.
Four
MIRZA SAHIBAN
I am Sahiban. I am sixty-one years old and, in the twilight of my life, sitting out in the winter sun, I eke out the remainder of my years. Sometimes, when the mood so takes me, I spin a little yarn or add a few stitches to one of the intricate phulkaris being worked upon by the girls of the house. Once in a while, one of them asks me to help in the cooking of some elaborate dish or calls upon me to rack my brain for a long unused recipe. But this is becoming rarer with each passing day and I am content to let my children run the household: they do it far better than I ever did.
When I look into my mirror, I see the once lustrous eyes now grown dull, the thick luxuriant black, hair now coarse and thin and streaked generously with grey. I see the once beautiful skin, now turned sallow and wrinkled. But I feel no regret at the passing of my once famed beauty. I have lived a full life, have been a good wife, and a good mother to my brood of children. I have had my share of griefs and sorrows, my measure of pain and suffering – but it has been no more than what most mortals have, and in the balance, I am grateful for what has been my lot.
I sit now, in the warm, pleasant sun and pass an idle hour or two in senseless gossip with other idle old women. We share news and then we share memories. But my memories go back only as far as my marriage. I never permit my mind to dwell upon what I had before. It is as if there is an impenetrable wall between then and now.
But once in a while, on rare occasions, when my husband turns to me in the dark and makes love to me, this wall crumbles and I allow myself to believe that it is my Mirza who takes me. And when my husband, all too soon, is done with me and turns away, my heart fills with thoughts of the past – the joy of what once was and the ache of what might have been, and I turn away in the dark and weep silent tears. Then, and only then, the dam bursts, and the memories come gushing through, and I struggle to keep from drowning in them.
He was eleven, when he came to live in our village, my cousin Mirza. I remember him clearly, a skinny, puny boy, who was constantly snivelling and who always had a running nose. He was a few months older than I, but I, tall for my age, was at least three inches taller. My earliest memory of him is of wiping his nose with the end of my dupatta. Because he let me do it without protest, I think of him as then being no more than a child.
I would pass him in the street, as I went to school, and he w
ould pause in his play and look at me.
“Are you not coming to school, Mirza?” I would ask and he would shake his head and resume his play.
Then, one day, when I asked him the same question, he shook his head. “No,” he said, but did not go back to his game. Instead, he walked up to me. “But I will carry your books to school for you.”
This became a daily ritual. I would meet him at his door, and he would come and take my bag from my hands and together, we would walk to school. We must have made a strange pair – the tiny, snivelling brat, who carried a bagful of books in which he had no interest, and the lovely girl, too tall for her age, who walked with an awkward stoop and who obviously enjoyed every moment she spent at school. Then, just outside the madarsa, he would hand me my bag and run away. But when the day’s studies were done, I would find him waiting for me again and the ritual would be repeated in reverse.
One day, when he handed me my bag outside my courtyard, I remarked:
“You have carried my books so often I would have thought that some desire to study these books would have rubbed off onto you and you would, at last, start attending school.”
“Is that what you would have me do?”
“Yes,” I said. The next morning, he carried his own bag of books, along with mine, and took his place in class in the madarsa.
The maulvi, noticing his presence, smiled.
“Look who we have here!” he said, with biting sarcasm. “The moon of Eid, long before Eid.”
The children all burst into mocking laughter and I saw Mirza’s face turn red with embarrassment. But he said nothing, only bent further over his books and tried to make a success of his studies.
It was a hopeless attempt. He had come late to his books and was very slow. Matters were not helped by the fact that the maulvi picked constantly on him. He belittled his feeble efforts and held him up as an example of laziness, sloth and a weak mind. Almost everyday, Mirza would be at the receiving end, not only of the maulvi’s bitter tongue but also of his stinging cane. This, in itself, was not remarkable because, on an average, the maulvi chalked up at least a dozen beatings in a morning. What was unusual, was, that while the others were beaten once or twice a week, Mirza was beaten everyday, with monotonous regularity.
Then one morning, when the maulvi turned to him a second time with his cane, my heart went out to the little boy who bore the maulvi’s cruelty with such stoic indifference.
“Please, maulvi sahib, please do not beat him anymore. I promise that I will make him work. I will make him catch up with his studies.” To this day, I have not understood how I made this promise and how the maulvi accepted it. Lowering his cane, he said:
“He is all yours,” his lean, austere face, contorted in a cruel, merciless grin. “Let us see what you can make of him.”
That evening, outside my house, when he handed me my bag, he asked:
“Will you really help me with my books?” There was earnestness in his eyes and in his voice. I had only intervened with the maulvi to save him from a second beating, but now, when he looked at me and spoke to me, I knew I had to keep my promise.
“If that is what you desire of me,” I said with a quiet smile, echoing his words. “It is what I desire.”
“Then I will come to Aunt Biro’s house, after the evening meal, and we will begin our studies together.”
He was hopeless, much slower than I had thought him to be, and in those first few days, I despaired of ever being able to help him. But he worked hard, if only, as it seemed, to please me and gradually there was noticeable improvement. The maulvi took note of this.
It was not that Mirza was an unintelligent lad. No, in most things not connected with books, he was bright and alert. It was only that in his scale of things, book-learning was of no practical use and hence, not worth serious attention. He would rather have devoted himself to other matters – boyhood pranks, stealing unripe fruit from forbidden gardens, searching for birds’ nests and bringing the newly laid eggs down for inspection, flying kites, playing marbles, and exchanging stories of breath-taking acts of bravery and adventure. Even with books, he was happiest when I read him stories from the Alif Laila va Laila, the Thousand and One Nights. He found this swashbuckling world, fascinating, and he gave himself up to it with complete devotion. He identified with the heroes, rode out to battle with them on fast steeds and performed deeds of death defying courage. Like them, in his mind’s eyes, he too rescued damsels in distress and turned to those less fortunate than him, with compassion and kindness. I learnt, quickly, to use this interest to my advantage. If he had been diligent, I read him a second story and when he had been lazy or slow, I punished him by not reading him any story at all.
The days slipped into weeks and the weeks into months and before we knew it, three years had passed since I had first taken him under my wing. The maulvi’s chastening became less frequent till it finally ceased. I would have liked to take credit for this, but even at that time, young and immature as I was, I realized that it was because Mirza had now grown into a strong young man. He had gained height, till he was a good head taller than I was. He had always enjoyed outdoor activities and an active participation in sports. Now his body had taken on a lean, sinewy hardness. Seeing him, as I did, every day of my life, I had not noticed this change. In fact, it was my uncle, his father, who pointed it out on one of his infrequent visits to Jhang.
I had gone to Aunt Biro’s house, that evening, with a book of stories, hoping that Mirza would have been good with his work and I would read him something from it. I saw Aunt Biro and Binjal Jat, her brother-in-law, Mirza’s father, sitting out in the courtyard, deep in a family discussion. Mirza stood in the shadows, in one corner of the courtyard, drawing patterns on the ground with his toe. He looked up at me as I came in, but turned back to his drawing without a greeting. Tension between the father and son was palpable.
“What is it, girl?” Bindal noticed me and asked in a loud voice, “What do you want?”
“I have brought a book for Mirza.” I wanted to say more but the hostility in his voice inhibited me and I remained silent.
“Books? My son is done with books. Do you not see the way his chest strains at his shirt? He is a young man and the time has come for him to put his books aside and concentrate on the skills that all young men must learn: riding and archery and swordsmanship. He must learn to defend himself and also learn how to lead his men in attack. So you can keep your book, he will not be needing it. He is going back with me to Danabad.”
I stood back and looked closely at Mirza. Yes, my uncle was right. I had not heeded the passage of time and had failed to see the change in him. It was time for him to move on.
I stood silently, not knowing how to take leave. As I waited, Mirza turned to his father.
“I will not go yet.” His voice trembled as he spoke, but there was no mistaking his determination. I looked back towards my uncle, frightened of the storm that I knew would soon break. I saw a deep scowl darkening my uncle’s face, as he looked at Mirza.
“What did you say?” His voice was tinged with disbelief.
“I will not go yet.” His voice was firmer now and though his face mirrored the fear in his heart, he looked steadily back into his father’s eyes.
Uncle Binjal took a few steps towards his son. I saw my aunt start to her feet, as if to restrain him, and my heart beat faster with anxiety for Mirza. Then suddenly, my uncle stopped and stood still. His eyes shifted to me and he looked me up and down, as if sizing me up. I realized that he held me responsible for his son’s recalcitrant behaviour. I braced myself for the onslaught that I knew must come. But the moment stretched on and he did not speak.
The scowl left his face and in its place, I saw a gleam come into his eyes and a smile play at his lips. And all the time he held my gaze.
“Suit yourself,” he said, glancing back, at last, towards his son. “But I had bought a mare for you – a thoroughbred, Arab mare. She is small in size but stron
gly built and has a beautiful neck and head. She runs with the wind, and when she is provoked or pushed to her limits, her nostrils flare and she snorts in anger and defiance. She is proud and will not let any of my men ride her. I was sure that you, when you came home, would be man enough for her.”
I saw the enraptured look on Mirza’s face. It was as if he was listening to another story from Alif Laila. But this was no mere story: the horse was actually being offered to him. I understood what my uncle was doing – holding out to Mirza, a bait that the young boy would find irresistible. It was a clever move – perhaps the only one that could persuade the boy to go back with him. Mirza glanced, once, towards me, ran his tongue over his lips and then said to his father, “Can we go home tomorrow?”
My uncle glanced triumphantly at me. Though why that should be, I did not know. I had no interest in holding Mirza here in Jhang. Apart from the protective instinct, which had stirred within me the day the maulvi reached out to beat him for the second time, there was nothing else that I felt for him. I was not attracted to him physically. If anything, till now I had felt only contempt for his puny size and his constant snivelling. Yes, I might miss his company and the hour or two we spent together – but I knew that that too would be for only a few days, for our time together had not fostered any deep affection between us.
I had no hold over Mirza, or any desire to have one, and so wondered about why my uncle gloated over my not being able to hold Mirza in Jhang. Now, after all these years, I am not sure that his attitude was altogether unjustified. Perhaps my uncle, in his wisdom, had already glimpsed a shadowed reflection of what was to come and of the harvest that would be reaped from it. His reaction was to get his son away from me.
To the boy’s credit, he did come to my home early the next morning to say goodbye to my parents and me. He also promised to come and visit me whenever he could. But, having seen the gleam in his eyes, the hope of expected bliss on his face, when his father had spoken about the mare, I did not set much store by his promise.
Love Stories from Punjab Page 19