[Submission] the Seven Queens of Sindh
A girl told tales of tragic lovers.
Karachi, a city in Sindh, unfolds like a dark fable. A city where almost every family holds violence and sorrow. As a result, in my childhood, every whispered folktale carried the weight of inevitable tragedy, holding sacrificial love and lingering loss. Though the city I spent summers in is now a memory swallowed by time, those folktales still seem to govern my heart.
The Seven Queens of Sindh are a series of seven folktales, originating from Sufi poetry, that tell the story of implicitly tragic and doomed romances. Every woman I knew revered these Queens for their determination, their strength, and their patriotism, and passed these tales down onto their daughters. Every man I knew found the Queens frivolous, but even they felt that these cultural icons commanded respect.
The first time I heard about Sassi, I was around five years old, curled up on a faded cotton rug in my grandmother’s house, the air thick with the scent of sandalwood and old books. My aunt’s voice, always carrying the weight of lived history, began the tale with a force that felt both like a lullaby and a warning.
Sassi was born under an omen. She was abandoned at birth because an astrologer had foretold that she would bring disgrace to her royal family. She was set adrift on the Indus River, where a childless washerman found her, raising her as his own. But fate, the cruel orchestrator of fairytales, would not let her origins stay hidden. She fell in love with Punnu, a prince who loved her in return. Yet, in the way of all tragic love stories, their happiness was brief. On their wedding night, Punnu was kidnapped by his brothers, who refused to let him marry a commoner. When Sassi awoke and found him gone, she walked barefoot across the desert to find him, her body battered by heat, her feet cracked and bleeding, her voice hoarse from calling his name. Finally, just as she reached his homeland, with the spires of his home in sight, the earth split open and swallowed her whole. She vanished into the sands, never to be seen again.
It was not lost on me, even as a child, that the story did not end with love fulfilled. Yet I found it so beautifully disturbing.
Sassi was only one of the Seven Queens of Sindh, and she was not alone in her suffering.
Next came Suhni, the potter’s daughter in an unhappy marriage, whose nightly odysseys across a treacherous river became the epitome of romantic defiance. Every moonlit night, she balanced on a fragile, earthen pot to reach Mehar, a trader whose love offered her escape from oppressive in-laws and weak husbands, a story that Pakistani women know all too well. But once again, fate, ever jealous of pure affection, intervened. One ill-fated night, her pot, swapped by hermother-in-law with one unbaked and brittle, crumbled under the relentless current. As the rivercarried her away, her anguished cries for Mehar mingled with the lapping water, and can perhaps still be heard today, if one decides to visit the banks of the Indus River in Shahdadpur.
Then there was Moomal, who was celebrated for her clever beauty and luminous grace. In the heart of an enchanted palace - guarded by labyrinths, puzzles, and illusions - she reigned. It was said that any man who dared to court her had to navigate this maze of illusions, his every step a test of valor and wit. Many a proud prince, seduced by the promise of her love, ventured into this living riddle. Yet, one by one, they fell prey to her schemes, and were robbed of their wealth, being returned to the world as an ordinary peasant. Until Rano arrived. In him, Moomal found the one man capable of overcoming her cunning schemes, and she fell in love. But Rano, ensnared by masculine jealousies and insecurities, began to see in Moomal’s cleverness as a sign of infidelity. His doubts grew into allegations that cut through her heart, and desperate to exonerate herself, Moomal pursued him through the bazaars and winding town streets. In an act of defiance against the jealousy that had turned love into a battlefield, she faced Rano and threw herself into the flames of a bonfire. Condemned in a blaze that left nothing but memories of a woman’s love doubted and prematurely extinguished by the allegations of a man.
In contrast, Marvi was a humble village maiden, forcibly claimed by King Umar, who mistook her loyalty for weakness. Yet, even facing the luxuries of royal life, her spirit rebelled. Marvi’s heart remained tethered to her family and the simplicity of village life, displaying stubborn refusal to let love be corrupted by power, and refused to marry the King. So she was abducted and imprisoned in the Umarkot Fort, eventually perishing there. If you visit the historic fort today, you will see women lamenting, clutching the soil of the village earth that Marvi cherished so dearly. It is understood by them that the tragic romance of this tale is the severing of Marvi from her beloved homeland and family.
Lilan was married to King Chanesar, ruler of Deval Kot. Yet into this palace slipped Kaunru, a dispossessed princess, whose longing for Chanesar burned brighter than loyalty. Disguised as a maid, Kaunru and her mother sought refuge within Lilan’s court, and Lilan, moved by their apparent misfortune, welcomed them as servants. Every day, Kaunru tended to Chanesar’s bed, and one quiet morning, as she arranged its silken folds, tears glistened on her cheeks. When Lilan, ever curious, asked the cause, Kaunru spoke of a lost past, a time when her world shimmered with luxury, her palace illuminated the fabled Naulakha Har, a necklace worth 900,000 rupees. Lilan’s skepticism gave way to desire, and she pressed Kaunru for the treasure’s price. In a twist of bitter irony, Kaunru offered Lilan the priceless jewel on one condition: a single night with Chanesar. Impulsively, Lilan seized a drunken Chanesar at a revelry, handing him over to Kaunru. When dawn broke, the bitter truth surfaced: a revelation from Kaunru’s mother that Lilan had bartered her husband for a trinket. Humiliated beyond measure, Chanesar renounced Lilan and embraced Kaunru as his bride. Crushed, Lilan retreated to her familial home, a shadow wandering in endless remorse. Years later, amid a festive dance, Chanesar’sgaze fell upon a mysterious, veiled maiden. Unable to resist, he implored her to unveil. When Lilan did, the shock proved fatal, and Chanesar collapsed. In that harrowing moment, Lilan’s own heart gave out, and she died there on the same spot her lost husband had.
Then I was told the tale of Sorath, a baby girl set afloat in a basket. The winds of fortune delivered her to Junagadh, where a potter named Ratno raised her as his own. Her beauty, unrivaled and ethereal, spread like wildfire, reaching the ears of King Annirai. Yet when Ratno, in a quiet, calculated procession, set out to marry her to Annirai, another intervened. King Rai Diyach, ruler of Junagadh, in a bitter twist of honour, claimed Sorath for himself by force. This act of defiance ignited a bitter feud. Incensed by his wounded pride, Annirai declared a reward - a treasure trove of jewels - for the one who could bring the head of Rai Diyach. A musician named Beejal was pressed by his wife to undertake this grim quest. Reluctantly, he journeyed to Junagadh. At the fortress gate, he played his instrument through the night. Rai Diyach, roused by the beautiful notes, invited him into the palace, where he promised to fulfill any request inspired by such divine music. In a moment suspended between ecstasy and despair, Beejal’s voice, carried by his instrument, demanded the unimaginable: “Only by bearing your head in my bag shall my longing be quenched.” In a surreal act of devotion, and true to his word, the king sacrificed himself: his severed head a testament to the boundless, tragic intensity of love and art. Sorath, unable to bear the weight of disgrace and sorrow, threw herself into fire, while Beejal, overwhelmed by remorse, joined her in a final, self-immolating requiem.
But my favourite of the Seven Queens has always been Noori. Hers is the only story where love is neither thwarted nor punished, where devotion is not marred by tragedy or treachery. No jealousy, no suicide, no cruel imprisonment. Just love, found and kept. Noori was the daughter of a humble fisherman, her life tied to the waters of Keenjhar Lake, where one can still find the broken remnants of her old fishing village. It was here, among the reeds and the rhythm of lapping tides, that she caught the eye of Jam Tamachi, King of Sindh. He saw her not as a commoner, but as his Queen, something meant for him. And in a world where lineage dictated worth, he raised her above the noblewomen of his court. The legend says he loved her madly, unshaken by the dissent from his own bloodline. His devotion was her triumph. Noori’s tale was a Cinderella story where the slipper fit, the prince stayed, and the kingdom did not crumble under the weight of scandal, unlike her six sisters in folktale.
Yet, even in this rare tale of happiness, death had to find a place. It always does. According to the legend, Noori was eventually buried in the middle of Keenjhar Lake, and her legacy is ultimately a grave in murky waters, visited by tourists daily, searching for a ripple, a whisper, a sign of the fairytale that ended in water. So of all the legends, it was the tale of Noori Jam Tamachi that drew me into her solitary journey across still, reflective waters. I often visited Keenjhar Lake as a child, where the scent of wet earth and fish clings to the air. Compelled by the pull of love across borders, I bowed my head too, amongst other women, at a solitary stone marker adrift in the middle of a large lake. I could almost hear Noori’s soft whisperings carried by the breeze, a songfor a love that had transcended the boundaries of life and death. In that moment, I felt the weight of centuries of yearning and loss, the stark beauty of her shrine spoke to me as if urging me to understand that in every tear and every sacrifice lies the essence of true, tragic love.
Tragic romance has always held humanity in its grip. From the Greek myths of Orpheus and Eurydice to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, from Layla and Majnun to Tristan and Isolde, we are haunted by the image of lovers who never quite make it. The ones who fall just short of happiness, whose devotion is tested not by life, but by fate itself.
The Seven Queens of Sindh are not just fairytales to me; they are cultural artefacts, relics of a world where love is about endurance, sacrifice, and sometimes, destruction.
Some argue that tragedy immortalises romance in a way happiness never can. When lovers die, their love is preserved in its most passionate state: unfaded, unburdened by the weight of time. We do not see them grow disillusioned, fall out of love, or struggle through the banalities of life. We remember them at their most desperate, their most beautiful, forever suspended in longing.
In many ways, these stories mirror the romantic fatalism of the East, where love is often synonymous with suffering, where the most devoted lover is the one who does not survive their own longing. In Sufi poetry, love is often portrayed as a kind of madness, a divine affliction that leads one to annihilation. The Persian poet Rumi1 wrote:
"The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along."
In this way, our perception of love is often determined by the stories we have been told about it, how we experienced romance from before we ever looked at someone with longing ourselves. So, from the moment my aunt opened her mouth to capture me with the Seven Queens of Sindh, love has always been suffering, longing, and violence.
And isn’t that the allure?
If a love story ends in marriage and contentment, it becomes ordinary. But if it ends in loss, it becomes immortal.
In the aftermath of these encounters, heard in the hushed cadence of my aunt’s voice and felt in the quiet solitude of Noor Jam Tamachi’s watery memorial, I have begun to see suffering not as a mere byproduct of love, but as its very marrow. The stories of these queens taught me that the raw, unbridled intensity of love is often inseparable from pain. When passion burns so fiercely, it leaves indelible scars; these wounds, though tender and aching, are the proof of a love that dared to be all consuming. In each tragic tale, from Sassi’s excruciating pilgrimage through the desert to Suhni’s doomed midnight voyages, there is a message: love that is profound and transformative is inextricably tied to suffering. The tragic is not the antithesis of the beautiful but its truest, most honest form.
This work was submitted to the White Lily Society for the limited time submission prompt “fairytales”
Fatimah Merchant is a writer who grew up in London, but comes from a line of women raised inPakistan. She finds inspiration from encounters with those, real or fictional, who cross the line in some way, as well as feminist theory, Shakespearean literature, and Britney Spears. Her addictive personality has manifested into long journal ramblings that are largely incoherent, but just occasionally, become something worth reading.
Come, join the White Lily Society, and become a martyr of deliciousness. Want to submit your own work to the White Lily Society? Look no further!
 | A guest post by
|