This is an illustratio♌n of the very popular Punjabi tragic folk-tale describing the lovers Mahiwal and Sohini meeting at night. The unhappily married Sohini swims across the turbulent Chenab river each night to meet her beloved, the buffalo-herder Mahiwal as he plays his flute to his herd on the opposite bank. However, because Sohini cannot swim she is buoyed during each crossing by an earthenware water pot (ghada). Her sister-in-law conspires to betray her by secretly substituting an unfired clay pot (kachcha ghada) which dissolves midway across, and Sohini soon drowns. Mahiwal jumps in to save her and is

also drowned. We see her depicted here hap🐷py and expectant, just moments before her

drowning.