The World According to Heer & Ranjha

There once was a young person named Heer who lived with her mother on the edge of a large petrified forest. One day her mother asked her to take a basket of fresh organic fruit and mineral water to her grandmother's house -- not because this was woman's work, mind you, but because the deed was generous and helped engender a feeling of "community". Furthermore, her grandmother was not sick, but rather was in full physical and mental health and was fully capable of taking care of herself as a mature adult.

So Heer set off with her basket of organic food through the woods. Many people she knew believed that the forest was a foreboding and dangerous place and never set foot in it. Heer, however, was confident...

On her way to Grandma's house, Heer was accosted by Ranja, a male chauvinist pig, who asked her what was in her basket. She replied, "Some healthful snacks for my granma, who is certainly capable of taking care of herself as a mature adult."

The Ranja said, "You know, darlin', it isn't safe for a beautiful woman like you to walk through these woods alone."

Heer said, "I find your sexist remark offensive in the extreme, but I will ignore it because of your traditional status as an outcast from society, the stress of which has caused you to develop your own, entirely valid worldview. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must be on my way."

Heer walked on along the main path. But, because his status outside society had freed him from slavish adherence to linear, Western-style thought, Ranja knew of a quicker route to Grandma's house. He burst into the house and hit Grandma with a baseball bat, an entirely valid course of action for a male chauvinist pig such as himself. Then, unhampered by rigid, traditionalist notions of what was masculine or feminine, he put on grandma's nightclothes and crawled into bed.

Heer entered the cottage and said, "Grandma, I have brought you some fat-free, sodium-free snacks to salute you in your role of a wise and nurturing matriarch."

From the bed, the Ranja said softly, "Come closer, darlin', so that I might see you."

Heer said, "Oh, I forgot you are as optically challenged as an endangered spotted owl. Grandma, what big eyes you have!"

"They have seen much, and forgiven much, my darlin'."

"Grandma, what a big nose you have -- only relatively, of course, and certainly attractive in its own way."

"It has smelled much, and forgiven much, my darlin'."

"Grandma, what big teeth you have!"

Ranja shouted, "I am happy with and what I am," and leaped out of bed. He grabbed Heer, intent on devouring her. Heer screamed, not out of alarm at Ranja's apparent tendency toward cross-dressing, but because of his willful invasion of her personal space.

Her screams were heard by a passing logger (or tree-technician, as he preferred to be called). When he burst into the cottage, he saw the melee and tried to intervene. But as he raised his ozone-powered and sound-proofed chain saw, Heer and Ranja both stopped.

"And what do you think you're doing?" asked Heer. The tree-technician blinked and tried to answer, but no words came to him.

"Bursting in here like a Neanderthal, trusting your weapon to do your thinking for you!" she said. "Sexist! Male Chauvinist Pig! Liar! May Your Pants Be on Fire!" How dare you assume that women and men can't solve their own problems without a tree-killer's help!"

Upon hearing Heer's loud speech, Grandma came to from her temporary coma, took the tree-technician's chain saw, and severed his head off. After this ordeal, Heer, Grandma, and Ranja felt a certain commonality of purpose. They decided to set up an alternative household based on mutual respect and cooperation, and they lived together in the petrified forest happily ever after.



Author's Disclaimer: This fictional fairly tale of Heer & Ranjha, especially
souped-up for the Chowkwalas, is a spoof on the original fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood and its "sanitized" version in
"Politically Correct Bedtime Stories" by James Garner. Any resemblance of Heer & Ranja to the original Little Red Riding Hood Saga and/or James Garner's spruced-up version is honestly intentional.