The burning kiln of lost love

 

In keeping with the great syncretic traditions of India, Ranjha (a Muslim) after being bashed and thrashed by Heer’s wards and taunted by merciless society became an ascetic—a Gorakhnath sanyasi.

The burning kiln of lost love, the golden billows of pain, firing him into high orbits of spirituality. His heart exiled from itself; his grief opted for shelter under the healing cover of saffron robes.

The tragic love-tale is much sung, but his ascetic journey is put hindermost in folklore. The very same worldly wheedling enunciating love in terms of what he gave, what he received. But truth is never straight like this give-take equation suggests. You will see it if you look a bit slantwise. And avoid the oft usual credulous cauterizing.

As a Hindu ascetic, maybe, he wasn’t lolling sullenly as the thrifty tongue might tempt you to believe. Maybe he crossed over the dark cave—exceedingly impenetrable to the strenuously accustomed masses peering from behind the grilled posts—and tasted the real honey of love as a much broader lover. Maybe he turned a flame that no longer required a wick; a heart that got widened and vast beyond a particular lovely face; a house that got emptied to let the sky pour in with all its glory; his tears distilled and sublimated into mystical chastity and divine clarity; a lover transformed into a peaceful witness; a spating river that broke the banks of bondage to become a sea; the ash of dead love cooling down to become prayers.

The arc from wounded to boundless love: walking away from his former tormented identity; the sweet desire of a lover for his beloved shed like it was burden on the soul; his loneliness distilled into stillness and listening; his wounds healing after learning tranquility; his possessive cravings transforming into easeful presence; his love no longer asking rewards or compensation for his suffering; sitting in silence and no longer asking for fruits of madly selfless love for a woman; his love collapsing inwards to bloom like a lotus in a muddy pond.

But he is portrayed merely as a crestfallen, ashen-hearted loser, moving hollowly and despondently, jeered and leered by the motley squawks of sadistic tormentors.

I think, with his odd escape—a gaping hole in his heart; his heart nailed to the image of his beloved, his desire bound to the pearl of his heart—he reached where not many so-called successful lovers would ever reach.