SohniMahiwaal:Love After Death

By Super

Tuesday, March 27, 2012, 13:28

On hearing the news, Mahiwaal is devastated and leaves the town, that is dead without his beloved. He wanders around hopeless as a Fakir, searching desperately for Sohni. One fine day a beggar approaches Sohni's new house, she discovers that it is none other than her Mahiwaal. He had finally found her. Mahiwaal now lived in a hut just across the river to Sohni's house. The lovers start their secret rendezvous again, as Sohni's husband had failed to win her love and spends most of his time out of town. The various poetries and stories beautifully explain in words, the way Sohni in the dead of the night would swim across the river with the help of a large earthen pot to meet her Mahiwaal. However, the secret is soon discovered by Soni's sister-in-law who catches Sohni hiding the pot in the bushes to use it the next night. Instead of confronting Sohni or telling about her affair to her husband, the sister-in-law along with her mother decide to kill Sohni to protect the family name.

One such night, when the waves in the river were angry and the sky swore trouble, Sohni sets out to meet her lover. She plunges in to the troubled water of the river, only to find that her pot had began to melt away in the water! Her sister-In-law had replaced the regular pitcher with an unbaked one. On the other side of the river Mahiwaal impatiently awaits his love. As the dark waters threaten to engulf her, Sohni is in a delima. Should she return back?What about her promise to Mahiwaal?She struggles with her self and fights against nature to reach the other side. Her cries of struggles reach Mahiwaal who watches Sohni drown in front of his eyes. At the weakness of the moment, he embraces the river to save his only reason to live. Sadly, fate had not destined them to meet while alive. The next day the dead bodies of the lovers is washed ashore. Death united their souls finally.

Even today when the nights are darker than dark and the moon refuses to shine, the waters of the Chenab river roar their woeful songs of death and the trees tremble against merciless winds, Soni meets her Mahiwaal, with her earthen pitcher in her other hand.