Sindh: The folk codewords of romance

[Naveed Yaseen]

By Jan Khaskheli
Despite the availability of cellular phones, many people in the remote and traditional villages of Sindh continue to use articles (or objects) to communicate romantic sentiments to their partners. Taking a romantic initiative to communicate directly is a difficult task, and needs an incisive mind to decipher these confidential codes. Sometimes both men and women are excited after receiving such messages, and seek the advice of their seniors and elders to understand the hidden meanings in the message.

Since Sindh is an agrarian society, all objects play their role in this kind of conversation. Sugar, grains, broken grain, garlic, silver coin, coal, nuts, emeralds, raw cotton, comb, broken comb, threads, knotted threads, red and white cloth, and multi-coloured threads are among the important items used for this secret code of communication.

In love, all merits and demerits depend on the other’s sharpness to break the puzzle. For instance, if a woman sends a cup of milk with red threads to a man, then she is calling the man an infant and immature with a rose red mouth. In a test case, they send fuller’s earth (used in bathing) and pieces of broken jar, which means there is an emergency. Failure to provide assistance means that the person is a coward or two-faced. Pencil-made pictures of the sun and the moon on a piece of paper shows how the lover stays awake through the night and how excited the lover is about meeting the other. If a woman sends bangles to a man, it is an affront to the man, as if he has lost his manhood—while broken bangles signifies break-up in love.

Alum is a warning call urging the partner to be aware of the fact that somebody may be hatching a conspiracy against their affair. Weak threads mean weak affairs. Garlic usually means nothing; although, sometimes it describes the impotency of the male partner, and is a challenge to the man to prove his manhood and be ready for any sacrifice. Stone describes heartless and merciless.

In Sindhi, coal is called Angar, while Tuesday is called Angaro. Hence, if somebody receives a coal, of berry tree and straws of husk, the underlying message is that the partners should meet on Tuesday, under the berry tree near the heap of husk outside their village. If there is a knotted thread, it means the relationship is strong and faces no threats. However, a piece of white cloth is assumed to hint at a shroud, and interpreted as a threat to be murdered in case of cowardly behaviour.

“It is another Sindh, whose dwellers despite being part of modernity and development, are not beneficiaries of these facilities,” said Ishaq Mangrio, a Sindhi folklore writer, who is currently involved in conducting a study on ‘Indigenous Communities of Sindh and their old culture’. Mangrio termed Karo Kari as a condemnable practice, and pointed to the increasing trend of court marriages or love marriages in certain districts. He claimed that the increase is mostly due to these people enjoying communication facilities derived from urban centres.

“During my travel to these remote areas and meetings with local illiterate but intelligent people, I observed that they are not aggressive, and that both males and females have more respect for each other. As far as romance is concerned, they have to wait for months and years to even hear a word from the other side. Otherwise, these articles or codes are sufficient to know how he or she is,” Mangrio said.

However, he pointed out that sending these articles was a tough job, as there was a risk attached to romantic involvements even in the most developed of urban cultures. It follow that rural areas cannot be safe either, he added. Mangrio traced the long and complex history of this diffidence in romance, and cited the reports of women and their paramours killed for honour in certain areas; however, he added that the trend is not the same across the land of the Sufis.

A stanza of poetry of Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai, the great Sindhi poet, is sufficient to understand the history of this nervousness in romance: Goonga Thee Gadiam Sanheen Ghitee Supreen (I couldn’t say anything while my beloved passed by me in a narrow street). Neither he nor she could say a word to each other, even in the deserted street where it was just the two of them.