The three of them make hundreds of specimens of abstract art at Ajanta. In the paintings of one, every woman is shown with two bellies, in every imaginable colour; in those of another every woman is stout and middle-aged; and in the work of still another everything is a profusion of tassels. A jumbled mass of drawstrings.
Abstract paintings kept coming, but the boobs of all three kept drying up and shrinking . . . It was really very hot, so hot that they were bathing in sweat. Shortly after entering the room, its doors fitted with khus frames, they peeled off their blouses and planted themselves directly under the ceiling fan. The fan kept whirring away, but their boobs failed to grow hot or cold.
Her mother was in the other room. The driver was wiping oil off her body.
Daddy was at his hotel, where a lady stenographer was rubbing eau-de-cologne on his forehead.
One day a band also played for her. The desolate garden sprang into sudden boisterous life. None other than the owner of Ajanta Studio decorated the flowerpots and the doors. Extremely dark lipsticks were flummoxed by the riotous colours he had let loose, and one even darker shade was so overcome that she instantly dropped down to his feet and became his student.
He had also designed her wedding dress, giving it a motley of facets. Looking directly at the front, she looked like bunches of many-coloured drawstrings; a fruit basket from the side; a floral curtain draped over the window when seen from a distance; from the back, a pile of crushed watermelons . . . and a jar filled with tomato sauce from a different angle. From above, a specimen of some quaint art; from down below, the obscure poetry of Miraji.
The eyes of connoisseurs were so impressed that they burst into spontaneous praise for her . . . most of all the bridegroom, who firmly resolved to become an abstract painter the day after the wedding. So he went to Ajanta with his wife . . . where he found out that he was getting married and he has been shacked up at his wife-to-be’s for the past several days.
His wife-to-be was the same one who wore her lipstick much darker than the other merely dark ones. At first, for a few months, the bridegroom’s interest in her and abstract art endured. However, with the closing of Ajanta Studio and its owner’s disappearance without a trace, the bridegroom went into the salt business, which yielded great profits.
In the course of carrying on his salt business, he met a young woman whose milk jugs hadn’t run dry. He fell for them. No band played, but a wedding did come about. The first wife gathered her paintbrushes and went to live elsewhere.
The initial bitterness stemming from their differences eventually gave way to a strange sweetness. Her girlfriend who, after dumping her first husband for a new one and travelling across the whole of Europe, was now suffering from tuberculosis, portrayed this sweetness in cubic art: numberless clear and transparent cubes of sugar stacked one on top of the other amidst cacti in such a way that they gave the impression of two faces with honeybees sitting on them sucking nectar.
Her second girlfriend ended her life by swallowing poison. When she got this tragic news, she slipped into a coma. No one could tell whether this was a fresh assault of unconsciousness or the continuation of the same old one that had resulted from the initial raging fever.
Her father was in eau-de-cologne, where his hotel massaged his lady stenographer’s scalp. Her mom had handed over the entire management of the household to the stout, middle-aged servant. She could drive now, but was taken seriously ill. Still she cared a lot about the driver’s motherless pup and fed him her mobile oil.
The life of her sister-in-law and her brother was moving along on an even keel, becoming more mature and robust with the passage of time. They always met each other with great courtesy and love. Suddenly one night, when the maidservant and her brother were busy taking account of the household, her sister-in-law dropped by. She was alone, with neither a pen nor a brush in her hand, and yet she cleared the account of both in one fell swoop.
All that was seen in the morning were two blobs of coagulated gore, looking like two big pom-poms, which were then tied around the neck of her sister-in-law.
Only now did she emerge somewhat from her deep sleep. The differences with her husband, bitter at first, had been replaced by a strange sweetness. She made an attempt to daub it with a measure of bitterness. She took to alcohol. She failed because the amount imbibed was negligible . . . she increased it, indeed so much that she was swirling in it . . . people thought she would drown any minute, but each time she came up to the surface, wiping the residue from her lips and laughing hysterically.
When she got up in the morning she felt as if every fibre of her being had wept bitterly all night long. From the graves that could have been dug, all the babies that could have been born to her were wailing inconsolably for the milk that could have been theirs. But where was any milk to be found . . . It had been sucked dry by wild tomcats.
She started drinking more to drown in the bottomless sea, but her desire remained unfulfilled. She was intelligent, educated and talked matter-of-factly, without inhibition, on sexual matters. And she did not feel there was anything wrong in establishing sexual relations with men. Yet, sometimes in the stillness of the night, she longed to go behind the hedges like one of her bad-mannered hens and lay an egg.
People began to avoid her when they saw her drunk, a mere bag of bones . . . She understood everything and didn’t run after them. She lived alone in the house, chain-smoking, drinking, lost in distant thoughts . . . She slept little and roamed around the kothi.
In the servant’s quarter across from the kothi, the driver’s motherless child kept up a litany of cries for the oil which had run dry in her mother. The driver had crashed the car. It was in the garage, her mother in the hospital, where one of her legs had already been amputated and the other was about to be.
Now and then when she peeked inside the quarter, she felt a vague tremor in the depths of her bosom, but that horrid tasting residue was too meagre to even wet the child’s lips.
For some time now her brother had been living in a foreign country. Finally, in a letter from Switzerland, he informed her that he was there to seek medical treatment, that the nurse was exceedingly nice, and that he was planning to marry her as soon as he got out of the hospital.
The stout, middle-aged servant disappeared after stealing a bit of jewellery, some cash, and a lot of clothes belonging to her mom. Sometime later, following unsuccessful surgery, her mother died in the hospital.
Her father did make a token appearance at the funeral, and was never seen again.
She was all alone now. She had let go of all the servants, including the driver. She found an ayah for his baby. Every burden was now off her shoulders, except her own thoughts. If anyone ever showed up to see her, she screamed from inside the house, ‘Go away . . . whoever you may be. Go away! I don’t want to see anyone.’
She had found her mother’s countless priceless jewels in the safe and had quite a few of her own for which she felt no attachment. In the evening she would sit in front of the mirror naked for many hours, decorate her body with all the jewellery, drink and croon obscene songs in her off-key voice. Since there was no other house in the vicinity, she had all the freedom she could hope for.
As it is, she had already bared her body in many ways. Now she aimed to bare her soul as well. But she felt the greatest difficulty in doing so. The only way she could think of to overcome her formidable diffidence was to drink, and drink with abandon, and make use of her naked body . . . but the supreme tragedy was that her body, stripped of its last shred of clothing, had actually become invisible.
She had tired of drawing pictures . . . her painting paraphernalia had been lying in a small box for quite a while now. One day she took out all the colours, mixed each one with water in a large bowl, cleaned her brushes and set them to one side, and installed herself stark naked before the mirror. She started painting her body with altogether new features, strange dimensions. This was her attempt at completely baring her being.
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She could only paint the front of her body. She spent the entire day in this enterprise, without eating a morsel or taking a drink of water. She stood in front of the mirror and tried out different paints, tracing crooked lines. Her brushstrokes reflected perfect confidence and surety of touch . . . about midnight she drew away a little and observed herself closely, feeling satisfied. Then she proceeded to decorate her paint-smeared body with every one of her jewels and once again examined her body in the mirror. Just then she heard a sound suggestive of a presence.
She turned around abruptly . . . a masked man with a drawn dagger was standing before her, poised as if to attack. As soon as she turned around, a scream shot from the attacker’s throat. The dagger fell from his hand. In utter confusion, he moved this way and that to find a way out . . . Finally he found an opening and bolted.
She ran after him, screaming, calling, ‘Wait . . . wait, I won’t say anything . . . wait!’
But the intruder paid no attention to her. He bounded over the perimeter wall and slipped clean away. Disappointed, she retreated inside. The intruder’s dagger was lying on the threshold. She picked it up and went in . . . Suddenly her eyes fell on the mirror. Over her heart she had painted a leather-coloured sheath. She placed the dagger on it and looked. The sheath was a bit too small. She threw the dagger away, took four or five swigs straight from the wine bottle and started pacing back and forth, back and forth . . . She’d already been through several bottles and hadn’t eaten at all.
After prolonged pacing she returned to the mirror. She saw that she was wearing a scarf around her neck which resembled a drawstring with fairly big tassels. She had painted it with her brush.
All of a sudden she felt the scarf begin to tighten, digging deeper, and still deeper into her neck . . . She stood quietly before the mirror, staring at her eyes which were popping out as the scarf was tightening . . . after a while the veins in her neck began to swell. She let out a big scream and fell face down on to the floor.
Hindi–Urdu
The Hindi–Urdu dispute has been raging for some time now. Maulvi Abdul Haq Sahib, Dr Tara Singh and Mahatma Gandhi know what there is to know about this dispute. For me, though, it has so far remained incomprehensible. Try as hard as I might, I just haven’t been able to understand. Why are Hindus wasting their time supporting Hindi, and why are Muslims so beside themselves over the preservation of Urdu? A language is not made, it makes itself. And no amount of human effort can ever kill a language. When I tried to write something about this current hot issue, I ended up with the following conversation:
MUNSHI NARAIN PARSHAD: Iqbal Sahib, are you going to drink this soda water?
MIRZA MUHAMMAD IQBAL: Yes, I am.
MUNSHI: Why don’t you drink lemon?
IQBAL: No particular reason. I just like soda water. At our house, everyone does.
MUNSHI: In other words, you hate lemon.
IQBAL: Oh, not at all. Why would I hate it, Munshi Narain Parshad? Since everyone at home drinks soda water, I’ve sort of grown accustomed to it. That’s all. But if you ask me, actually lemon tastes better than plain soda.
MUNSHI: That’s precisely why I was surprised that you would prefer something salty over something sweet. And lemon isn’t just sweet, it has a nice flavour. What do you think?
IQBAL: You’re absolutely right. But . . .
MUNSHI: But what?
IQBAL: Nothing. I was just going to say that I’d take soda.
MUNSHI: Same nonsense again. I’m not forcing you to drink poison, am I? Brother, what’s the difference between the two? Both bottles are made in the same factory after all. The same machine has poured water into them. If you take the sweetness and flavour out of the lemon, what’s left?
IQBAL: Just soda . . . a kind of salty water . . .
MUNSHI: Then, what’s the harm in drinking the lemon?
IQBAL: No harm at all.
MUNSHI: Then drink!
IQBAL: And what will you drink?
MUNSHI: I’ll send for another bottle.
IQBAL: Why would you send for another bottle? What’s the harm in drinking plain soda?
MUNSHI: N . . . n . . . no harm.
IQBAL: Here, then, drink the soda water.
MUNSHI: And what will you drink?
IQBAL: I’ll get another bottle.
MUNSHI: Why would you send for another bottle? What’s the harm in drinking lemon?
IQBAL: N . . . n . . . no harm. And what’s the harm in drinking soda?
MUNSHI: None at all.
IQBAL: The fact is that soda is rather good.
MUNSHI: But I think that lemon . . . is rather good.
IQBAL: Perhaps . . . If you say so. Although I’ve heard all along from my elders that soda is rather good.
MUNSHI: Now what’s a person to make of this: I’ve heard all along from my elders that lemon is rather good.
IQBAL: But what’s your own opinion?
MUNSHI: What’s yours?
IQBAL: My opinion . . . hmm . . . my opinion. My opinion is just this . . . but why don’t you tell me your opinion?
MUNSHI: My opinion . . . hmm . . . my opinion is just this . . . but why should I give it first.
IQBAL: I don’t think we’ll get anywhere this way. Look, just put a lid on your glass. I’ll do the same. Then we’ll discuss the matter leisurely.
MUNSHI: No, we can’t do that. We’ve already popped the caps off the bottles. We’ll just have to drink. Come on, make up your mind, before all the fizz is gone. These drinks are worthless without the fizz.
IQBAL: I agree. And at least you do agree that there’s no real difference between lemon and soda.
MUNSHI: When did I ever say that? There’s plenty of difference. They’re as different as night and day. Lemon is sweet, flavourful, tart—three things more than soda. Soda only has fizz, which is so strong it just barges into the nose. By comparison, lemon is very tasty. One bottle and you feel fresh for hours. Generally soda water is for sick people. Besides, you just admitted yourself that lemon tends to be tastier than soda.
IQBAL: Well, that I did. But I never said that lemon is better than soda. Tasty doesn’t mean that a thing is also beneficial. Take achaar, it’s very tasty, but you already know about its harmful effects. The presence of sweetness and tartness doesn’t prove that something is good. If you were to consult a doctor he would tell you the harm lemon does to the stomach. But soda, that’s something else. It helps digestion.
MUNSHI: Look, we can settle the matter by mixing the two.
IQBAL: I have no objection to that.
MUNSHI: Well then, fill this glass halfway with soda.
IQBAL: Why don’t you fill half the glass with your lemon? I’ll pour my soda after that.
MUNSHI: Makes no sense. Why don’t you pour your soda first?
IQBAL: Because I want to drink soda–lemon mixed.
MUNSHI: And I want lemon–soda mixed.
Upper, Lower, Middle
[My publisher refused to print this story, which made me squirm up, down and in the middle quite a bit. The thing was that a lawsuit had been brought against it in Karachi and I was fined twenty-five rupees. To find some amends, I wanted to squeeze another twenty-five rupees out of my publisher, but he didn’t give in. I fidgeted around a lot and somehow scraped together some funds to have this story published so that it might reach you. Surely you’ll welcome it because you’re my reader, not my publisher.
Saadat Hasan Manto]
MIAN SAHIB: Ah, a chance to finally be together after quite a long time!
BEGUM SAHIBA: That’s right.
MIAN SAHIB: Oh, these umpteen responsibilities the nation expects me to shoulder . . . For the sake of our people I can’t shirk them . . . Oh, I can hardly breathe.
BEGUM SAHIBA: You know what your problem is—you’re far too compassionate . . . just like me.
MIAN SAHIB: Yes, yes, I’m kept abreast of your social activities. If you can find a free moment, do send me copies of the speeche
s you made on different occasions recently. I want to read them in my spare time.
BEGUM SAHIBA: Well, all right, I will.
MIAN SAHIB: So, Begum, what about it . . . I mean . . . you know?
BEGUM SAHIBA: What about what?
MIAN SAHIB: Oh, maybe I didn’t mention . . . By chance, I ended up in our middle son’s room yesterday. Would you believe it, he was reading Lady Chatterley’s Lover!
BEGUM SAHIBA: That wretched book!
MIAN SAHIB: Yes, Begum.
BEGUM SAHIBA: So what did you do?
MIAN SAHIB: I snatched the book from his hand and hid it.
BEGUM SAHIBA: You did the right thing.
MIAN SAHIB: Now I’m thinking of talking to the doctor and having him change our son’s diet.
BEGUM SAHIBA: Exactly . . . the thing to do.
MIAN SAHIB: So how are you feeling these days?
BEGUM SAHIBA: I’m fine.
MIAN SAHIB: I was thinking . . . of asking you . . .
BEGUM SAHIBA: You’re really becoming very naughty.
MIAN SAHIB: All your doing . . . your infinite charms.
BEGUM SAHIBA: But your health?
MIAN SAHIB: Health is good. Still I wouldn’t do anything without consulting the doctor first. But I must also make sure you’re fit as well.
BEGUM SAHIBA: I’ll ask Miss Sildhana today.
MIAN SAHIB: And I’ll ask Dr Jalal.
BEGUM SAHIBA: In principle, that’s how it should be.
MIAN SAHIB: What if Dr Jalal says it’s okay?
BEGUM SAHIBA: And what if Miss Sildhana says it’s okay! . . . Anyway, you take care of yourself. Wrap the muffler securely around your neck. It’s blistery cold outside.
MIAN SAHIB: Thanks.
*
DR JALAL: Did you give her the green light?
My Name Is Radha Page 43