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Sohni Mahiwal, a romantic legend of Gujrat

By Mansoor Behzad Butt

GUJRAT: Romantic folklores are a valuable literary asset to any region, besides being a vital part of its history and culture.

Sohni Mahiwal has passed from generation to generation. A number of national and local literati have evaluated this romantic tale. In 1899, the then deputy commissioner of Gujrat, Capt AC Elliot recorded the whole story in his book called Chronicles of Gujrat. Local academics, including Professor Dr Ahmed Hussain Qiladari, Feroze Nagin, Mohammed Boota and Saleem Shahid, also narrated this romantic legend in their respective writings in Urdu and Punjabi poetry and prose as well as Persian poetry. Local history tells that during the reign of Mohammed Shah Badshah Ghazi, a girl was born to a potter named Tulla in 1632 in an area situated on the banks of Chenab River.

The child was named Sohni because of her bewitching beauty and because her tiny angelic steps brought happiness to Tulla’s family. Sohni’s fame grew with her beauty as she assisted in her father’s shop. One day a merchant named Izzat Baig who had migrated from Bukhara in 1651 came to her father’s shop and was deeply struck by Sohni’s radiance and innocence.

Izaat Baig started visiting the shop regularly to see Sohni on the pretext of buying earthen pots but Sohni did not commit herself to his advances. Izzat Baig soon went bankrupt buying pots from Sohni’s father and then offered his services as a servant to Tulla. Love eventually did grow between Sohni and Izzat Baig.

Mr Baig used to watch over the family’s buffaloes and was called Mahiwal, which in Punjabi means a herdsman. However, just when their love was blossoming, Sohni was forcibly married to her cousin, Dam, and Mahiwal was thrown out of his job.

Mahiwal disguised himself as a beggar and reached Sohni’s in-laws’ home calling for food. The divided lovers decided to meet secretly near the bank of the Chenab River. Sohni began to slip out of her house with an earthen pot, which carried her to the other side of the river where Mahiwal was waiting anxiously for her. But such clandestine trysts could not remain hidden forever and Sohni’s sister-in-law discovered them and vowed to take revenge. One night, she replaced Sohni’s earthen pot with an unbaked one, which began to dissolve when Sohni used it to cross the river. Sohni called out to Mahiwal in distress who jumped into the river to save his love but both drowned in the mighty river.

This incident apparently caused a boom in the pottery profession and an earthen pot called the pitcher or garha came into use. Surkh garhas and sufaid garhas are two local variations. The surkh garha is named after the red clay it is made from, while the sufaid is named after white clay. These two kinds of pitcher are still used in Gujrat but the modern means of refrigeration have eclipsed this part of Gujrat’s culture.

The story does not end here, as the local literary profiles have created a paradox in the local literature proving the romantic legend a true story. Ganesh Das Wadera, a writer of Chahar Bagh Punjab in 1790, argued that the story literally took place in 1732 near a village Ruliala, some 18 kilometres east of Gujrat near Jalalpur Jattan, which was devastated by the curse of Sohni. Other literary circles argued that the incident happened in 1632. The locals of Kunjah believed that Sohni came from Kunjah but Prof Qiladari contradicted this myth. Saleem Shahid gave new colour to this folklore by translating it into a Punjabi-prose style and named it Punjabi Sohni Mahiwal. Whatever the facts, the tragedy of Sohni Mahiwal will probably remain alive in the hearts and imaginations of local people.

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