Peero, spiritual mother to the Gulabdasi sect of Punjab, is widely regarded as the first female mystic-poet of Punjab. Not only did her sparkling and refreshingly bold—indeed radical—poetry represent a confluence of Bhakti and Sufi mystic verse, her life itself was a statement against traditional morality and the deeply patriarchal times she lived in. Orphaned when she was still a little girl, she spent her early life as a tawaif in the infamous Heera Mandi of Lahore. Her escape from the brothel and journey to the spiritual oasis at Chathianwal saw her transformed from Peero Preman—Peero the prostitute—to Mata Peero.
Having defied the religion of her birth—Islam—and challenged the role society expected her to play, Peero now spearheaded a new path for the mystic to follow. Her voice, polished and elegant, but also earthy and ribald, aches for release from worldly affairs and the dictates of the Pandit and the Qazi. But even as she sings of surrender at the feet of the cosmic divine, she eschews the path of the ascetic. Her path to freedom joins the renunciation of the dervish with the indulgence of the libertine, as is evidenced by Holi festivities at Gulabganj, for example, and the shared ecstasy of the sadhu-faqeer and the local prostitute celebrated in her song.
Not too long ago, Peero’s work lay neglected in dark and mouldy corners of provincial libraries. These sensitive translations of over a hundred representative verses by her are a step towards restoring this remarkable woman to her rightful place in the Nirguna Bhakti tradition.