For lovers oozing with
ambitions to fight off all odds in their way, there is
a prospective of success enshrined in Jhang.
The lovers come to a hilltop surrounded by a simple dirt
cemetery, to the shrine of Heer and Ranjha - the Romeo
and Juliet of South Asia. Although there is disagreement
whether they were real or legendary, the couple’s
star-crossed story has inspired centuries of flowery poetry.
Believers say the two are buried beneath the blue-, white-
and green-tiled shrine, and hundreds of them show up at
the place every day to pay homage, hoping God will grant
them their desires as a reward of their visit.
“I came to the shrine a year ago to ask the saints
(Heer and Ranjha) to help me find my own true love,”
says 27-year-old Shazia Akram, a newlywed smiling alongside
her strapping young husband, Muhammed Arshad. “Now
I have found him, so we came back to say thank you,”
she said.
Shazia has no doubt the shrine brought them together,
though their marriage was arranged by her parents. Arshad,
her husband, says even before he met his wife, he recited
poetry about Heer and Ranjha and believes their shared
interest in the couple is evidence the saints had a hand
in their marriage.
“It’s God’s secret and nobody can know
how the shrine works, but my husband and I are proof that
it does,” Shazia says after eating a pinch of salt
from a bowl kept at the foot of the grave, then kneeling
down in respect of the saints. The salt is said to bring
fortune and good health, though the shrine’s caretaker
Mohammed Ramzan acknowledges it is simply bought at local
market.
Yasmeen Khalid in her over-thirties is at the shrine with
her husband to thank the saints for finally giving them
a son after the birth of six daughters – over-birth
of girls is considered bad in this area.
Yasmeen, wearing the all-encompassing black burqa that
is common for women in most of the families, says she
visited doctors and bought amulets from spiritual leaders
in an effort to produce a boy baby. Nothing worked she
goes on to say until they came to the tomb.
“My husband and I were becoming disappointed with
every passing day. Relatives would scoff at me that I
was unable to give birth to a boy,” she says, cradling
the 8-month-old boy in her arms. “I got this son
from the shrine. I got him from the saintly couple buried
here,” she said.
According to the most famous poem about Heer and Ranjha,
written in 1776 by Syed Waris Shah, Heer was the beautiful
daughter of a wealthy patriarch, while Ranjha was forced
out of his more modest family home after a quarrel with
his brothers.
He meets Heer and soon they are in love. She gets her
father to hire Ranjha as a shepherd and visits him in
the woods each day.
After being discovered lying together by Heer’s
uncle, Ranjha is fired and Heer is ordered to remarry.
Ranjha then returns and Heer’s parents agree to
the marriage. But on the wedding day, Heer is poisoned
by her uncle. A broken-hearted Ranjha lowers himself into
her grave and dies as well. But it cannot be said that
this is the one and the final story about the couple.
There are many others hovering in the area on how and
why their love consummated.
Their purported tomb in this central Pakistani city is
constructed to look like a charpoy, or a traditional wooden
bed. Around it, young grooms place their traditional wedding
clothes and starched turbans. Women bring flowers and
cloth, and some pay a small donation to light scented
oils.
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The affection Pakistanis feel for the couple’s story
is surprising, since their affair would be just as scandalous
now as it was in their day. Even in moderate homes, marriages
are almost always arranged by parents and “love
marriages” are frowned on.
A good number of Pakistani women who marry against their
parents will or who are suspected of illicit affairs are
killed or mutilated each year in “honor killings,”
most of them at the hands of their husbands, fathers and
brothers, the National Human Rights Commission says. “We
will continue to hear stories like that of Heer and Ranjha
unless people start respecting decisions made by couples,”
says Kamla Hyat, the commission’s director.
“There is no truer love than that of Heer and Ranjha,”
says Shazia, the newlywed, clutching her husband’s
arm. “My husband and I will never be able to compete
with their love, but we could try out.”
