Signs and signatures
Beauty of Waris Shah’s Heer remains untouched by time
Darshan Singh Maini

— Waris Shah

ALMOST every country or land throws up at least one poet who more than others defines its deepest dreams and psyche. That is what, for instance, makes Shakespeare the bard of the royal soul of England. Waris Shah is, then, that sovereign poet of Punjab who becomes an historian of its heart, a chronicler of its consciousness. I wonder if any of his successors has orchestrated as well the great rhythm and wash of Punjabi life down the centuries. Waris Shah remains, then, the great love poet of secular and sensous Punjab. Indeed, Waris distilled the immortal tragedy of Heer and Ranjha in 1766 and, it has, since then, possessed the corporate mind of Punjab, and exercised a fatal fascination on the imagination. He himself wailed thus:

It may be recalled here that before Waris wrote his Heer, Damodar, Mukbal, Piloo and Hafiz Barkhurdar, among others, had ventured to write down the moving love story in their own manner, but Waris’s muses were so deeply touched by this fugitive and harrowing love legend that the earlier versions have largely remained out of the line of people’s vision.

It is interesting to speculate about the possible reasons for Waris’ infatuation with this love story. Whether a woman named Bhagbhari was his "dark lady" who ignited his passion or was it some other woman, is difficult to tell. However, in making his Heer, he seemed to have been so deeply moved as to have turned a secular love tragedy into something mystical. The sublimity of tragic love adds to the poignancy of the tale. And he is fully conscious of his skills and direction.

His life, poetics and vision did converge, finally, in a unique manner. The long poem starts on a mystic note. Love, says Waris, is the condition and the status of the elect of the Lord. And this tale which is, till this day, sung in a most moving soul-searing voice by the country ministrels and street singers, moving between heaven and earth, touches heights of sublimity. And, then, the poet soon moves on the Takht Hazara in the district of Sargodha (now in Pakistan) where a family of distinguished Jats lived:

After describing his household and the endearing love of his seven brothers and their bantering wives, he is driven out to seek his living and his love amongst the powerful Sayals, lords of a neighbouring principality. In describing those scenes, his encyclopaedic vision encompasses the beauties of nature, and of the women there in rich detail. And, thus, Ranjha on seeing a 12-year old damsel of stunning looks, loses his heart and soul to that fair beauty.

And then Waris sets out to describe Heer’s cherry-red lips, dimpled apple-chin, pearly pomegranate teeth, tall cyprus-figure, swan-neck, soft silky palms, snow-white marble bust, rising full breasts and honey-well navel etc. The portrait rich in sensual detail, and heavy with hints of erotic amour, shows a strong salacious streak in Waris. It’s a voluptuary’s dream-girl, nubile, exotic and untouched. A similar prodigality of detail and richness of expression may be seen in the description of Heer’s toilet, jewellery, costumes. It reminds one of Shakespeare’s evocation of Cleopatra’s charm on the royal barge with lover Antony by her side.

Ranjha, now turned cowherd in Heer’s home, could wish for no other haven — or heaven. The lovers plighted in love and affianced in fate spent their brimful days and stolen nights in an ecstasy of dream. For nearly 12 years, the love thus matured steadily in brush and briar, in meadows and rivulets, became a force no paternal authority or earthly power could ever shake. The proud Rajputs, however, wouldn’t brook an alliance with a vagrant Jat and a menial in their household. The pitch is queered when Heer’s uncle, the lame, despicable Kaido, like a rat, steals in upon their privacy one day, and shatters their nest of love. And in this story of betrayals, misplaced pride, wilful obstructions, Heer and Ranjha now stand face to face with fate and doom. Married off and despatched to the Khera’s zenana, Heer cheated by the kazi and her brothers, wailing, cries out thus:

As for Ranjha, he bursts out into a woeful transcendent song:

However, the love tragedy now moves swiftly towards its consummation, and says Waris:

At this height, Waris’s verse becomes impervious, effecting the fusion of the sacred and the profane.

The thing that makes Waris’s Heer a mirror of Punjabi mores and moorings is the poet’s unrivalled sense of social structuring. As for the language, the Punjabi tongue with its inflectional charm, aphoristic idiom and epigrams rises fully to match the poet’s vision. The eventual death of both these immortal lovers at the same moment makes Heer a poem that reigns supreme in the hearts of the Punjabis, matchless in its perennial appeal. Not to speak of scores of poems and plays written on the theme of Heer-Ranjha, at least two Bollywood films too have translated into celluloid, one of the worldgreatest love tragedies.

It’ll be appropriate to end this piece with Amrita Pritam’s peerless poem, Waris Shah, which she wrote in the wake of the Partition holocaust, rapes and illage. The poem invokes his memory in a tone of deep shame and anguish over the brutal ways of man.

Now howl in silent rage.

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