tarar786
Age: 124
7916 days old here
Total Posts: 2636
Points: 0
Location:
China, China
MIRZA SAHIBAN
Mirza-Sahiban, a love-lore is a treasure of Punjabi literature. It is a romantic tragedy. Sahiban was another love-lorn soul. Shayer Pillo raves about her beauty and says," As Sahiban stepped out with a lungi tied around her waist, the nine angels died on seeing her beauty and God started counting his last breath…"
Mirza and Sahiban who were cousins and childhood playmates, fell in love with each other. But when this beauty was about to be wedded forcibly to Tahar Khan by her parents, without any hesitation she send a taunting message to Mirza, whom she loved, to his village Danabad, through a Brahmin called Kammu.
"You must come and decorate Sahiban’s hand with the marriage henna." This is the time you have to protect your self respect and love, keep your promises, and sacrifice your life for truth. Mirza who was a young full-blooded man, made Sahiba sit on his horse and rided away with her. But on the way, as he lied under the shade of a tree to rest for a few moments, the people who were following them on horseback with swords in their hands caught up with them.
Sahiba was a virtuous and a beautiful soul who did not desired any bloodshed to mar the one she loved. She did not want her hands drenched in blood instead of henna. She thinks Mirza cannot miss his target, and if he strikes, her brothers would surely die. Before waking up Mirza, Sahiban puts away his quiver on the tree. She presumes on seeing her, her brothers would feel sorry and forgive Mirza and take him in their arms. But the brothers attack Mirza and kill him. Sahiban takes a sword and slaughters herself and thus bids farewell to this world.
Innumerable folk songs of Punjab narrate the love tale of Sassi and Punnu. The women sing these songs with great emotion and feeling, as though they are paying homage to Sassi with lighted on her tomb. It is not the tragedy of lovers. It is the conviction of heart of the lovers. It is firmly believed that the soil of the Punjab has been blessed. God has blessed these lovers to. Though there love ended in death, death was a blessing in disguise, for this blessing is immortalized. Waris Shah who sings the tale of Heer elevates mortal love to the same pedestal as spiritual love for God saying," When you start the subject of love, first offer your invocation to God".
This has always been the custom in Punjab, where mortal love has been immortalized and enshrined as spirit of love. Just as every society has dual moral values, so does the Punjabi community. Everything is viewed from two angles, one is a close up of morality and the other is a distant perspective. The social, moral convictions on one hand give poison to Heer and on the other hand make offerings with spiritual convictions at her tomb, where vows are made and blessings sought for redemption from all sufferings and unfulfilled desires.
But the Sassis, Heers, Sohnis and others born on this soil have revolted against these dual moral standards. The folk songs of Punjab still glorify this rebelliousness.
"When the sheet tear,
It can be mended with a patch:
How can you darn the torn sky?
If the husband dies, another one can be found,
But how can one live if the lover dies?"
And perhaps it is the courage of the rebellious Punjabi woman, which has also given her a stupendous sense of perspective. Whenever she asks her lover for a gift she says,
"Get a shirt made for me of the sky And have it trimmed with the earth"
---------------------------------
Sahiban in Exile
By Amrita Pritam
Even today, the legend of Mirza-Sahiban haunts Punjab’s folklore and songs. Mirza, like most romantic heroes, was a stranger to Sahiban’s land and belonged to a feuding clan. Sahiban eloped with him and was eager to reach his home. But on the way, Mirza the accomplished archer insisted on stopping for the night under a tree. Sahiban’s brothers were in pursuit. Fearing that Mirza would kill her brothers, Sahiban flung his quiver up into the tree. Unarmed, Mirza was killed when the brothers caught up with them. Sahiban’s ‘betrayal’ was never forgiven, and so there were no more legendary lovers in the land of the five rivers.
They also say, that this was the first time that the hero’s name was spoken before heroine’s- not as it had been in the past ..Sohni Mahiwal, Laila Majnu, Radhe Krishna..and thus there were no more legendary lovers in this land.
Her name was Sahiban. And she came visiting the ‘enemy country’. She came to see the relics of ancient monuments. And carried with her a letter requesting that she be allowed to stay for a few days. The letter was from an old friend who knew that they would be happy to host Sahiban in their home.
The parents of the family opened for her the airy guestroom, a little removed from the bustle of the living room. On the top floor of the house amidst a terrace garden in bloom, lived the son of the family.
There was tea ready for Sahiban when she arrived. After tea and pleasantries, she went to her room to freshen up. Soon, it was time for dinner. The son of the family had come down to the dining room and was arranging the flowers that he had brought from the terrace. The mother called Sahiban from the guestroom. She introduced Sahiban to her son and started laying out the meal. The family of three sat down to dinner with their guest, making small talk as they ate.
The next morning Sahiban had a cup of tea and ventured out to see the monuments and relics of this ancient city.
She would travel by bus all day, visiting one monument after another. She had brought a list with her. But she would always return home before dark and the dinner ceremony of the first evening would be replicated. There was only one change: Sahiban would always bring some flowers and sweets for the dining table. The mother asked her not to take the trouble, but Sahiban seemed to like coming back home with something for the family.
On the fourth day, there was a minor accident. The son hurt his leg while riding his motorcycle. There was no bruise, but he seemed to have pulled a ligament. He returned from the doctor’s clinic with a bandage on his leg, went straight to his den and lay down. In a few hours, the leg was so stiff that he could not raise it. His mother went up to foment the injury and give him tea.
That evening, when Sahiban returned and learned of the accident, she took the balm from the mother’s hands, went softly up the stairs and started massaging his leg. Then she gently massaged the soles of his feet to work out the stiffness. The young man was embarrassed. But her gentle touch was so soothing that he overcame his shyness.
That night, she took his dinner from his mother and went up to his room and spent the night on a settee there, in case he required any attention during the night. Next morning, she washed up in the bathroom upstairs and then came down to fetch his breakfast. After three days of tender care, the young man was up and about. He could not ride the motorbike, but he could drive the car.
He had taken a week’s leave from work when he got hurt, so he still had a few days off. There were some very interesting old monuments outside the city and some ruins too, he told his mother, and would she lend him the car to take Sahiban there?
The mother laughed in permission. She was relieved to see her son look somewhat happy. He had lost interest in women when the love of his college days did not work out. He would not consider marriage.
Two days later, Sahiban asked him if he would take her to Hardwar. She wanted to bathe in the Ganga. He mentioned her request to his mother, who had no objection. So the two of them left for Hardwar.
Sahiban was of delicate build and she was always in simple, casual clothes. They reached Hardwar late in the evening. They rented two small cottages for the night at an ashram by the Ganga. Just before dawn, Sahiban went over and woke the young man so that together, they could watch the sun rise over the river.
He was still quite sleepy, but he washed his face and went out with her to the riverbank. Sahiban gazed at the shades of red splashed across the sky and reflected in the water. She climbed down the steps to bathe in the river, fully clad.
The young man stood on the bank. He was carrying neither a towel nor a change of clothing, so he did not climb down with her. He sat on the edge and played with the water. Then he saw Sahiban standing in the water with her hands folded, looking up at the sky, as though she were greeting the sun. He stared at her in amazement.
Back in the ashram, after a change of clothes and a cup of tea, Sahiban said, "Take me to the city bazaar. I want to look in the shops."
The narrow-laned bazaars were selling river shells, rudraksha beads, scarves printed with the name of Sita Ram, small boxes of saffron and musk. The girl looked at all this in awe. All of a sudden, she stopped by a shop selling red dupattas edged with golden tassel-work, glass bangles and bridal choorhas of ivory. Holding up her wrist to the shopkeeper, she asked for a choorha her size and put it on right there. Then she bought a red dupatta and some sindoor. Surprised, the young man said, "Sahiban, what will you do with all this? You might like them, but how can you return to your country wearing all this? Even the customs officers will wonder!"
The girl laughed, "How do my arms concern them?"
He was insistent, "But what are you up to?"
Sahiban said, "These are debts that Khuda will have to pay back."
When the two returned from Hardwar, Sahiban had a dot of sindoor on her forehead and some more in the parting of her hair. The wedding bangles were on her wrists and her head was covered with the red dupatta. Sahiban glowed like a bride.
The young man’s mother stared at her, astounded. She did not say a word to Sahiban but she cornered her son alone and said, "Tell me the truth! Have you and Sahiban got married?"
"Not at all, Ma," he laughed. "Neither of us have even talked of marriage. She took a fancy to those trinkets and put them on!"
"The silly girl shouldn’t return to her country like this," said the mother, "she will get merry hell."
Sahiban was to return the next day. Her visa had run out. After breakfast, the young man took the car out of the garage to drop her at the airport. Just then a friend of his arrived. He introduced Sahiban to his friend, adding: "There’s not much time, but let’s sit for a few minutes." They sat in the living room downstairs.
"Had you come for a pilgrimage of the dargahs?" the friend asked Sahiban.
"I didn’t go to a dargah, but it was a pilgrimage nevertheless," Sahiban replied.
Then, playing on her name, he asked, "And where is the Mirza of this Sahiban?"
The girl laughed and said, "Mirza must always belong to the enemy clan, and that’s true for this Sahiban’s Mirza as well." She looked up at the young man for a moment, then lowered her eyes.
On their way out, the friend asked once again, "But this time Sahiban lacks the courage to walk away with her Mirza?"
She shot back, "This Sahiban does not want her Mirza to be killed by the people of her father’s clan." She got into the car and left for the airport.
Sahiban came and vanished like a whiff of fragrance.
The next few days passed unremarkably, full of everyday chores. Then a letter came from Sahiban, addressed to the son of the family. "Thanks ever so much!" she wrote. "Seeing you, I saw many past lives, even though it is a sin for us to talk of reincarnation. But what can I do — I actually saw it all! I seemed to recall so much on seeing you…"
And she signed off with: "Exiled from you in this life — Sahiban."
tarar786
Age: 124
7916 days old here
Total Posts: 2636
Points: 0
Location:
China, China
This short love story is an attempt to challenge the love story medium with unconventional characters and humour. It evolved from the Stella and Sortini love poem. Watch this space for more adventures.
short love story: Stella and Sortini, Urban Legends
Little is known for certain of the early days of Stella and her Sortini but within our small town a legend has passed from mouth to ear, perhaps via the brain, and back to mouth again in the form of a rumour. I'm not disparaging the town's folk at all when I say, they are mothers of invention. They have a tendency to gloss over real incidents and gossip about completely trivial affairs with a great deal of zealous verbosity. It's been argued that this reflects a certain cowardice on their part. That they desire to appear moral, and so require scapegoats, that they, however, lack the moral courage to go with their convictions and so tend to snipe mercilessly at the weak and harmless.
Now I hear you say, 'Weak and harmless? What has this to do with those nutters Stella and Sortini?' And well you may ask, but it has to be noted that this story did not begin to circulate until they were both dead, or at least most of the way there. It's hard to say with any degree of certainty how much Smiler contributed to this myth. It reeks of his input, but who knows? Perhaps Smiler had nothing to do with it, maybe it's all true, or based in truth? Though it does strike me as the type of story with which Smiler would while away an idle afternoon at The Jackal.
According to this legend Sortini was not even Italian. Sortini was in actual fact a Traveler. The myth has it that he'd managed to seduce and make pregnant altogether the wrong person's daughters, they were identical twins and quite unbeknownst to Sortini, or so it's said, were sharing him as their lover. All this emerged in some caravan or other, when Sortini, covered in his own blood, was trying to explain how he'd been duped.
'Yeah, okay, right, I went behind your back and probably shagged both your daughters.'
The Wrong Person roared in response, 'Went behind my back did you? Probably, probably, shagged both my daughters did you?' These questions were, of course, best left unanswered and were punctuated by blows of the most dire sort. The Wrong Person was not a young man these days but he still packed a substantial punch and had his two sons to help. They were holding Sortini up by his armpits, squeezing tightly, and were far from adverse from adding the odd jab to Sortini's ribs, for good measure. Anyone who knew Sortini knows it was pointless trying to bash him in the head, it was simply too hard, you could break a pool cue on it and achieve nothing more than angering him. However, his ribs were more or less those of an ordinary man.
It's The Wrong Person I feel the most sorrow for in all this. One shotgun wedding was feasible but how could Sortini conceivably marry the two girls at once? Of course, one of them would have to be married off to some useless buck-toothed article, there was all that to arrange too, what a headache! At his time in life, with everything else to manage, he didn't need this. To make matters worse the daughters had fallen out with each other and their family too. Each claimed that Sortini was her true and that her sister had blackmailed herself into allowing the liaison with Sortini. Each twin sang the same tune, 'She's a liar, and a jealous slag! She said if I didn't share him with her she'd tell you!'
All these events were unfolding in different parts of the field but each participant in the love triangle was aware of the shouts of the others. Each twin was held in a separate caravan but Mary managed to escape and made it to within two hundred yards of Sortini before being rugby tackled by her Aunt. From underneath her Aunt, Mary called out plaintively to him, 'Don't worry, we'll be together, just you see, we'll run away together.' She was only able to say this because her Aunt, knowing her to be pregnant, was treating her with kid gloves: she wasn't bouncing up and down on her and bore most of her considerable bulk on her legs and arms.
Both the twins were being subjected to the most heinous of interrogations as to the nature of their relations with Sortini. Their mother lead one posse of women, dealing with Ruth, and the trusted Aunt dealt with Mary. Every so often there would be a shuffling about of these matriarchs. The mother would tire of the impasse she'd reached with one daughter and lead her gaggle of women to the other caravan. There they'd exchange hostages and the Aunt and her gang would be left with their new charge. The twins would catch sight of each other at these times, this was no accident but intended by the matriarchs, and there would be terrible name-calling. The men beating Sortini would pause and listen intently to the catcalls. It's said Sortini winced more at the noise of them than he did under the blows of his captors but it's doubtful this is true.
The male members of the other families camped nearby watched all this with great amusement, while mothers not privileged to be directly involved used the whole event as a stern lesson for their young daughters. These same daughters who found it very exciting and even a little romantic but humoured their mothers with presences of self-righteous shock and touching naivete.
The story also goes that the young Sortini was a very handsome devil and there was an element of voyeurism in the interrogations at the hands of the women. When this and the last detail are taken into consideration you can see how the proliferation of this rumour can be attributed to Smiler.
Although such questions wouldn't get the job done the women also asked them anyway, 'How could you do that to your sister? Threaten her and steal her man? How come you got pregnant? Have you no shame? You tart!' This was said just as it had been to the sister before. Though Auntie and her women were far more interested in the specifics and actual mechanics of the whole thing, 'Where did you meet? How often? ...No, I mean how often did you do it when you met?'
Those poor girls, but their ordeal was as nothing compared to Sortini's. His guilt had been conclusively proven but that didn't abate the interrogation. The father wanted to know which of his two girls was the bad seed. Which had blackmailed the other, Ruth or Mary? The blackmailer would be married to whichever buck-toothed article would agree to the union, knowing, or not knowing, that she carried Sortini's child.
Sortini was continually drunk and simply couldn't tell the difference between the twins. He'd been like a pig in mud, he hadn't stopped to question the miracle of abundant sex.
For the first day of his interrogation he refused to say anything at all to the men. He remained defiant even when they despaired of scraping their knuckles on his head and let in his own Aunt to try to reason the truth out of him. By the time the second day of his questioning had ended, his mock execution was staged that day, his mind was so addled that it seemed any information it once contained might be lost permanently. He just kept repeating, over and over, 'Who are you? Got any drink?'
Unbeknownst to The Wrong Person, Sortini's Aunt had now busied herself organising a rescue attempt. Perhaps Sortini sensed this and was playing for time?
The Wrong Person decided to put the interrogation on hold until Sortini came to his senses. Sortini was locked in a horsebox and The Wrong Person's sons took turns guarding him. Word had also been sent to The Wrong Person's oldest and most terrible son, who would no doubt arrive soon and join the inquisition.
However, it's said Sortini's family arrived in the dead of night, his Aunt at their head, to rescue him. After that the matriarchal guard placed around The Wrong Person's daughters was doubled, all those scrawny women previously excluded suddenly found themselves with a purpose.
Meanwhile the scandal entered a new phase characterised by negotiations. Faced with another of his ilk, in the shape of Sortini's father, it seems that The Wrong Person did not actually consider Sortini too bad a match for either one of his daughters: as he explained to Sortini's father, 'Whoever he marries will be a lot better off than the other I marry to the first lame duck buck-toothed ba***** who'll agree.'
'At least with two pregnant daughters you know he's not firing blanks,' Sortini's father replied, less than tactfully, as was his wont.
'Ya f**king ba*****!' The Wrong Person's son Terrible had arrived by now. The Wrong Person also resented this inappropriate attempt at joviality but remained calm; merely saying, 'There's still the matter of honour.' He had a beady look in his eyes.
Sortini's one eyed father squinted at him inquisitively and stroked his sideburns as he replied, 'Honour?'
'Yes, there's been a slight, your son will have to fight my eldest, bare knuckled, usual rules.'
'What's the prize?'
'It's too important a matter for money, although they'll be a book.'
Sortini's father added, 'Undoubtedly they'll be wagers.'
'Yes, but the prize itself, if your son wins you can choose his bride, if my son wins, I choose.' The two fathers shook on it and agreed the fight should take place in two weeks, which was regarded as ample time for a man like Sortini to fully recover from the injuries so recently inflicted upon him. He was already walking about and asking for drink, though he had no idea who or where he was yet.
Sortini, once he regained some of his lost faculties, had different plans. Until he was blue in the face he protested, 'I don't want to marry anyone, I don't want to be a father!'
'You should have thought of that before you took your pants down son, there's no choice now, the family's gotten involved,' his father told him.
'I didn't ask to be rescued,' Sortini protested.
'Yes, but you were rescued anyway, stop your whining!'
'But look at the mother, Dad, and the Aunts,' Sortini stammered, 'they're all like elephants, and the father... I don't want to wake up every morning with either of those two, they're going to balloon just like all the others.'
'Yes, they'll balloon, you made them pregnant you idiot.' So, Sortini's pleading was to no avail.
His family ensured he was kept drunk so that he'd not be tempted to escape, they couldn't watch him all the time so they kept him well supplied with alcohol, which was tantamount to chaining him to the spot. If he didn't turn up at the fight and the wedding they'd lose a lot of face.
Eventually the momentous day of the fight and wedding rolled around. Everyone, except the tourists purely there to gawp, was dressed in their best clothes. The Wrong Person's twin daughters made an extra special effort and were still refusing to speak to each other, both insisted they'd be the one chosen by Sortini, who they blindly expected to win. All the women wore bonnets. There were flowers and alcohol everywhere and people had come from far and wide to see the spectacle.
Among the onlookers that day were also a lot of buck-toothed ba*****s. They were like cock-eyed sharks that had tasted the minutest drop of blood in the water and flocked to gawp at the young women. It was uncanny, as if they somehow knew that one of the twins would soon drop from the heavens into the arms of some lucky man of their unfortunate kind. The twins avoided direct eye contact with all of them, in the worst cases this simply wasn't physiologically possible anyway: so askew were they.
Sortini though had formulated a plan of his own. He had a loyal little kid he used to pass through open windows when he went out thieving, he sent this urchin off to Stella to arrange a meeting. He slipped away at the appointed time to meet her at a nearby Church. Stella was late and found him pacing in an aG**ated state.
He'd gathered every penny he could lay his hands on and gave it all to her before they even kissed. He was very jittery and Stella could tell something was wrong. 'Stella,' he said, with his usual frankness, 'I've messed up.'
Stella remained calm, more intrigued than concerned, 'What, darling, did you hit another policeman?'
Despite the gravity of the situation they both laughed, then they kissed passionately. They were in each other's arms, on the grass in the graveyard, hidden behind the tombstones, when he explained, 'It's worse than that, what I've done, I've got some women pregnant, there's to be a fight, then I'm to be married.'
'That's not so bad darling, you can still slip away to see me, no?'
'No, well, yes, but I don't want to be married, I don't want to be a father and have screaming kids, fat Aunts, a buck-toothed cock-eyed ba***** of a brother-in-law and a nagging wife and the wrong person for a horrible father.'
'Oh dear, then we'll elope!' Stella was very excited now, she had always liked the idea of eloping, ever since she was a kid. It was all a game to her, this affair with Sortini. 'Yes, we'll elope later, but first I've got a plan for us to run away together. I need your help.' Stella didn't say anything, she just grinned, which was as good or better than her actually saying yes: since sometimes she said yes when she meant no (and vice-versa).
Sortini explained his situation and his plan in detail. He was to make a good show of the fight, for his family and for the sheer pleasure of thumping Terrible, but he was going to do what would have previously been unthinkable: he was going to lose. He wanted Stella to take the money and bet it all against himself at the last minute, on the actual day, her presence at the fight was vital. With ten days to go before the fight he was going to give up drinking and go into serious training so as to considerably increase the odds on a bet against his victory.
He would deliberately allow himself to be knocked unconscious, he intended to head-butt his opponent's best punch to ensure he would be. At that point, he speculated, he'd be dragged off, locked back in the horsebox and left alone. Stella was to steal a car and hitch the horsebox to it, then he'd be free. Stella listened to the plan eagerly and thought it devilishly cunning and exciting, she'd seen lots of people steal and drive cars and it didn't look too difficult. She readily agreed. 'Look on the bright side,' she said, 'at least if the plan fails we'll have a car, a horsebox and a lot of money.' Sortini merely squinted at her quizzically and then they made love.
As Sortini had anticipated, nobody questioned the presence of the stranger Stella, in her best floral dress, at the fight come wedding. She presented an odd character though: she was almost crane like, skinny in her build, especially in the legs, she seemed to strut through the mud with a very birdlike gait, like she was born to paddle in it, her shoes plastered in the stuff and her dress flapping in the wind. She drew plenty of stares, she was used to that, being six feet tall and so crane-like in her movements. Everyone assumed she was a sister of one of the buck-toothed suitors come to check out the twins.
She had arrived early but soon forgot all about everything, how she loved a wedding! She couldn't resist entering into the spirit of things. She went about chatting with people and soon found herself among the entourage surrounding the twins, hobnobbing, much to Sortini's terror, with the would-be relatives and discussing the merits of the two fighters. 'Ah, he's good,' The Wrong Person told her, 'but not as good as my son.' She was introduced to Terrible and shook hands with him. 'How gentle you are for such a strong man,' she thought to herself, 'why, you remind me of my beau.' At that point she suddenly awoke to her purpose and remembered it was her job to ensure there wasn't going to be any wedding. She got The Wrong Person to explain the betting system to her and touched him deeply when she said she wished to put all her money on his son. He even placed the bet for her.
That's when she saw Sortini, for the first time in ten days, for the first time ever off the drink. How wonderful he looked, shirtless, his battle-scarred hide revealed to all and his thick black hair greased back in preparation for the fight. She climbed atop a car like it was her own, which it soon would be, for a better look. She forgot herself again and waved at him. He looked away from her indiscretion, he was terrified! A small group of buck-toothed suitors gathered about the car and started to look up her dress. It's said, almost certainly by Smiler this, that she never wore underwear.
The fight began and lasted round after round. Stella felt every blow that landed on Sortini in her soul, but he was giving as good as he got and Stella started to wonder if he hadn't forgotten his own plan, 'You sweet daft plonker,' she thought. Eventually, by this time she'd lost count of the rounds, Sortini's head butt landed and he was dragged off. From her vantage point she could see him being deposited in the horsebox. Everything was running like clockwork. She was helped down from the roof of the car by an eager throng of buck-toothed individuals gathered below.
When the suitors saw her in difficulties with her car there were plenty of volunteer helpers. Stella picked the least cock-eyed as her driver and there were others eager to hitch the horsebox up for her. It was as if some instinct told them that two maidens were going to fall from the heavens into the arms of two lucky buck-toothed articles that fateful day.
This, so it is said, is the reason why Sortini largely remained indoors and was so incoherent for the rest of his life: he wasn't really Italian at all, but a Traveler hiding out from two families. I think it's likely this whole story is an invention on the part of Smiler, with more than a little help from the Italian community: keen to cleanse their lineage of Sortini post-mortem.
