The Hope of Pir Waris Shah

Nilofer Qazi

April 2012

Heer Ranjah the quintessential unrequited love story of our land. Driving to Waris Shah’s Mausoleum in Jandiala Sher Khan, Sheikhupura District, Pir sahib’s mausoleum is a place of pilgrimage, especially for those in love; apparently his own unrequited love for Bibi Bhag Bhari was the source of the myth of Heer.

The Waris Shah complex is surprisingly spotlessly clean, designed like a Moguls garden the centre piece the Mausoleum of Waris Shah a simple grave, alongside his father and brother.  Fountains on either side bridged the columned corridors on all four sides.  Blessedly there was no ‘ban’ on women entering the shrine! A library in the corner, a lovely surprise and welcome to all those interested in Punjabi poetry and 18^th century history. Mureeds men and women in the outlier narrow columned courtyards bellowed Heer adding to the incredibly powerful vibrations already present. For the strangest and unexplainable reason I couldn’t stop circling the mausoleum round and round I went like a Dervish in a trance.

Sitting in this incredibly open, warm all embracing space, thinking about all the other folk stories we glorify: Mahaganj and Hamal in Baluchistan, Adam Khan and Khane in KPK, Mirza Sahe Baan, Suni Mahewal in Punjab, Sassi Pannu in Sindh and many more I’m unaware of, the contradictions we live with in this country are mind boggling.

On one hand we immortalize love stories of defiance, challenging traditional norms and glorify the human spirit and at the same time in these very towns and cities we are silent when women are buried alive, killed, maimed, honour killed when people dare to exercise a simple choice of their life partner. Schizophrenic. Hilarious if it wasn’t so violent.

 In Shaikhapur, Waris Shah’s shrine sits quietly celebrating love, music and life and within a few miles away we have our infamous, factory of hate, blood and thunder curdling away in Mureed Ke, the epicenter of hate for this poor nation and the rest of the world.

The recent public cases of the forced conversions of young Hindu girls are testament of our Schizophrenic state of mind, the courts looking the other way when basic constitutional rights of liberty and choice are flagrantly being violated. What is sad is the confusion surrounding these as well. Some of these young girls ‘chose to convert’ and some clearly did not. But why I ask did they have to choose? From what cultural, if not moral, source is our social political conscious functioning from. Which fountain of truth is guiding us? Is there a faith without love? What has faith got to do with love?

More optimistic friends argue that it is the Waris Shah’s of the world which ground Pakistanis to their roots. It is this force of love and all embracing tolerance which will eventually triumph over the narrow, imported, intolerant philosophy seeping into the fabric of Pakistani consciousness. As long as we sing and celebrate the stories of our land there is hope.   

aj aakhan waaris shah noo kito.n qabra.n vicho.n bol!
te aj kitab-e-ishq da koi agla varka phol!

ik roi si dhii punjab dii tuu likh-likh mare vain
aj lakkha.n dheeyan rondian tainuu.n waaris shah noon kahan

uth darmandan diaa dardiiaa uTh tak apna punjaab!
aj bele laashaa.n vichiiaa.n te lahu dii bharii chenaab!

kise ne panja paania.n vich dittii zahir rala!
te unhaa.n paaniaa.n dharat nuu.n dittaa paanii laa!

jitthe vajdii phuuk pyaar di ve oh vanjhli gayi guaach
ranjhe de sab veer aj bhul gaye usdi jaach

dharti te lahu vasiya, qabran payiyan choN
preet diyan shaahazaadiiaa.n aj vich mazaaraa.n roN

aj sab ‘qaido’ ban gaye, husn ishq de chor
aj kitho.n liaaiie labbh ke waaris shah ik hor

aj aakhan waaris shah noon kito.n qabra.n vicho.n bol!
te aj kitab-e-ishq da koi agla varka phol

( Aj Aakhan Waris Shah Nu is a Punjabi song/kalam writen by Amrita Pritam).

Translation

I say to Waris Shah today, speak from your grave
And add a new page to your book of love

Once one daughter of Punjab wept, and you wrote your long saga;
Today thousands weep, calling to you Waris Shah:

Arise, o friend of the afflicted; arise and see the state of Punjab,
Corpses strewn on fields, and the Chenaab flowing with much blood.

Someone filled the five rivers with poison,
And this same water now irrigates our soil.

Where was lost the flute, where the songs of love sounded?
And all Ranjha’s brothers forgotten to play the flute.

Blood has rained on the soil, graves are oozing with blood,
The princesses of love cry their hearts out in the graveyards.

Today all the Quaido’ns have become the thieves of love and beauty,
Where can we find another one like Waris Shah?

Waris Shah! I say to you, speak from your grave
And add a new page to your book of love.