The Spell of Love: A Story from Punjab
Let me go where my Mirza is
Sahiban chal wahan jahan Mirza
Mirza Sahiban — one of the many tragic romances of Punjab. Punjab is a region in both India and Pakistan. As far as I know, all the famous and brilliant tales were written in the united Punjab before the partition of India.
Mirza was the guy, an excellent archer, who grew up in the same village as Sahiba, the girl — prettiest of all. The spell of love knocks and soon they see themselves falling in love with each other, but, that is not it.
Sahiba’s family was against their relationship. Since Mirza grew up in the same household as Sahiba, it did not suit him to fall in love with Sahiba — he must have thought of her as a sibling.
But, Sahiba and Mirza were madly in love; forgetting each other was out of the question. Mirza was expelled from Sahiba’s village and went back to his town. Sahiba’s father decided to marry her to some good guy from their village.
Upset and drowned in love, Sahiba sends a message to Mirza and requests him to take her with him. Mirza leaves for Sahiba’s village, turning his father’s efforts to stop him in vain.
On their way back, Mirza decided to take a nap under a tree. Sahiba knowing that her brothers are in search of them gets scared. She knew that if they found them, either Mirza was going to kill her brothers or her brother would kill Mirza.
Perplexity enters and Sahiba decides to break the arrows and bow of Mirza. She thought she would beg her brothers and they would accept them, everything happened except this.
They found Mirza and without any hesitation gifted Mirza death through their arrows. Seeing them mercilessly aim more arrows, Sahiba embraces Mirza and allows those arrows to gift death to her too.
This was the summary (in my style) of the story of Mirza and Sahiba. But, what makes me share this with you?
The verse at the beginning of this article is from a Punjabi song “Sahiba” from the movie: Philauri. Whenever I listen to this song, I enter ecstasy.
It is so beautiful and this wanting of her to go wherever Mirza is heart-melting. While listening to this masterpiece I think: isn’t this the rule of this universe? Everyone is in search of someone.
Whether you accept it or not, every single person who carries a throbbing heart is in quest of someone, consciously or unconsciously.
Waris Shah, another in-love poet from Punjab, begins his famous Heer Ranjha with the following verses (translation by Sant Singh Sekhon):
I start this song in the praise of the Lord
who made this world spring forth from love.
Prime love of all is the lord Himself
and he gave his love to the Prophet — envoy.
Waris Shah says that God himself is the lover — and let me make it very clear that people like Waris Shah did not see God as merely a figure outside our world and a being to be revered and not to be felt — instead for them God was their beloved — the primary reason behind existence, the loaner of their breaths, the most breath-taking of all.
This understanding of God as their beloved inherently brought high esteem for love, and therefore the quest for the truth — the truth that sustains the symphonies of this cosmos.
I said above that everyone is in search of someone; that someone is not anyone, it is the one who successfully embodies this phenomenon of love and truthfulness within them. It is the one who is manifesting the love that God has bestowed on this world.
Love is pure, and love requires purity. Love is loyal, and love requires loyalty. Love is bold, and love requires boldness. Dishonesty, insincerity, lies, etc have no business in the valley of love.
And if you ask me, I would say that Mirza was Sahiba‘s valley of love. That is why she kept telling herself: Let me go where Mirza is. Mirza was solace, Mirza was serenity, and Mirza was someone that her heart was looking for. Mirza was the manifestation of the attributes and qualities of the master of the universe. Mirza was love. Mirza was what Punjabi Sufis call khudai — loosely translated as godship or godly.
We all have Mirzas or Sahibas in our lives and our hearts are in a never-ending quest for them. We feel restless and don’t know what to do. We fall in love. We fall out of love. It comes and goes; our love is not permanent but we keep forgetting that only what stays is love.
The love between Mirza and Sahiba was everlasting, eternal, and beautiful. It was permanent, it was not something that could ever fade. I find it very beautiful when South Asian poets say that Ishq (love) is Aatish (fire). There is a beautiful verse from Ghulam Farid’s poem (another amazing Punjabi Sufi poet) that says:
This love has kindled a fierce fire
yaar DāḌhī ishaq ātish laa.ī hai
Fire is known to burn, to destroy, but he says that love brings fire and this fire is good. However, how can burning be something good? When you are harshly burned, you don’t feel pain because your nerves are destroyed. Hence, until their recovery, your body is unable to sense anything through that part.
The fire of love is similar to this aspect of blocking the sensory nerves. However, in the case of love, it blocks every signal coming from the outer world that is unrelated to your beloved. Therefore, the only awareness left is of your beloved. This is also my understanding of the Sufi saying, “Die before you die”.
We can also understand that burning, because of the fire of love, is burning the self that was deep in worldly and wrong desires. The peeling of the skin because of the fire of love gives birth to the new skin — previously hidden underneath — that is pure and enlightened and has witnessed love in its true form.
As I always say: the conversation of love will exist as long as beating hearts like yours and mine exist — but for this article, I need to bring an end. So again, finishing my thoughts with a prayer: May our hearts stay restless until we find true love.
