One of the highest peaks of the Baluch mountains along the frontier of
the Larkana district is known as the Kutteji kabar. This is the tale
they tell about it. Once upon a time a rich Brohi hillman owned a very
faithful and obedient dog. The Brohi was at one time rich, but from one
cause or another he lost his wealth and of all his riches nothing was
left to him but his dog. One day when he had no money left, he
mortgaged his dog for a hundred rupees to a bania of the neighbourhood.
Before leaving it, he bade his hound serve its new master as faithfully
as it had served him. The dog wagged its tail as if it fully understood
what the hillman told him.
Several months passed by and the dog was as obedient to the bania as it
had been to the Brohi. One night a band of fierce robbers broke into
the house of the bania, over-powered the inmates and carried off the
savings of the merchant’s life-time. After the robbers had left, the
bania began to mourn and beat his breast. In an hour or so the dog came
to him and tugged at his coat. The bania abused and beat it for not
having guarded him against the robbers. But the dog continued so to
pull at his coat, that the neighbours advised him to go with the dog
and see what it wanted. The dog led by the way for a mile or so until
it came to a torrent bed, when it began to dig in the ground with its
paws. The bania and his neighbours also began to dig; at last they came
upon the bania’s safe with his money secure inside it. The dog seeing
that it could not fight with success against a band of armed robbers,
waited until they had left and then followed them until it saw them
conceal their plunder. Then it went back to tell the bania. The latter
was so touched at the dog’s fidelity and sense that he tied round its
neck a letter to the Brohi. In it he told his debtor that he cancelled
his debt and asked him to take his dog back free of incumbrances. Then
he told the dog to go back to its master. Off it went wagging its tail
and barking delightedly at the thought of seeing its old master.
Now it so chanced that the Brohi hillman had by working in the plains
saved a sum sufficient to pay off his debt and he was returning to the
hills to do so. On the way he met his hound. It rushed towards him in a
transport of joy. But the hillman who knew nothing of the dog’s conduct
and did not notice the letter round its neck, thought that it had
disgraced him by running away from his creditor before he had paid his
debt. A man of high honour, he grew very angry and holding out the
fingers of his right hand made the bhundo sign in the dog’s face. This
deadly and contemptuous insult was too much for the poor dog. It fell
at its master’s feet and died on the spot. The Brohi tried in vain to
bring it back to life. As he tried, he saw the bania’s letter round its
neck and learnt too late how innocent the dead dog had been. In his
grief, he bore the dog’s body to the highest peak of the neighbouring
mountains and buried it there. For some time he remained by the tomb as
its majawar or guardian. Then he sickened and died also. But the peak
is still known as Kutteji kabar.
Another love story of a different kind is told of the minaret of Mausum
Shah, that looks down from a great height on the thriving town of
Sukkur and the splendid river Indus, as it runs through its two
limestone banks. A certain Musulman called Mausumshah fell in love with
one of the bania girls of Sukkur, whose beauty is renowned through all
Sind. But he was a Musulman and the lady was a Hindu. The lady would
not join Islam and he could not, if he would, become a Hindu. Yet
unless one or the other became a convert, marriage between them was
impossible. The lady moreover had little liking for her Musulman wooer,
although perhaps a little flattered by his pressing attentions. To be
rid of his ardent importunities, she bade him build a minaret, two
hundred feet high before he aspired to her hand. But she had not
realised the passion of the unhappy Mausum Shah. He set to work,
collected stones and coolies and before the Hindu lady was very much
older, she saw to her horror a splendid minaret rising above the
ground. In a few more months it was finished and Mausum Shah full of
pride and love went to claim the hand of his beloved. But as Francis
the First, an experienced judge of the fair sex, used to say “Souvent
femme varie, fol qui s’y fie,” and the lady proved as untractable as
ever. In spite of her former implied promise she still refused to wed a
circumcised barbarian. “I did not say that I would marry you,” she said
“when you had finished the minaret. I only wanted you to build it that
you might throw yourself from the top!” Cruelty could go no further;
and the broken-hearted lover ascending the minaret, took a last view of
the splendid panorama unrolled before his eyes and plunged head first
from the pinnacle. Legend, however, relates that he never struck the
ground, nor was he dashed to pieces. A divine hand caught him as he
fell and put him safely on his feet. His love for the beautiful Hindu
girl had died within him. He had seen the selfish heart that beat
within her beautiful body. Giving up the things of this world, he
became an anchorite and taught the precepts of Islam until death
overtook him. He was buried at the foot of the tower from which he had
once thrown himself. And to this day his tomb and those of his
disciples may be seen there by the visitor to Sukkur.