Indian Antiquary Vol 51

SR No.: 032543
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1985
Total Pages: 374
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 15 MB

Page 353

JULY, 1922)
HIR AND RANJHA
The Jogi : "A Jat woman is only good for four things : pressing wool, scaring sparrow, grazing lambs and nursing a baby. She loves quarrels and beats fakirs. She looks after her own family and abuses others."
ant) Sehti : "I will beat you with cudgels and knock your teeth out."
Jogi : " You are going the way to feel my stick round your legs. Girls with fringes over their foreheads should not quarrel with holy fakirs. I can ruin you utterly, as I have saintly power in each finger tip."
Hir glanced at the Jogi and made signs to him to stop quarrelling and she urged Sehti not to quarrel with the Jogi.
And Sehti replied: "See, what has happened. The fakir has ensnared the bride of Saida. You have drunk grey buffaloes milk and make eyes at your lover."
Hir flashed back at Sehti: "Girls who quarrel with fakirs like this must be wanting husbands very badly. You are always interfering when grown-up boys come in sight. You are as obstinate ag & negress.”
Sehti: Friends, "My sister-in-law is murdering me. She is siding with the fakir. Either the Jogi is her lover or he has brought some message from her lover."
Hir: "My sister-in-law ever claims to be washed in milk and virtue, and now she calls me a leader of thieves. In very truth loose women have become grand ladies and ugly women are flaunting themselves as if they were peacocks in the garden of beauty. Look at this loosetonguod seductive darling of the Belooches. A crawling deceitful reptile who devours men's hearts. Look at her showing off her airs and graces like a prostitute of Lahore."
Then Sehti lost her temper and said to her maidservant Rabel: “Let us give this fakir alms and turn him out. Give him a handful of millet and tell him to go away."
So Rabel gave him a handful of millet and bade him angrily begone. Sehti had first charmed him with her blandishments. Then she turned him out and sent him packing. She entered the garden of the Feringhees and set the well machinery going. She disturbed the sleeping snake.
The Jogi was furious at being treated in this scurvy manner and burst forth in anger: “You are shaving my beard in giving me mere birds' food. You have defiled my beggar's bowl and I shall have to wash my rosary."
And Rabel replied: "Why do you find fault with millet. All Jats eat it. It is the food of the hungry and poverty-stricken. It is the father and mother of the poor."
And Sehti threw some millet into his cup and the cup fell to the ground and broke.
And the Jogi cried. "A great tyranny has been committed. You have ruined the fakic by breaking his cup. May your lover die, you tyrant of a woman. You taunted your sister-in-law with her lover. Why did you fall in love with Murad the camel man? You fell into the hand of the Belooches like & stolen camel. He looted you of your boasted virginity."
And Sehti replied: "What do we Jats know about cups ? Go and spend a farthing and ask a potter to make you a new one."
And the Jogi wept when he saw the broken cup, and he said: "My Pir gave it to me and it was very precious. And he tried to pick the broken pieces up and in so doing be caught Hir's eyes and he said to Sehti: "You have broken my cup and tell me to get another made by a potter. Have you no fear of Almighty God. If I tell my Pir he will ruin your family."
7 Europeans. The only reference to them in the poem,