Takht Hazara is a pleasant place on the banks of the river Chenab. It
is the abode of the Ranjha clan who lives here in contented luxury.
Mauju Chaudhri is the chief landowner and he loves Dhido, lovingly
called Ranjha, more than his other sons. After Mauju's death, due to
ill treatment of his brothers, Ranjha leaves Takht Hazara. On the
riverbank, he accidentally meets Heer, the daughter of Mehar Chuchak
Sial of Jhang, who is as lovely as the moon.

Ranjha takes up the job of a herdsman with the Sials, a renowned tribe
of the area. He is extremely good at playing the flute and melodious
music flows whenever his lips touch the reed. Heer and her friends go
to the forest every day to hear the mellifluous music. She becomes
mesmerised with the way he plays the flute and soon they are tied in
the bond of love. Time passes happily. However, one day the lovers are
caught out when Kaido, a crippled uncle of Heer, comes to know of
their love after watching them together in the forest. He instigates
Heer's father to find a suitable match for her.

Chuchak is determined to marry off Heer to avert disgrace, but the
Sials have never given their daughters to the lowly Ranjha tribe.
However, soon a suitable match is found. He is Saida of the Kheras who
lives in Rangpur.

The Kheras are overjoyed and ask the Brahmans to consult the stars and
to fix the marriage. Virwati (Thursday) in the month of Sawan comes up
as the best day for the wedding. Heer opposes the marriage and
declares it illegal. Nevertheless, she is married by force. Heer
languishes in the house of her father-in-law Ajju Khera. She refuses
to put on jewellery or gay clothes, declines food and lies awake all
night thinking of Ranjha. Sehti, her sister-in-law, wins her over and
makes her tell the secret of her heart. Heer narrates her story and
Sehti consoles her saying that she too has a lover, Murad Bakhsh, a
camel driver, and that somehow they must contrive to help each other.

After a year, a Jatt girl from Rangpur returns to her home in Jhang
Sial. She bears an urgent message for Ranjha: Heer is on the point of
death. Ranjha resolves to become a fakir and sets off for Tilla
Jogian, the hill where Balnath the Jogi dwells. There he is granted
Jog. Once in the village of the Kheras, he takes up a beggar's bowl
and goes from door to door crying for alms. Luck brings him to the
house of Ajju Khera. A slanging-match with Sehti brings Heer to the
courtyard. She glances at the Jogi and behold! It is her lost lover.

After that Ranjha installs himself on a hillock in the garden of
Kalabagh where Heer goes to meet him. Later, Sehti and Heer consult
how Heer may leave the Kheras and be united with Ranjha. The next day
they go to the garden where Sehti bites Heer's foot and they pretend
that a snake has bitten her. The Kheras summon fakirs, hakims and
enchanters who give her cunning drugs. But Sehti tells them there is a
very ingenious Jogi in the Kalabagh garden in whose flute there are
thousands of spells. Ranjha is brought and lodged in the hut belonging
to the village minstrel. That night Murad takes Sehti on his camel and
Ranjha takes Heer. Thus the bridegrooms set forth with their brides.

The Kheras draw up their armies and succeed in overtaking Murad, but
the Baloch drive them back. But destiny overwhelms the other pair of
lovers for the Kheras find Ranjha and Heer asleep. They take away Heer
and give Ranjha a vicious beating. Ranjha seeks justice from the king
whose armies bring the Kheras to the court. After hearing both the
sides the king hands over Heer to the Kheras.

On hearing the judgment, the lovers invoke curses on the city owning
to which it catches fire. The astrologers tell the king to conciliate
the lovers. So the Kheras are brought back and he tells Heer that she
may go with her rightful husband.

Heer returns to her parents' home, as she desires to enter Ranjha's
family with proper marriage rituals. But Kaido makes a resolution to
poison her. On the day of Heer's departure, Chuchak embraces her. Over
his shoulder she hears Kaido's soft voice urging her to eat a
sweetmeat before she leaves.

She responds to his poignancy and takes a piece that he offers.
Meanwhile, a messenger arrives in Takht Hazara and breaks the news to
Ranjha that Heer has been posioned and therefore dead. He quietly
slips into a room and kneels down to pray. Hours slip away, darkness
gathers. The crowd in their vigil begins to grow restless. One of them
gathers courage and goes inside the room. As he touches Ranjha's
shoulder he falls down dead.


Today people come from afar to pay homage to the lovers whose story is
a concoction of fact and fiction. They tie strips of cloth to the
window of the room chamber hoping that through this act their love
will be fulfilled.

Heer and Ranjha lie in eternal sleep in a common grave shaped like a
cot and covered with tiles inside a room which, a signboard of the
Punjab Auqaf Department says, is the court of Hazrat Izat Bibi alias
Mai Heer Sial and Mian Murad //Bakash// alias Mian Ranjha. The dome
has an opening in the middle but it is said that rain does not enter
into the chamber - a miracle attributed to the lovers -
notwithstanding the raindrops found inside after a light shower....