Love Tales of Pakistan -I
The Story of Sohni and Mahiwal
Listening to music on YouTube, I came upon this soulful Seraiki song by Pathanay Khan, a Seraiki singer:
سوہنی گھڑے نوں آکھدی
اج میرا یار ملا گھڑیا
“Sohni begs her pitcher (the large, round, clay pitcher in which people in villages collect and keep drinking water):
Please help me meet my lover tonight”
Even though I was vaguely familiar with the story of Sohni-Mahiwal, this sorrowful song made me research the story a bit. Like many popular folktales, I discovered several versions of this story, but a common thread runs through all of them.
Sifting through different accounts — and glossing over some — here is what I gathered about this poignant story.
Sometime during the late Mughal period, a potter (kumhar) named Tulla lived in a town on the banks of the Chenab River or one of its tributaries. (The town is identified as present-day Gujrat in Pakistan or one of the nearby towns.) Tulla was a master craftsman, and his customers came from throughout Northern India and also from caravans going from India to Central Asia.
The potter had a daughter named Sohni, which means beautiful in Punjabi. Sohni spent her childhood playing in her father’s pottery and watching him make pots and pitchers: kneading the clay, molding it on the potter’s wheel, drying them in the sun, and baking them in the fire.
Sohni grew up not only into a beautiful young woman but also skillful in making floral designs on the pottery that came off her father’s wheel.
Sohni’s town was on the trading route between Delhi and Central Asia, and trading caravans often stopped there. One such caravan included a young, handsome trader from Bukhara named Izzat Baig. While checking out the merchandise in town, Izzat Baig came upon Tulla’s workshop, where he spotted Sohni sitting in the corner, painting floral designs on the pottery. Izzat Baig, struck by Sohni’s rustic beauty, couldn’t take his eyes off her. He lingered in the shop, purchasing random pieces of pottery.
He turned up again the next day and made some more purchases. His purchases were a pretext to be around Sohni for as long as possible. This became Izzat Baig’s routine until he had squandered most of his money.
When the time came for his caravan to leave, Izzat Baig told his companions that they could leave and he would follow them later. He found a place to live in the town and often visited Tulla’s shop on one pretext or another to be around Sohni. Meanwhile, Sohni, feeling the heat of Izzat Baig’s love, also began to melt, and the two started meeting secretly.
When he ran out of money, Izzat Baig started working odd jobs with different people, including Sohni’s father. One such job was grazing people’s buffaloes, which earned him the name Mahiwal, a short variation of Majhan-wala in Punjabi or the buffalo-man. That name stayed with him for the rest of his life.
Sohni and Mahiwal’s clandestine meetings soon became the talk of the town. When Sohni’s father found out about it, he hurriedly arranged for Sohni’s marriage to a potter, one of her cousins. Ignoring her protests and petitions, the father bundled Sohni off to her new home away from her hometown.
Mahiwal was devastated. He left town and became a wanderer, searching for Sohni’s whereabouts. Eventually, he found her house, managed to meet her in the guise of a beggar, and gave her his new address — a hut across the river. Sohni’s husband, meanwhile, realizing that he could not win Sohni’s heart no matter what he did to please her, started spending more time away from home on business trips.
Taking advantage of her husband’s absence, Sohni started meeting Mahiwal regularly. She would swim across the river at night using a large, round, empty water pitcher as a float (a swimming aid still used in the villages in Punjab) and swim back before the crack of dawn. On reaching her side of the river, she would hide the pitcher in a bush to be used for her next trip.
Sohni’s sister-in-law (her husband’s sister) came visiting one day and stayed with her for a few days. Suspecting something unusual about Sohni’s nocturnal movements, she started to spy on her.
Following her one night, she saw Sohni take out the pitcher from under the bush, wade into the river, and swim across. Alarmed, she reported the matter to her mother (Sohni’s mother-in-law). Rather than informing Sohni’s husband, both mother and daughter decided to get rid of Sohni. They believed this was the only way to save their family’s honor.
Knowing where Sohni kept the empty pitcher, the sister-in-law quietly took it from the bush and replaced it with an unbaked clay pitcher.
When Sohni set out for her next nightly rendezvous, she retrieved the pitcher from the bush as always and entered the river. It was a stormy night, and the river was in high flood. She soon discovered, to her horror, that the pitcher had begun to disintegrate. It was unbaked and hadn’t been through the firing process.
What shall she do now? Different thoughts rushed through Sohni’s mind. Should she abandon the trip? Or continue trying to swim without a pitcher and drown? The song that prompted me to research the story captures her struggle in an imaginary dialogue between Sohni and the dissolving pitcher.
Roughly translated and paraphrased, it runs somewhat as follows:
Sohni (addressing the pitcher):
Please, O, please! Take me to my Mahiwal.
It’s dark, the river’s in flood
There is water all around me
How am I to reach my Mahiwal
If I keep going, I will surely drown
If I turn back
I’d be going back on my word
And let Mahiwal down
I beg you, with folded hands,
Please help me meet my Mahiwal
You always did; please do it now, too
The pitcher answers:
I wish I, too, were fired like you are
In the fire of love.
But I am not. Forgive me, I’m helpless …
Hearing Sohni’s cries, Mahiwal jumped into the river from the other side to save her. He barely managed to reach Sohni, and as the story goes, their bodies were washed ashore and found the next day lying next to each other.
Sohni and Mahiwal entered the world of legend and lore with their death. The “sinners” became saints and left behind a beautiful love story, and Sohni’s clay pitcher became a metaphor signifying lovers’ determination to meet each other, whatever the odds. Parveen Shakir used it in one of her beautiful couplets, and so did Mustafa Zaidi:
طوفاں ہے تو کیا غم ‘ ہمیں آواز تو دیجے
کیا بھول گئے آپ مرے کچے گھڑے وہ ؟
A rough translation would be:
What if the river is stormy? Just call me
Have you forgotten Sohni’s attempts
To swim with an unfired pitcher?
Parveen Shakir
کچے گھڑے نے جیت لی ندی چڑھی ہوئی
مضبوط کشتیوں کو کنارہ نہیں ملا
Mustafa Zaidi
Note: First published on ATP on Jan 8, 2007
