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39
THE INDIAX ANTIQUARY
(FEDREADY, 1926
Hir replies :"Girls, you may pierce me with a thousand taunts, but who can withstand the decree of God? I do not blame you. God does what he wishes. What was to be has been. All the miseries of the world have fallen on my head and yet I have not quarrelled with you."
And the girls replied: "You have only just been married. What can you know of misery? You have shared no secrets with us. So keep your tongue under control. You yourself told us to go and fetch the Jogi and now you deny it."
And Hîr replied: "Girls, you try and fix the responsibility on others for what you have done yourselves. I was destined for evil and God has drowned me in sorrow. It was a bad day when I was given to the Kheras in marriage."
The girls replied: "Daughters-in-law are usually afraid of their fathers and brothersin-law, but your father-in-law is afraid of you. Other brides milk the cows, knead the bread and grind the corn, but you never lift a straw. Women like you are afraid of witches in the day time but swim across broad rivers at night."
Hir replied: "You taunt other people's daughters but you have never been entrapped in the net of Love."
The girls answered : "Why do you quarrel with us? We never stood between you and your lover."
Hir said: "You bad wicked girls, destroyers of your own parents. What do you mean by your rash words? What you have said has burnt my heart. Verily I have a long and weery road to travel. I would that Ranjha would come and embrace me or that even in my dreams I might meet him."
The girls replied: "What we have said has been out of kindness for you, and we bear no iil will towards you. If the subject was grievous to you, to whom but you should we have mentioned it ? If you wished to hide your secret in your father-in-law's house, you should not have blazoned it a broad when you were living with your parents. Why do you cry out when the truth has been told you ? - You should not have engaged in the game of Love without deep forethought. Now you turn round and a buse us. What object had we in calling the Jogi? Was it not you who asked us to do it? The whole world knows about your love. Why do you make yourself an object of disdain ?"
And Hir replied angrily and sarcastically: “From your childhood upwards you have been learning unseemly tricks. You are the sort of girls who set aside the blanket of shame and dance in public. Verily you will be the salvation of your relatives, and the people into whose houses you marry will be exceedingly fortunate."
Meanwhile Hir's heart was rent with the pangs of separation from her lover and she was devising some way of seeing Ranjha. The Jogi at the same time decided to visit the house of Mehr Ajju. So Ranjha took up his beggar's bowl and get off begging from door to door, playing on his shell and crying: "Ye mistresses of the courtyard, give alms, give alms." Some gave him flour, others bread, others dishes of food. They asked for his blessings and he invoked blessings upon them.
Some said: "We shall acquire holiness through the power of his intercession." Others said: "He is a thief spying after brides. He will seduce our women." Said one: "He pretends to be a Fakir and pours ashes on his body. But he looks like Ranjha and has a love secret in his eyes." Said another : " See, he takes wheat flour and butter, but will not touch millet or bread crusts. He is chaffing the women and is no real Fakir."
But Ranjha went on his way unperturbed. He joked with some and scolded others and made fine scenes. He set up as a conjurer and gave some of them charmed threads and lucky knots. And Ranjha looked up and said to those round him: "We have entered
