Where have the boats gone?

Nirupama Dutt

Tales of Two Countries

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Tags:

• Boats
• folk song
• love
• Ranjha

Where have the boats gone?

Where did the boats come from? O’ Ranjha*
my trader in love?
Where did the boatmen come from? O’ Ranjha
my trader in love?

My mother used to sing this
lost song of Pothohar*
I recall the boats would come
from Jehlum
and the boatmen
from Attock

My mother had seen Attock
and spent her childhood in Jehlum
For me these are just two
names of rivers and towns
lost somewhere in the Punjab
across the barbed wire

If the boats came they must have
gone somewhere too
I cannot recall the destination
mentioned in the song
Mother is no longer there
or I would ask her
Never mind I will ask Ranjha
my trader in love
if I come across him
somewhere along:

Where have the boats gone, O’ Ranjha
my trader in love?
Where have the boatmen gone, O’ Ranjha
my trader in love.

*Ranjha is the archetypal romantic and tragic hero of the famous love legend of Punjab_ Heer Ranjha. The poet belongs to a family that migrated at the time of the Partition from Pakistan Punjab to India Punjab thus the allusions to lost village, rivers and towns.