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OCTOBER, 19211
HIR AND RANJHA
29
that you should come and see me in the disguise of a fakir (religious mendicant). Abandon all your caste and position. Shave your head and become a wandering beggar. In this guise you will be able to have a glimpse of me. If you do not come and see me my soul will vanish away.”
[There follows in the text a tirade against Jats generally and against the Sial Jats in particular. As bringing out the weak points of the Jats it is of some ethnological and historical interest, but it has nothing much to do with the story so it is omitted here.]
CHAPTER 18.
(Hir is unhappy in her new home.) One day it was agreed that Gana or “Hunt the bracelet " should be played and all the Jat girls were sent for to join in the game. They all danced with joy in the village when the news was sent round. They were all brides and fragrant with the odours of musk, and rose and jessamine. It was as if a garden was full of champa' and 'chabel' flowers. Their beauty shone like the radiance of the moon. Their faces were as shapely as the cupola of a mosque. There is no happiness in the world like the joy of bride and bridegroom. Saida sat on a red firestool and the brides of the village sat round him. They flocked round Hîr and brought her a basin of milk with a bracelet at the bottom. They danced round her shaking it and asking her to dive for the bracelet. The other brides and bridegrooins threw their bracelets in and the fun waxed fast and furious. But Hir reinained pale and glum. When they seized her hand and put it in the basin it was as cold and lifeless as the arm of a corpse. So finding that Hîr was cold and dispirited and would not join in the game, the girls all gave up playing and went away sadly to their hoines. The women of the village were displeased with Hir. But she sat mute refusing to look at Saida and tears flowod from her eyes like rain from the black clouds of the monsoon.
Meanwhile the Kazi was saying to Chuchak : "You are fortunate in that all your difficulties and troubles have vanished now that Hir has been placed in the house of the Kheras. All is silence in Jhang Sial and all are happy in Rangpur. All authority has deserted Ranjha and nobody pays any attention to him now. And] Ranjha's sisters-in. jaw discussed the affair in Takht Hazara and they laughed at the discomfiture of Ranjha. And they wrote him messages saying: "The decree of fate must be borne. There is no trusting girls. The Kheras have plucked the flower that you used to guard so tenderly and for whose sake you wandered so many years in dense forests full of tigers and lions. Come back to us while there is yet time. We will offer a golden crest on the sacred tomb when you set your foot in our courtyard. We will present offerings to the gods if you come back to Hazara. We will dedicate a saucepan to the name of Ali. We will hold a wrestling match and we will offer garlands to Ghazi Pir. Have we not promised to light the lamps in honour of Khwaja Khizr if you return to us?"
And Ranjha replied: "Sisters, when autumn withers the flower, the humming bird has to live on hope. When the garden dries up, the nightingales wander about the jungle hoping that some bud will blossom somewhere. Only the son of a churl will run away from Love. The true knight stakes his life for Love and scatters destruction on those who oppose him."
So Ranjha resolved to become a fakir and get his ears bored and to bring back Hîr captive or perish in the attempt. And Ran ha's sisters-in-law at Hazara, when they received
