THE%20SINDH%20STORY

adorned it. They brought to it wealth from the four corners of the earth. They
built great houses. Today we cannot even maintain them.” He added: “The real
masters of Sindh were the Hindus. They had the education, the jobs, the trade,
the land.” He thinks that the Hindus made the mistake of not acting as helpful
elder brother to the Muslims. He could be right; maybe the Hindus should have
done more for the Muslims. However, the schools, the colleges the hospitals, and
other institutions set up by the Hindus were open to the Muslims. On the other
hand, the rich Muslim zamindars never did anything for anybody, Hindu or
Muslim.
G. M. Syed has three complaints against the Sindhi Hindus: they always thought
in all-lndia terms; they inserted many Sanskrit words in Sindhi; and they called
the Sindhi Muslims derisively as “Jhat” (corrupt form of Jat).
Syed is at once right --- and wrong. All Sindhis thought in all- India terms,
whether the terms were Hindu or Muslim. It is true some second-line Hindu
writers did insert some Sanskrit words in Sindhi. But adding two per cent more
Sanskrit to a language that was already seventy per cent Sanskrit, was hardly a
sin; on the other hand many frant-rank Muslim writers loaded Sindhi with more
Persian and Arabic words than our sweet language could bear. As for using the
word “Jhat” for all Sindhi Muslims --- including Sir Ghulam Hussain! --- it was
certainly unfortunate. But it was the casual habit of centuries, which did not
mean offense. Funnily enough, it was the Baluchis --- themselves very illiterate --
- who first dubbed all Sindhi Muslims, as “Jhat”, meaning illiterate. And even a
Hindu child, poor at studies, would be told: “Are you a Jhat?”
It will thus be seen that inspite of the wide educational and economic gulf
between the Hindu and the Muslim segments of Sindhi society, there was no
bitterness in their relations. The Muslims had transformed old gods into new Pirs.
Many Hindus visited Muslim durgahs which, in turn, had adopted Hindu-style
morning and evening drum-beats. The common Muslims were known as Kando
(thorn) Kauro (bitter one) Mitho (sweet one), Bacho (saved), Waryo (returned),
Soomar (monday), Ambo (mango) --- and not by those Arab names. The Muslims
continued with the same good old talismans as are to be found in Mooanjo-daro.
Births were celebrated. Like the Hindu “mundan” (shaving of head) they had
“Akiko”. At about age eight, when the Hindu normally had his “Janeo,” (sacred
thread ceremony), the Muslim boy was circumcised and given a saffron-coloured
lungi to wear. Wedding songs were similar --- and in chaste Sindhi. The Hindu
bridegroom proved his manhood by breaking a coconut; the Muslim bridegroom
did so by breaking an earthen pot. Like the Hindu couple, the Muslim couple
also touched foreheads. In both communities the couple exchanged fistfuls of
sesame seeds back and forth seven times, for amity and an abundant brood. The
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