Manto and Chughtai

by Muhammed Umar Memon

She thought she understood what was implied and blushed. When Randheer took out a fresh white dhoti and handed it to her, she hesitated for a moment and then undid her kashta, its grime made more visible by the rain. She pushed it aside and quickly wrapped the white dhoti around her hips and started to undo her snugly fitting choli, the two ends of which she had secured in a tight knot that had disappeared in the faint but grimy cleavage of her shapely breasts.

  With her worn nails she struggled with the knot for quite a while but couldn’t loosen what the rainwater had tightened so firmly. Eventually she gave up and muttered something to Randheer in Marathi which meant, ‘What shall I do? It just won’t open.’

  Randheer sat down beside her to give it a try but he couldn’t make the knot budge either. In exasperation he grabbed the two ends and tugged on them so vigorously that the knot came undone. His hands jerked from the force of the pull, baring two trembling breasts. For a moment he felt as though, with the dexterity of a master potter, his own hands had shaped a lump of soft, moist clay into a pair of exquisite cups on the girl’s chest.

  Her youthful breasts had the same rawness and allure, the same moist freshness and cooling warmth that oozes from vessels just fashioned by a potter. A strange glow was implicit in the earth tones of those pristine young breasts. A diaphanous layer of a sort of muted luminescence beneath their darkish colouring was giving off that strange glow, which was almost not a glow. The two mounds on her chest looked more like a pair of earthen lamps set afloat on the muddy waters of a pond.

  Yes, it was a day during the rains—a day just like this one. The leaves of the peepul were trembling outside the window. The ghatan’s dripping-wet, two-piece garment was lying on the floor in a messy heap, while she herself was wrapped around Randheer. The warmth of her naked, unwashed body evoked the same sensations in his own that he felt in the hot, filthy hammams of the barbers during blustery winters.

  She had clung to his body all night long, as if their two bodies had melded together. They hadn’t exchanged more than a couple of words. There had been no need to. Their breath, their lips, their hands conveyed all that needed to be communicated. With the tenderness of the gentlest breeze, his hands caressed her breasts all through the night—and however light the touch, her tiny nipples, in the middle of their large, dark, coarse areola, responded, sending a wave of tremulous pleasure through her body that never failed to arouse the same in his own.

  Such tremors were not something Randheer hadn’t experienced before. He had, many times, and he was familiar with the pleasure they gave. Hadn’t he, after all, spent many nights with his chest pressed against the soft or firm breasts of some girl or other? And even spent time with such capricious girls that they had no qualms about sharing the kind of intimate stories about their families that are usually kept from strangers? He’d had sexual relations with women who took the initiative and did all the work themselves without encumbering him in any way. But this girl from the hills whom he’d beckoned up—she was something else altogether. So unbelievably different!

  A strange smell wafting from her body flooded his senses all night—a smell at once pleasant and nauseating. It flowed from every part of her body: under her arms, around her breasts, her hair, her belly—it permeated every breath he took. All night long he wondered about this smell: without it creeping into every crevice of his mind, crowding out all his thoughts, new and old, would he have felt as close to this ghatan as he did now? Absolutely not!

  This smell had fused them together for the night. They had taken possession of each other so totally, plunged into each other’s depths so fully that they were carried away into pure human ecstasy—fleeting yet somehow immutable, in motion yet frozen, like a bird soaring so high in the sky’s limitless azure that it appears perfectly still.

  Even though he was familiar with the smell radiating from every pore of the girl’s body, he couldn’t quite describe what it was. It was like the smell of earth that had just been sprinkled with water. But not exactly. It was different somehow. And it didn’t have the artificial aura of lavender or attar. It was something primal and timeless—like the relationship between man and woman.

  Amazingly, though Randheer detested the odour of perspiration and routinely dusted his body with talcum powder and dabbed his underarms with deodorant after every bath, he found himself madly kissing the ghatan’s hairy armpits over and over—yes, over and over— and feeling no revulsion; instead he found it strangely pleasurable. Damp with sweat, her soft, underarm hair was releasing a scent that was very conspicuous and yet completely unfathomable. He felt that he knew it, was familiar with it, and even understood what it signified, but couldn’t explain it to anyone.

  It was a day during the rains—just like today. He was looking out of the same window. The peepul leaves were trembling in the pouring rain, their rustling sound blending into the atmosphere. It was dark outside, but the darkness was suffused with a soft fluorescence, as though a little light had escaped from the stars and descended to the earth with the raindrops . . .

  Yes, it was a day during the rains. His room had a single teakwood bed then; now it had two—the new arrival was placed next to its mate—and a brand-new dressing table stood in one corner. It was the same season, the same weather, and a barely discernible light was coming down from the stars along with the raindrops, but now the atmosphere was filled with the overpowering scent of henna.

  One bed was empty. On the other, Randheer lay face down, watching raindrops dancing on the fluttering leaves outside the window, and lying next to him was a fair-complexioned girl who seemed to have fallen asleep after her futile attempts to cover her nakedness. Her red silk shalwar lay bunched up on the empty bed, the tasselled end of its dark red waist-cord dangling down the side. Her other clothes were also on that bed. Her shirt with a golden floral pattern, her bra, underpants and dupatta were all of a deep red colour—a garish, dark red—and saturated with the strong scent of henna.

  Flecks of glitter were scattered in her dark black hair like specks of dust, and glitter, together with a heavy layer of powder and rouge, gave an unbelievably strange colour to her face—pallid, as though all the life had been squeezed out of it. The dye from her bra had bled, leaving reddish stains on her fair chest.

  Her breasts were milky-white with just a hint of blue and her underarms were shaved clean, leaving behind a grey shadow. Randheer glanced at her several times, and each time found himself thinking that he’d just pried open some crate and taken her out—as if she was a consignment of books or china. Her body had marks in several spots just like the marks and scratches left on books and china from packing and shipping.

  When he undid the clasps of her tight-fitting bra, Randheer noticed that it had creased her back and the soft flesh of her bosom. And the cord of her shalwar had been done up so tightly, it left a mark around her waist. The sharp edges of her heavy, jewel-encrusted necklace had apparently grazed the delicate skin of her bosom in many places, as if unforgiving nails had scratched it.

  Indeed, it was just like that other day. The rain was producing the same sound as it pelted down on the tender leaves of the peepul—the same pitter-patter that had filled his ears that other night long ago. The weather was divine. A cool breeze was blowing softly . . . but it was laden with the cloying scent of henna.

  Of course his hands had roved over the girl’s milky-white bosom for a long time, like the breath of a gentle breeze; he’d felt her body quiver in intermittent waves under his touch, felt the suppressed passions stirring within her. When he pressed his chest to hers every pore of his body heard the notes rising from her body—but where was that call: the call he had sensed in the strong odour emanating from the ghatan’s body, more compelling than the cry of an infant thirsting for milk, the call that had gone beyond the limits of sound and needed no words to convey it.

  Randheer was looking out through the grillwork of the window, somewhere far beyond the trembling leaves of the peepul, into the distance where he co
uld make out an unusual subdued glow enmeshed in the dark grey of the clouds, the same glow he had seen radiate from the breasts of the ghatan, hidden like a secret, but discernible all the same. He looked at the inert body of the girl stretched out beside him, as soft and white as flour kneaded with milk and butter, the scent of henna leaping from it now fading. He found it immensely revolting—this exhausted smell in the throes of death, somewhat tangy, oddly tangy, like the sour belches of indigestion. A pathetic, sickly smell!

  He glanced at the girl lying next to him again. The femininity in her being seemed strangely compressed . . . the way white globs float listlessly in colourless liquid when the milk has gone bad. Actually, the smell that flowed from the ghatan so naturally, unbidden and without effort, still pervaded his senses. It was a smell infinitely more subtle and pervasive than the perfume of henna, not at all eager to be smelled, but flowing quietly into him to settle into place.

  In one last attempt, Randheer ran his hand over the girl’s milky-white body but felt no tremor. His new bride, the daughter of a distinguished magistrate, with a bachelor’s degree, the heart-throb of countless boys at her college, failed to rouse her husband’s passion.

  From the dying scent of henna he desperately tried to retrieve the smell that had wafted from the ghatan’s unwashed body and flooded his senses on just such a rainy day when the leaves of the peepul outside the window were bathed in a downpour.

  THE BLACK SHALWAR

  Before moving to Delhi she had lived in Ambala Cantonment where she’d had several goras among her clients. Through them she had learnt to speak a smattering of English, which she didn’t use in ordinary conversation. When her business failed to pick up in Delhi, she said to her neighbour Tamancha Jan one day, ‘This lef—very bad.’ Meaning, this is a bad life, you can’t even earn enough to make ends meet.

  She’d done quite well for herself in Ambala. The cantonment goras came to her drunk. She would be done with eight or ten of them in three or four hours and make twenty to thirty rupees. They treated her much better than her own countrymen did. True, they spoke in a language Sultana couldn’t understand, but this ignorance only worked to her advantage. If they tried to bargain for a lower rate, she just shook her head uncomprehendingly and said, ‘Sahib, I don’t understand what you’re saying.’ And if they tried to get fresh with her, she broke into a round of profanities in her own language. When they gawked at her nonplussed, she’d say to them, ‘Sahib, you’re a bloody fool, a bastard . . . understand?’ She didn’t utter these words brusquely, but in a tone full of affection and geniality. The goras would laugh, and when they laughed they did look like bloody fools to her.

  Here in Delhi, though, not a single gora had visited her since her arrival. She had now been here for three months, in this city of Hindustan where, she had heard, the Big Lord Sahib lived, who customarily spent his summers in Simla. So far only six people had visited her, only six—that is, two a month—and she could swear by God she had made a total of eighteen and a half rupees from them. None of them wanted to pay more than three rupees. Sultana had quoted her rate as ten rupees to five of them but, strangely, every one of them had said, ‘Not more than three.’ God knows why they thought she was worth only three rupees. So when the sixth one came along, she herself said, ‘Look, I charge three rupees for each taim. I won’t accept anything less. Stay or leave.’ There was no haggling; he stayed. When they went into the other room and he started taking off his coat, Sultana said, ‘And a rupee for milk.’ He didn’t give her one rupee though; instead, he took out a shiny eight-anna bit with the head of the new king from his pocket and offered it to her. She took it quietly, thinking, ‘At least it’s better than nothing.’

  Eighteen and a half rupees in three months! Just the rent for her kotha, which her landlord referred to by the English word ‘flat’, was twenty a month. This flat had a toilet with an overhead chain. When the chain was pulled, water gushed out noisily and carried all the waste to an underground drain. Initially, the noise of the torrential water had scared the daylights out of her. On her first day in the flat, when she had gone to the toilet, her back was hurting badly. As she was getting up from the toilet seat she grabbed the chain for support. The sight of the chain had made her think that since the flats were built especially for important people, the chains were provided for their convenience. But the instant she grabbed the chain to rise, she heard a clanking sound and suddenly water was released with such force that she shrieked, frightened out of her wits.

  Khuda Bakhsh was in the other room busy with his photographic material and pouring hydroquinone into a bottle. When he heard Sultana scream, he stepped out of the room and asked her, ‘What’s the matter? Was that you screaming?’

  ‘Is this a toilet or what?’ she replied, her heart pounding with fright. ‘What’s this chain hanging down like the ones in a train carriage? My back was aching, so I took hold of it for support. The instant I grabbed it there was this horrible explosion . . .’

  Khuda Bakhsh laughed uproariously. He explained, ‘It’s a new-style toilet. When you pull the chain, it sends the filth to an underground sewer.’

  How Khuda Bakhsh and Sultana got hitched together is a long story. He hailed from Rawalpindi. After passing his intermediate he learnt to drive lorries. For four years he ran a lorry between Rawalpindi and Kashmir. In Kashmir he had an affair with a woman, whom he persuaded to abscond with him. They went to Lahore where, since he couldn’t find work, he set her up as a prostitute. This went on for two or three years until the woman ran away with another man. When Khuda Bakhsh found out that she was in Ambala, he went looking for her. There he met Sultana, who liked him, and so they decided to band together.

  Her business picked up after Khuda Bakhsh got together with her. A superstitious woman, she attributed her success to Khuda Bakhsh’s presence. She took him to be someone blessed by God. This faith jacked up his stature in her eyes.

  Khuda Bakhsh was a hard-working man who didn’t like to lie around and while away his time. He struck up a friendship with a photographer who took photos with a Mint camera outside the railway station. He learnt photography from him and, later, took sixty rupees from Sultana and bought his own camera. Gradually he acquired a background screen, bought two chairs and equipment for developing film and set up his own business. The business boomed. Shortly thereafter he established himself in Ambala Cantonment where he photographed goras and, within a month, came to know several of them rather well. So he moved Sultana to the cantonment area too and many goras became her regular clients through him.

  Sultana bought herself a pair of earrings, had eight gold bangles made, each weighing five and a half tolas, and also collected an assortment of some fifteen fine saris. The house also got some furniture.

  In short, she was quite well off in Ambala Cantonment. Then, suddenly, God knows how, Khuda Bakhsh got it into his head to move to Delhi. How could she refuse? After all he was a godsend, her lucky break. She gladly agreed to go with him. In fact, she even thought her business would prosper further in such a large city where the Big Lord Sahib lived and which a friend of hers had praised to high heaven. Besides, the shrine of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya, for which she felt a special reverence, was also in Delhi. She quickly sold her heavier household goods and came to the city with Khuda Bakhsh, who rented this place for twenty rupees a month and both settled in.

  It was a row of newly built lookalike units running along the road. The municipal committee had assigned this area of the city to prostitutes to stop them from setting up businesses all over the city. The ground floor had two shops and the upper, a pair of flats. Because all units looked alike, at first Sultana had a lot of difficulty finding her flat. This became easier when the laundry shop on the lower level put up a sign ‘Clothes Washed Here’ which she used as a landmark. And this was only one of the signs that worked as a marker for her. There were others. For instance, her friend Hira Bai, who sometimes sang on the radio, lived above the place where ‘Coal-S
hop’ was inscribed in large letters. The shop announcing ‘Excellent Food for Gentlemen’ was right below Mukhtar’s flat and Anwari, another friend, lived above the small factory that made broad tapes for bed meshing. She was in the employ of its owner who needed to keep an eye on the work at night and stayed with her.

  During the first month, in which she remained idle, Sultana consoled herself with the thought that a newly launched business usually didn’t pull in customers right away. But anxiety swept over her when not a single customer turned up in two months. She asked Khuda Bakhsh, ‘What do you think, Khuda Bakhsh? We’ve been here for two whole months and no one has come along. I know business is slow these days, but it can’t be so slow that no one will come our way at all.’

  The matter had been weighing no less heavily on Khuda Bakhsh, but he’d kept quiet. But now that Sultana brought it up, he said, ‘I’ve been thinking about it myself for some time now. The only thing that comes to mind is that people are so preoccupied with other things because of the war that they can hardly think of anything else. Or perhaps . . . ’

  His sentence was interrupted by the sound of someone coming up the stairs and their attention became fixed entirely on the sound of approaching feet. Shortly, there was a knock on the door. Khuda Bakhsh darted to open it. A man entered. This was her first customer and they settled for three rupees. Later, she had five more, that is, six in all in a month and a total of eighteen and a half rupees.

  Every month, twenty alone went for the flat’s rent. Utilities were extra. Add to it all the other household expenses: food, drink, clothes, medicines. And no income. Eighteen and a half rupees in three months could hardly be called any kind of income. Sultana really became distraught with worry. The eight bangles she’d had made in Ambala were all eaten up one by one. When it was time to sell the last one she said to Khuda Bakhsh, ‘Listen to me, let’s go back to Ambala. This place is a bummer. Maybe it has something, but not for us. It hasn’t been kind to us. You were doing quite well there. Come on, let’s go back. We’ll consider our losses a sacrifice. Go, sell this bangle; meanwhile, I’ll start packing and getting everything ready. We’ll leave by the evening train.’ He took the bangle and said, ‘No, my darling, we’re not going anywhere. We’ll stay right here and make it work. You’ll see, all these bangles will come flying back to you. Have faith in God. He knows how to help. He will find a way for us!’