Manto and Chughtai

by Muhammed Umar Memon

  As I said, he would often hold forth on the exploits of his ‘loafer’ friends. One day, to provoke him, I said that all their braggadocio were mere lies. As a matter of fact, they never did have trucks with so many courtesans, nor did they ever violate the chastity of any woman. Manto tried to convince me with all his skill that these fellows did really commit those acts. In fact, their crookedness went much beyond what he had described.

  ‘All lies!’ I asserted.

  ‘Why don’t you believe me? Anybody who wants, can go to the marketplace.’

  ‘These people just don’t have the courage to go to a courtesan’s kotha. The most they can do is to listen to the music there and then return.’

  ‘I myself have visited the kotha of prostitutes.’

  ‘To listen to music,’ I teased.

  ‘No, madam. To get what I paid for. And I always got it.’

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ I persisted.

  ‘Why so?’ He got up and sat on his haunches on the carpet before me.

  ‘That is what I think. You want to impress me.’

  ‘I swear by God that I have gone there.’

  ‘You don’t believe in God. Don’t drag Him in.’

  ‘I swear by my dead child that not once but . . .’

  ‘The poor child is dead. What harm can you do by swearing on his name?’

  And Manto kept sitting there right before me. He was determined to convince me that he was a womanizer. He asked Safiya to bear witness to his claim. I disabused her in two minutes.

  ‘He would’ve told you that he was going to a courtesan’s and gone somewhere else! And even if he had gone there, he must have returned after exchanging greetings with her!’

  Safiya became silent. ‘How can I say whether he returned after exchanging greetings or . . .’

  She looked strangely out of her depth.

  I don’t know whether Manto had had first-hand experience of what he used to write about or whether it was a reflection of his principles and beliefs. Even if he had visited a courtesan’s kotha, what must have been revealed to him was the heart of a woman. She may have been the worm of a drain but still loved human values. Manto did not abide by the conventional concepts of good and evil but had his own set of values. Even in a shameless and stupid fellow like Khushia, one can see the flicker of humanity. A lecherous fellow like Gopinath can be seen to achieve godly status. Saintly and noble persons may have feet of clay, national volunteers may be criminals, and a person who copulates with a corpse can turn into a corpse himself.

  Sometimes our tiffs would get particularly nasty, and it would seem that the thread of friendship would snap. One day he got so angry that his eyes became bloodshot and he ground his teeth.

  ‘Had you not been a woman, I would have used words that would have made you wince!’

  ‘Do fulfil your heart’s desire. There’s no need to make concessions,’ I teased.

  ‘Let it be. If you were a man . . .’

  ‘Come off it. Let us see what other darts you have in your scabbard.’

  ‘You’ll be embarrassed.’

  ‘By God, I won’t.’

  ‘Then you’re not a woman.’

  ‘Why? Why is it necessary for women to show embarrassment even when they don’t feel it? Manto Sahib, it is regrettable that you also have separate values for men and women. I had thought you were above “ordinary” people and their prejudices,’ I said with implied flattery.

  ‘Absolutely not . . . I don’t discriminate between men and women.’

  ‘Then why don’t you say it—that embarrassing thing.’

  ‘No. My anger has subsided now.’ He broke into a smile.

  Another day, it was too hot in my office, so I thought I would go over to Manto’s flat, rest for a while and then return to Malad. The door, as usual, was open. I went in to see that Safiya was lying down on the bed, sulking. Manto had a broom in his hand. He had shielded his nose with the corner of his kurta and was sweeping the floor under the table.

  ‘What’re you doing?’ I asked as I peeped under the table.

  ‘Playing cricket,’ Manto replied, rolling his peacock eyeballs.

  ‘I thought I’d rest in your flat for a while, and there you are, angry and sulking.’ I threatened to leave immediately.

  ‘Arré . . .’ Safiya got up. ‘Please sit down.’

  ‘What is the tiff about?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing. I just said that cooking and household chores are not for men. At this he flared up, as he does with you. He took up the broom and began sweeping. When I tried to stop him, he said, “If you feel that way, why don’t you divorce me?”’ Safiya sobbed.

  To get the broom out of Manto’s hands, I faked a cough. ‘At dawn, while sweeping the courtyard, the municipal sweeper made me inhale dust. Now you also fulfil your heart’s desire. I’m going to die of heatstroke.’

  Manto flung the broom and ran down to the hotel to bring ice. Safiya left for the kitchen. Manto wrapped the ice slab in a towel and broke it into pieces by hitting it against the wall. Then he put the ice pieces on a plate before me and sat down once again.

  ‘And, how’s life?’ he asked, as usual. The smell from the kitchen made me almost throw up. ‘Oho, I don’t know what kind of a corpse Safiya is burning in the kitchen!’ I exclaimed as I pinched my nostrils. Manto looked at me with a start from top to toe, rolled his large eyeballs and leapt to the kitchen. Safiya kept on screaming while he emptied the entire water tumbler into the pan. I stared at him stupidly as he returned from the kitchen with a bashful smile on his lips and sat on the edge of the chair.

  As Safiya came from the kitchen muttering to herself, Manto chided her and then said to me bashfully, ‘Are you pregnant? I understood immediately, because when Safiya was pregnant, the smell of seasoning would nauseate her.’

  ‘Manto Sahib, for God’s sake don’t talk like midwives,’ I said, incensed. He laughed heartily.

  ‘Come on, what’s so objectionable about it? I’m sure you’d love to eat something sour. I’ll get some raw mangoes right away.’ He raced down and brought some raw mangoes tucked in the hollow of his kurta, like children do. He then peeled them, sprinkled them with salt and pepper and handed the plate over to me. He shouted out for Safiya who came hurriedly.

  ‘Manto Sahib, why are you shouting like this?’

  ‘Stupid! She’s in the family way,’ he said, as he put his arms around her waist.

  ‘Oh, this is the limit! That’s why people call you a pornographer.’ Manto just laughed off my anger and began to advise me like old women: ‘An olive-oil massage will prevent stretch marks.’

  ‘If you eat apple jam first thing in the morning, you won’t feel nauseated.’

  ‘Don’t chew ice during pregnancy. It’ll make the shins swell, won’t it, Safiya?’

  ‘Manto Sahib, be quiet. What is all this?’ Safiya was feeling embarrassed.

  When Seema was born, Safiya was sitting by me, scared and shivering. Seeing the baby, Manto was reminded of his son, and for a long time he continued to tell me about his little antics. Safiya was deeply moved. Within a year, Manto’s elder daughter Nighat was born. When I heard about it on my return from Pune, I immediately went to visit him, but they had moved house. When I reached his new flat, after a great search, I found him in the drawing room engaged in wringing nappies and hanging them on the clothes line to dry. The new flat was quite small and not properly ventilated. Manto left the old flat because its floors were dirty, the child could not crawl on it freely and would often pick up the dirt and put it in her mouth. In the new flat, Nighat could move about freely.

  When we were living in Malad, one night, at about twelve-thirty, there was knocking on the door. It was Safiya, and she was panting for breath. When I asked what the matter was, she said, ‘I asked him not to bother you in such a condition, but he didn’t listen.’ Manto entered the next moment with Nandaji and Khurshid Anwar in tow.

  ‘Who is she to stop me?’ said Manto, poin
ting to Safiya. The three had liquor bottles and glasses in their hands.

  Shahid gave the green signal to the party. They were all hungry. The hotels had put down their shutters. The last train had left. They said they would cook themselves—they only needed atta and daal.

  Safiya did not like the idea of the men making rotis, but they wouldn’t listen to her and raided the kitchen. Manto began to knead dough, Nandaji got busy preparing the stove and Khurshid Anwar was asked to peel potatoes though he insisted on eating them raw rather than taking all that trouble. The bottles were also brought into the kitchen. They settled down comfortably in the kitchen, continued to prepare half-baked rotis and gobble them up. Manto had kneaded the dough nicely and prepared the rotis rather well. In addition, he also prepared some pudina ki chatni. After the meal they would have lain down to sleep right there if we had not pushed them out on to the veranda.

  That is the kind of life Manto liked. A comfortable income that ensured a carefree existence enlivened by plentiful drink and the laughter of friends . . .

  We had so many stormy discussions on love but could not reach any conclusion. He’d say, ‘What do you mean by love? I love my gold-embroidered shoes, Rafiq loves his fifth wife . . .’

  ‘By love, I mean the passion that grows between a young man and a nubile girl.’

  ‘Okay. Now, I understand . . .’ Manto had a faraway look in his eyes as though he was groping for something.

  ‘In Kashmir, there was a girl who grazed goats.’

  ‘Then?’ I was consumed with curiosity.

  ‘Then—nothing.’ He became alert in self-defence.

  ‘You discuss even the most vulgar things with me. But today you’re being bashful.’

  Manto protested vehemently saying he was not at all embarrassed. After a good deal of coaxing, he began. ‘When she lifted her hand to shoo the herd, I got a glimpse of her fair elbow. I had been unwell. Every day I would wrap a blanket around myself and lie down on the hillock. I would hold my breath and wait for the moment when she would lift her hand and I would have a glimpse of her elbow.’

  ‘Elbow?’ I asked in surprise.

  ‘Yes . . . I never saw any other part of her body. She wore a baggy dress so one could have no idea about the contours of her body.’

  ‘Then?’

  ‘One day I was lying on the hillock when she came and sat a little away from me. She began to hide something in her pocket, and I felt curious. I threatened her that if she did not show me what it was, I wouldn’t allow her to go. She was in tears, but I remained stubborn. After a great deal of coaxing, she opened her palm and held it towards me and hid her face coyly between her knees.’

  ‘What was there on her palm?’ I asked impatiently.

  ‘A piece of sugar candy. It was glinting like an ice cube on her roseate palm.’

  ‘What did you do after that?’

  ‘I stared at it.’ He was lost in thought.

  ‘Then?’

  ‘Then she got up to go. But after a few steps she turned back, came over to me, threw the candy into my lap and went away. That piece of candy stayed in my pocket for a long time. Then I put it inside a drawer, and ants ate it up.’

  ‘And the girl?’

  ‘Which girl?’

  ‘The sugar-candy girl.’

  ‘I haven’t seen her since.’

  ‘How funny your love is!’ I was greatly disappointed. ‘I expected a tumultuous love story from you.’

  ‘It’s not at all funny,’ Manto challenged me.

  ‘It’s an absolutely rotten, third-class, stale love story. You left with the sugar candy in your pocket, as though you’d done a heroic deed!’

  ‘What else should I have done? Should I have slept with her and given her the gift of an illegitimate child? And then showed it off as a trophy and a sign of manhood?’ He said belligerently.

  It was the same Manto—the ‘pornographer’ with an ‘obscene’ mind who wrote ‘Bu’ and ‘Thanda Gosht’.

  Riots had broken out in the country. After the partition, people left their home and hearth and went over to the other side. At that time, Manto was working regularly with Filmistan. He looked perfectly contented. He received appreciation in ample measure which spurred him on. However, when his film Aath Din failed at the box office, he left Filmistan and joined Bombay Talkies to work with Ashok Kumar. I do not know what it was that Mukherjee told him that turned Manto totally against him. ‘Mukherjee is a fraud,’ Manto would say bitterly.

  After joining Bombay Talkies, Manto also got me a job there for a year in the Scenario Department. He looked very happy. ‘Now we’ll write stories together. It’ll create a stir. The story by us and Ashok Kumar the hero. Just wait and see!’

  Manto wanted it to be a story that Ashok also liked. He liked my story ‘Ziddi’. Manto was not displeased. Ashok Kumar suggested that I work on Manto’s story and Manto on mine. The result was that we grew suspicious of each other. In the meantime, Kamal Amrohi came along with his story, ‘Mahal’. Ashok Kumar took a fancy to his story, and ours were put in cold storage. It was not simply a question of honour. The impression was that if your story was not selected for the film, you were of no worth at all. However, we were told not to worry because we would be drawing the salary according to the contract that had already been signed. But no film would be made on our stories. After that, Shahid and I concentrated all our efforts on making our film, Ziddi, without Ashok Kumar, under a banner that was considered second in film hierarchy.

  But Manto’s story was not being used. He would remain cooped up in his room for the whole day and work on it. He would try out all kinds of combinations—sometimes he would put the beginning in the end, sometimes the end in the beginning; sometimes he would start in the middle, then go to the beginning and put the middle at the end. In spite of a thousand surgical operations, Ashok Kumar did not like the story in any form. But Manto would say, ‘You don’t know Ganguly (Ashok Kumar) as well as I do. He’ll definitely choose my story for one of his films.’

  ‘In your story, his role is that of a father, not a romantic one. He’ll never do the film.’ And we would begin to fight. It happened exactly as I said it would. Ziddi and Mahal were completed while Manto’s story remained untouched. Manto didn’t expect that, and he felt humiliated. He could put up with everything except lack of appreciation.

  The condition of the country went from bad to worse. His wife and relatives asked him to go over to Pakistan. Manto asked me to migrate along with him. He made it out that a glorious future awaited us in Pakistan. We would be allotted the mansions left by the refugees who had migrated to India. We would prosper quickly.

  And then I realized what a coward Manto was! He was willing to save his life at any cost. He wanted to get rich by grabbing the wealth earned by people for generations. And I began to hate him. Then one day, he left for Pakistan, without meeting me, without so much as even a word.

  Then I received a letter from him. He was very happy there. Theirs was a large house, furnished with expensive goods. He invited me again to go over to Pakistan. After Ziddi, we had started making Arzoo. Bad days came and went. Two more letters arrived. He repeated his invitation and held out the hope that a cinema hall would be allotted to us. I was sure of his love before; now I was utterly convinced. But I tore up his letters in anger because he did not live up to my ideals. I continued to receive snippets of information about him:

  He had lost his old house, but the new one was also quite good.

  He had had a second daughter.

  Another year passed. Another daughter was born.

  A letter came from Manto: ‘Call me over to India by any means.’

  I learnt that a lawsuit had been filed against him and he had been thrown in jail. All sat idle and impassive. No one protested against it. In fact, the general feeling was, ‘Good that he has been thrown in jail. Now he’ll come to his senses.’ There was no conference, no meeting; no resolution was passed.

  Then came the
news that his brain was giving trouble and that his relatives had put him into an asylum. But one day there came a letter from Manto, a perfectly sensible one. ‘I’m absolutely fine. It’ll be great if you can call me to Bombay using the good offices of Mukherjee.’ After that, there was silence for a long period . . . I got scared of any news from Manto. Visitors from Pakistan did not carry any good news about him. He had become a confirmed alcoholic and borrowed money from everyone. Newspaper owners got him to write articles in their presence and then paid him. If anyone paid him in advance, he just blew up the money.

  In his last letter to me, Manto asked me to write an article on him. ‘I’ll write the article only after your death,’ I blurted out the inauspicious words involuntarily.

  And now I’m writing after his death. Not only Manto but a lot that had grown between us had died a long time ago. Now there’s just this heartache. I don’t know why I feel this ache. Is it because Manto is dead and I’m still alive? . . .

  There is a voice in my heart that says that I have a hand in Manto’s premature death. The invisible bloodstains that smear my conscience can be seen only by my heart. The world that drove him to death is my world as well. It was his turn today. Tomorrow it will be mine. Then people will mourn my death. They will worry no end about my children. They will collect money for a gathering to commemorate me and fail to turn up for the meeting for lack of time. Time will pass, the burden of sorrow will gradually lighten, and then they will forget everything.

  * Idiots!

  M. ASADUDDIN