Eternal love and sacrifice— Tragic Romances

Punjab has had a very rich and profound folk culture for thousands of years. The folklores, famous in Punjab since the mediaeval era, mostly lie in the romantic tragedy genre. The characters these depict have been the legends in the world of love and romance, not only in the subcontinent but also in the entire globe, for centuries. Let’s have a look at how beautifully those characters and stories have been inspiring the lovers of the Indian subcontinent, for a thousand years.

Heer-Ranjha

The story of Heer and Ranjha has a strong tragic taste, served in the plate of intense and eternal love. The two lovers had such an intense bond that as Heer’s aristocratic family refused their relationship and forced Her to marry the man they had chosen for her, Ranjha became a monk or Yogi, treating every material pleasure of the world as an illusion. Later, when Heer’s family agreed to their relationship, Heer was poisoned by her jealous uncle on the day of her marriage to Ranjha. Ranjha, coming to know about this, consumed the same poison and died just beside his beloved Heer.

Mirza-Sahiba

This is the story of two cousins falling in love and the strong disagreement with their relationship from the brothers of the lady, Sahiba. When the couples eloped, Sahiba’s brothers caught them on their way and killed Mirza, as a reaction to which Sahiba killed herself with a sword.

Sassui-Punnun

Sassui-Punnun has a different taste of folk culture, as it incorporates a magical or mythical feature. It is a story of two lovers, where Punnun was kidnapped by his brothers on his wedding night, as they were against this relationship. The story has a tragic end, where the two lovers would be swallowed by the valley like their souls together were assimilated to something supernatural or divine.

Sohni-Mahiwal

The most famous folklore of Sindh and Punjab is the story of Sohni and Mahiwal, where the two lovers were separated when the parents of Sohni arranged their daughter’s marriage without even acknowledging her. Even after marriage, Sohni kept her contact with Mahiwal, who at that time was residing near her husband’s house, as a monk or ‘faqir’. Because of a cruel conspiracy of Sohni’s sister-in-law, Sohni was drowned in the river, while coming to meet Mahiwal. Mahiwal tried to save her but failed due to his injuries and both of them died drowning in the river.

All these folklores have two things in common. These are all speaking about eternal love. And secondly, all these have a tragic end, which depicts the dedication required and the perils to be faced for achieving true love.

Different types of flutes: Eastern & Western

Blowing the Melody

The Swabian Jura region, which is present in Germany, has been the witness of the use of Flutes, one of the oldest identifiable musical instruments of human civilization. Since then, the use of flutes has been continuously grown throughout the globe with a vast variety of structures, shapes, sounds and techniques. The flutes, according to their origin can be divided into several categories, among which mostly two categories are to be taken into account according to the geographic positions of their origins, viz. Eastern Flutes and the Western Flutes.

Eastern Flutes 

There are several kinds of eastern flutes, among which the Dizi and the Xiao from China, the Shakuhachi and the Shinobue from Japan, the Ney from Turkey and the Bansuri from India are the most famous flutes.

Dizzi is a Chinese flute, which has been used since the 1st. century BC. These flutes are available with all the keys such as A to G and most of the professionals own a set of all seven flutes. The flute has its use in folk and opera music, as well as in orchestras.

The Xiao flute is another ancient and popular Chinese instrument, aged around 1400 years. It is a bamboo-made open-hole end-blown flute. It is available in several varieties and suits best with Chinese classical music.

The Japanese bamboo-made end-blown flute Shakuhachi originated from the Chinese Xiao flute in the 8th century. Century. Its blowing end is cut in an oblique manner directed outward, producing subtle variations in tone colours.

The Bansuri is the Indian side-blown flute, made of bamboo shafts with six to seven finger holes, as lengthy as 30 to 75 centimetres, is found to have a mention in the ancient Indian texts, such as Rigveda. It is used in Indian Classical Music.

Western Flutes

There are several western flutes such as Concert flute, Piccolo Flute, Alto Flute, Bass Flute, Irish Flute, Native American Flute etc.  We might have a look at these, as follows:

The Concert flute, often called the C flute is a famous horizontally played western flute, based on the C key. The flute consists of three parts, the head joint, where the mouth hole exists, the body and the foot joint. The latter two parts consist of tone holes.

The piccolo is a western flute having three parts. The head joint has the mouth hole and the body consisting of the key work and the holes. It is mostly used in the romantic orchestra.