In Search of Heer

by Manjul Bajaj

We think we own the land, while in fact the land becomes our master.

We sell our souls to own land, we draw boundaries on it, we beget children to bequeath it to—children who must bear our name to inherit the land that we have put our name to. And yet that does not bring us peace. We constantly fear the man who does not have our good fortune and may covet it.’

We imagine we are planting and sowing just crops, but truth is we also sow fear and reap mutual hatred in our greed for growing more and more food.’

Domestication does that to you even while it gives you more assured access to food and a more secure environment.

Perhaps, all of us creatures need less food and more happiness than we imagine.

Why is it that the ones to whom the Almighty gives so generously, guard their houses so meanly?

what hope of justice would there be left in the world for the weak and the wronged if the powerful are allowed to manipulate the laws as per their own convenience?’

Why does love cause so much consternation in this world? Why can’t a man and woman who love each other simply be allowed to exist? Why do family and society align themselves into opposing them, why do councils and courts get dragged into the matter, why are fatwas, feuds and killings unleashed to stop them? Would it not be simpler to let lovers bear the consequences of their love, let society go on with its business and let them get on with theirs?

Never forget you are one half of the human race, she tells them. Not the better half or the worse, just an equal half. Ask to live your equal share of life.

It is the personas of Heer and Ranjha that come back to haunt us repeatedly. They symbolise the men and women we did not become and the social order we did not choose. Ranjha is the man who did not give the prevailing economic dispensation dominion over his soul, who rejected the idea that a man needed to own land and wealth or assert power over the woman in his life as a measure of his worth. Heer is the woman who took full responsibility for her life and body, asserting her rights, not just in the narrow sense of romantic or sexual agency, but in interacting with the outside world independently and fearlessly on every occasion. The lost social idyll these two represent for humanity is not just of a world which is more accepting of romantic love, but also one which is less dominating over nature, kinder to other species and less consumerist in its orientation.