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DEORMBER, 1922)
HİR AND RÅNJRA
Ranjha then leaves Chuokak's service exclaiming, "May thieves take your buffaloes and dacoits run away with your calves! What do I care for your buffaloes or your daughter, for twelve years I have grazed your buffaloes and now you turn me out without wages."
When Ranjha leaves, the buffaloes refuse to graze and many of them get lost, so Chuchak decides to ask Ranjha to come back. Ranjha agrees to come back and is installed again as oowherd. The Five Pirs again appear to Hir and Ranjha and assure them of their ultimate happiness.
The Kazi then appears and scolds Hir for her conduct. Her argues with the Kazi and her parents and flatly refuses to give up Rânjha. Hîr sends a message to Ranjha that she is unhappy with her parents. Ranjha again has an interview with the Five Pirs; he sings before them and gains their further approval. Ranjha's skill in music is explained at some length. If the passage is not an interpolation, it is rather an unnecessary display of musical learning on the part of the author.
This appears to be rather typical of Waris Shah. On several occasions he is rather fond of displaying his learning. For instance in his description of the different kinds of grasses and buffaloes in the Bar and in his description of Ranjha's medical skill. Indian readers of the poet are greatly impressed by this and they regard his learning as little less than miraculous.
After this musical interlude Ranjha discusses the nature of love with Mithi the barber woman. Mithi professes to explain the differing nature of woman of various castes in love affairs, Sikh women, Bengali women, Hill women, etc. This passage is rather an insipid tour de force and probably a good deal of it is interpolated.
Rånjha and Hîr then take Mithi into their confidence and arrange to meet in her house.
Then comes rather an interesting description of Hir and her friends and Ranjha bathing in the Chenab. Kaido again hears that Ranjha and Hì are meeting in the forest and he tells Hir's parents. Hir and her mother have angry words. Hir's mother indulges in some very pointed criticism of her daughter's conduct.
The author shows himself completely acquainted with the more pointed features of the feminine vocabulary. This passage is probably the most completo dictionary of Panjabi feminine abuse that has yet appeared in print. For obvious reasons I do not venture to translate it.
The wicked uncle Kaido again distinguishes himself by discussing Hir's escapades with the elders of the village. Hir's girl friends tell her Kaido has been spreading scandal about her. They catch him and give him a thorough thrashing. The violence of the Jat girls is well brought out in this and other passages. "The girls encircled him even as police guards encircle Lahore. They burnt his hut and let dogs and chickens loose all over his things."
This passage perhaps refers to the police-guards put round Lahore by Adina Beg to watch over the Sikhs.
The return of the girls after wrecking Kaido's hut is described in another historical simile. "It was as if the royal armies had returned to Lahore after subduing Muttra." This probably refers to the invasion of Muttra by Ahmad Shah in 1758.11 .
13 See Elliot, Vol. VIII, page 168, quoting from Farhat-un-
N arin written by Mohammad Islam, a contemporary writer. "Najibu taula, having found means of moretly communioating with the Abdali, invited him to come to Hindustan. Accordingly, in the beginning of the fourth your of the reign (8.C. of Alamgir IT), he came to Delhi, and, having ravaged to proceeded to Muttre, where he massored the inhabitanta. broke the temples and having plundered the town of immense wealth in property and onsh, he cut the very none of Hindustan, and returned to Lahore, where he gave hle youngest son the title of Timur Shah, and loft Jahan Khan there with the dealgnation of Minister."
