Sohni Mahiwal

Sohni is the daughter of Tulla, a potter of Gujrat whose painted jars were famous along the trade road. Izzat Baig, a merchant from Bukhara, comes to buy and stays for love of her; spending all his money, he becomes a buffalo herdsman on the far side of the Chenab and takes the name Mahiwal. Sohni is married to a potter of her own caste, but every night she crosses the river to meet him, floating on one of her father's baked pots.

Her sister-in-law discovers the secret and swaps the fired pot for one of raw, unbaked clay. Sohni wades into the dark water, feels the pot soften and dissolve, and keeps going. She drowns in the Chenab; Mahiwal, seeing her from the other bank, throws himself in after her. Their bodies are said to have been found together, and their graves are pointed out at Shahdara.

The tale was told by Fazal Shah, Hashim Shah and many others, and became a favourite subject of the hill painters and later of Sobha Singh, whose painting of Sohni on the river is one of the best known Punjabi images of the twentieth century. The Chenab, the river of lovers, is never mentioned in Punjabi poetry without the shadow of the unbaked pot.