ASGHARI: Please don’t beg me, Amjad Mian. It breaks my heart. You’re my master. You can order me. My whole life’s at your bidding.
(ASGHARI cries; big drops of tears stream down from her eyes onto AMJAD’s slippers. She gets up and rushes away. AMJAD bends over and looks at his slippers, wet with ASGHARI’s tears, and then, straightening himself up, at ASGHARI’s receding figure. THE BEGUM appears from the Villa. She’s wearing a shawl and carrying some jewellery boxes. She comes over to AMJAD.)
BEGUM SAHIB: Amjad, my boy.
AMJAD (quickly hiding his feet under his blanket): Yes?
BEGUM SAHIB: The jewellery you picked out for Saeeda has just been delivered. Here . . . (Puts the boxes in AMJAD’s lap.)
AMJAD (opens each box with childlike curiosity and looks at every single piece of jewellery, beaming with joy): They’re really very nice . . . excellent . . . gorgeous . . . but not as much as Saeeda. Asghari! Asghari! Come over here! (ASGHARI, who is leaning against a cypress tree, comes back to AMJAD who shows her the entire collection of jewellery.) What do you think?
ASGHARI: You’ve said it for me: they’re beautiful, but not as beautiful as Dulhan Begum.
AMJAD (to the begum): Ammijan, when will the dresses come?
ASGHARI: They’ll be delivered tomorrow.
AMJAD: And the movie projector—why hasn’t it arrived yet?
BEGUM SAHIB: Son, Majeed’s already put in an order for it. It’ll be here in a couple of days.
AMJAD: All right. (After a pause) Mother?
BEGUM SAHIB: Yes, son?
AMJAD: We ought to get something more for Saeeda. I can’t bear to see her sad, even for an instant. We really must have something new for her every day.
BEGUM SAHIB: Everything is within your power. Order anything you like, whenever you like.
AMJAD: Within my power? (Pauses) Well then, Mother . . .
BEGUM SAHIB: Yes?
AMJAD: Please send Kamal to the sports shop to buy whatever games he can. Saeeda and Majeed will play. And I can watch. And, yes, please tell him to also buy the sort of stuff that I can play with her too.
BEGUM SAHIB (overcome by a surge of motherly affection holds AMJAD’s head in her hands): Yes, my son.
(AMJAD bursts into sobs. ASGHARI, unable to restrain herself, screams and runs off to one side. Silent tears drip down from THE BEGUM’S eyes.)
(Curtain)
ACT IV
The same room as in Acts I and II. It is evening. A breathless silence pervades the room. SAEEDA is sprawled out awkwardly on the bed, her head propped up on a bunch of pillows. While she appears to be reading a book, her eyes are focused, instead, on her heaving bosom, whose alluring contours are outlined by the blanket covering her body. To the left is a steel hospital bed, beside which AMJAD is sitting in his wheelchair holding a book in his hand as though it were some glass object. Again and again, his restless, anxious eyes leave the book and travel to SAEEDA, settling on her hands and sometimes on her head of golden hair buried in the pillows. Unable to hold back any longer, he closes the book, puts it in his lap.
AMJAD (in a low, gentle voice): Saeeda!
SAEEDA (with a start): Yes?
AMJAD: I think you ought to go to bed now.
SAEEDA (turning over to look at him): If you want to go to sleep, I’ll call Ghulam Muhammad and Karim and they’ll put you to bed.
AMJAD (in a hollow voice): Put me to bed . . . no, Saeeda . . . I’m tired of lying down . . . Tonight I’ll sleep right here in my chair . . . If it isn’t too much trouble, could you get up and switch off the lamp and turn on the green nightlight?
SAEEDA (rising): Why do you keep talking about my trouble?
AMJAD: Because I’m troubled. I know what it means.
SAEEDA (irritated): I’m well aware of that, Amjad Sahib. But please tell me, what more can I do for you . . . I’m willing to do anything within my power . . . but the trouble is, you’re always worried about troubling me. I’m not troubled at all.
AMJAD: Saeeda, you’re so good!
SAEEDA (turns off the lamp; for a few moments the room remains plunged in complete darkness, then a dim green light slowly begins to illuminate everything): I wish I were good . . . that I could be good. (She sits down on the couch. Her restlessness is evident from her heaving bosom.)
AMJAD: You’re already too good! How could you be any better, Saeeda?
SAEEDA (sharply): No! Little do you know . . .
AMJAD (very gently): Forgive me if I’ve offended you in some way.
SAEEDA (looks at amjad, rises from the couch and smiles as she runs her long fingers through his hair): The fact is, Amjad Sahib, I’m not good enough for you.
AMJAD (grabbing her hand): That shows just how good you really are. It’s the purity of your heart that makes you say so.
SAEEDA (continuing to run her fingers through his hair): Go to sleep. You’ve been up so many nights already. In fact, you haven’t slept a wink since you came back home.
AMJAD: I just can’t seem to fall asleep, Saeeda.
SAEEDA: Why?
AMJAD: I don’t know why . . . It feels as though I’ve never slept and never will. Now, I can’t even recall the nights when I could sleep.
SAEEDA: How I wish I could give you my sleep.
AMJAD: No, Saeeda . . . I wouldn’t want to rob you of such a precious thing. It’s meant for your eyes, which become more beautiful during sleep. Go, sleep now.
SAEEDA: Poor, miserable me. I’ll sleep, of course.
AMJAD: Don’t call yourself miserable . . . May God make you fortunate . . . Go to sleep now.
SAEEDA (irritated): Why do you always treat me so kindly? It . . . Amjad Sahib, it really bothers me . . . By God, your gentleness, forbearance and humility—they’ll drive me to insanity some day. (In frustration she rushes to the bed and flings herself on to it.)
AMJAD: I feel as if everything coming out of my mouth is just as crippled as I am.
(SAEEDA remains silent. She turns over in bed to face the other direction. AMJAD picks up the book from his lap and starts flipping its pages. A deathly quiet, made brittle in the dim eerie green light, pervades the room. A long time passes in wearisome silence. The pale green light on amjad’s face looks like the jade-green covering on a grave. His eyes repeatedly rise from the book, travel over to SAEEDA, then furtively return. He looks very restless now.)
AMJAD: Saeeda!
SAEEDA: Yes?
AMJAD: I . . . I have a favour to ask you.
SAEEDA (without bothering to turn over): What?
AMJAD: Could . . . could this be our wedding night . . . (She trembles in her bed.) The night we never had. (After a pause during which she remains silent) Saeeda.
SAEEDA: Yes.
AMJAD: Would you consider my wish?
SAEEDA (flips over to face him, a wounded desire to give herself completely floating in her eyes): How, Amjad Sahib?
AMJAD: Pretend . . . just for my sake . . . pretend that I’m lying next to you . . . And I’ll pretend that you’re lying with me. I’ll say those things to you that I wanted to say on our first night . . . and you answer as you would have . . . Please, Saeeda, for my sake . . . could you play this make-believe game for me?
SAEEDA (tears of pity replacing the earlier wounded desire to give herself in her eyes): I’m ready, Amjad Sahib.
AMJAD: Thank you! (After a long pause) Tonight is our first night, Saeeda . . . the night when youth takes its first step into earthly paradise . . . the night into whose spaciousness two beings plunge to become one . . . Don’t be shy . . . For this is the night when all concealed truths restlessly await their inevitable unveiling; when just a soft whisper, a gentle sigh, a light caress, the slightest puff of escaping breath is enough to blow their veils aside . . . so gently that one barely hears a rustle and yet is instantly face-to-face with Vision in all its resplendent glory; when eyes collide setting off a cascade of dazzling stardust that falls on the foreheads of two who have become one. This is the nigh
t . . . the first, the very first night . . . when Eve was formed from Adam’s rib . . . this is the night that poets pray will never end . . . this is the night the young often wish for . . . this is the night when Nature itself unties the knots of modesty . . . this is the night when all of Creation’s workshops concentrate on producing just one item . . . the cog that gives motion and life to the whole Universe . . . this is the night when all sounds subside into their points of origin to let the one sound that resonates with the command ‘BE!’ be heard clearly . . . This is the night whose every veil is woven with silvery threads of light . . . this is the night in whose presence all subsequent nights stand in reverential attendance . . . this is the night in which every pore of the body speaks out without inhibition and listens raptly to the great untold secrets . . . the great unsung melodies . . . (Abruptly screams) Cover it! Cover it . . . cover your body, Saeeda . . . It’s biting me like a snake . . . It’s slashing my crippled desires like a razor’s edge . . . Cover it . . . for God’s sake cover your body!
SAEEDA (lying like a dead body made of tender blades of grass in the green light, with every part of her body trembling): Yes.
AMJAD (crying uncontrollably): Cover your body!
(SAEEDA pulls the blanket over her tremulous body while AMJAD, his hand over his face, continues to cry.)
(Curtain)
ACT V
The garden adjacent to Nigar Villa. Evening. Water gurgling in the fountain. The shadows have lengthened. The grey hills in the background look even more sombre in the ebbing light. The sky is ashen. A solid silence has settled over the lush green lawn. The lawn chairs are unoccupied, the whole atmosphere vacant, like an empty picture frame waiting to be filled. The sound of MAJEED’s and SAEEDA’s laughter intrudes. Moments later they both walk in laughing, exhausted. SAEEDA slumps over in a chair while MAJEED stands by her.
SAEEDA (pounding her thighs with her fists): Ooooh!
MAJEED (laughing): Tired? Shall I give you a rubdown? Let me . . .
SAEEDA (flustered): Oh no! Please, no! Just send for Asghari. Right now I couldn’t move two steps.
MAJEED (smiling): As you say. (Steps forward and pushes aside a loose curl snaking over SAEEDA’s face.)
SAEEDA (even more flustered): I think I’ll go inside now. (Begins to rise.)
MAJEED (looking off to one side): Look, here comes Asghari on her own. Over here, Asghari! Give Bhabhijan’s feet a massage.
(ASGHARI enters. The ends of her mouth quiver as though impatient to say something. She comes closer.)
ASGHARI (to SAEEDA): Tired, Dulhan Begum?
SAEEDA (drumming her thighs with her fists): Very!
ASGHARI (sits down on the grass and begins to massage one of SAEEDA’s calves vigorously, but her words are intended for MAJEED): This is all Majeed Mian’s fault. Such a long hike and so fast at that (sharply) . . . one ought to proceed slowly (rubbing slowly down SAEEDA’s leg) like this . . . slowly. (Addressing SAEEDA) Feel any better, Dulhan Begum?
SAEEDA (her free leg quivering nervously): Yes, yes, much better.
ASGHARI (to MAJEED): Majeed Mian, you should go wash up. Your face is so dusty it looks like an unwashed potato.
MAJEED (snaps): You’ve really become quite cheeky. All this . . .
ASGHARI (interrupting him): Blame Dulhan Begum, she’s spoiled me. (Looks at SAEEDA) And what a lovely face she has.
(majeed exits, his eyes radiating suppressed anger.)
ASGHARI (laughing): By God’s grace Majeed Mian has a nice handsome face, but it looks so grotesque when he’s angry. What do you think?
SAEEDA: Don’t say such things to me. (Tries to get up but is thwarted by asghari’s iron grip.) Let me go!
ASGHARI (continues to massage): I don’t want to deprive myself of the pleasure of serving you. (Removes the sandals from SAEEDA’s feet.) Majeed Mian said that I’ve become cheeky. Have I, Dulhan Begum?
SAEEDA: Absolutely.
ASGHARI (unperturbed, cracking SAEEDA’s toes): This is horrible. A servant should never be cheeky. You should box my ears.
SAEEDA: Be quiet!
ASGHARI: That’s not fair! Preventing someone from speaking is downright tyrannical, Dulhan Begum. What have I said that offends you so?
SAEEDA (agitated): Everything you say offends me.
ASGHARI: What can poor Asghari do now? (After a pause) I thought I’d learned all there was to learn serving an educated mistress like yourself for a whole year. Now I see I was wrong . . . I haven’t learned a thing . . . but whose fault is that—the pupil’s or the teacher’s?
SAEEDA (pulling her legs away and speaking in a clear, decisive tone of voice): What is it that you really want to say?
ASGHARI (with feigned surprise): Me?
SAEEDA: Yes, you. What do you really want to say?
ASGHARI (thinking): Oh, there’s a whole lot I want to say . . .
SAEEDA (rising and walking barefoot on the grass): Then spit it out! I don’t particularly enjoy your daily needling. I’m ready to hear you out.
ASGHARI: You really are brave, Dulhan Begum.
SAEEDA: Brave or cowardly—leave that out of it. Get whatever you want to say out of your system.
ASGHARI: Spit it out? All right. But it will nauseate both of us.
SAEEDA: Don’t bother about me. I’ll manage.
ASGHARI (thinking): I used to think you’d cower when I bared my fangs. But I see you’re past worrying about being wounded . . . It’s you who frightens me now.
SAEEDA (pacing nervously to and fro): Asghari!
ASGHARI (startled): Yes?
SAEEDA: Just tell me this: what would I have done if Amjad Mian had died in the train wreck?
ASGHARI: You? I don’t know what you would have done.
SAEEDA: I’m young. I’m beautiful . . . numberless desires surge inside of me. For seventeen long years I’ve nurtured them with the nectar of my dreams. How can I stifle them? I’ve tried, God knows I’ve tried, Asghari . . . but I couldn’t bring myself to strangle them. Call me weak . . . cowardly . . . immoral . . . whatever you like . . . And although you’re just a maid, nonetheless I confess before you that I cannot ravage the garden of my youth, where the vein of every leaf and flower throbs with the hot blood of my unfulfilled desires . . . No, not with my own hands . . . though I wouldn’t mind someone else closing my eyes . . . numbing up all my senses and lowering me into the deepest pit of widowhood or old age . . . or with just one push hurling me off this quaking cliff of desire where I’ve stood to this day huddled against the cold, gusting wind . . . I’d even allow you to do that.
ASGHARI (rising, feeling battered): Enough, Dulhan Begum, enough!
SAEEDA: I stand at a crossroads where the ground quakes under my feet. Whichever way I turn, it turns away from me . . . Whatever I plan slips from my grasp; I rush after it pell-mell, and when I’ve caught it, it crumbles in my hand like sand . . . Asghari, you don’t know how long I’ve been rolling around on this bed of live coals. When I douse them with water, the rising steam carries me to the highest point in space, only to hurl me down—ravaged, battered and mauled . . . Every single bone in my body has been crushed. It would’ve been much better, Asghari, if I had been crippled instead of Amjad Sahib. (After a long pause, during which ASGHARI stands frozen, while SAEEDA paces to and fro extremely agitated) Tell me, what should I do?
ASGHARI (roused from her thoughts): What should you do? . . . You should . . . you should wait until Amjad Mian dies.
SAEEDA (after a moment’s thought): Call me heartless if you will . . . but I have to ask . . . When will he die?
ASGHARI: When God wills. (Mumbles) But Amjad Mian has cut off relations with Him.
SAEEDA: What? What did you say?
ASGHARI: Nothing. (Taking hesitant steps, she exits.)
(SAEEDA continues to pace fretfully on the cool, comforting grass.)
(Curtain)
ACT VI
A large, spacious living room in Nigar Villa decorated with old-style
furnishings that exude an aura of heaviness and durability. Oil paintings of various family members hang on the walls. One is of THE BEGUM from the time when she was young. She is sitting directly beneath it on the sofa. The gaiety and the carefree look of the painting contrast sharply with her present care-ridden face, ravaged by dark anxiety and sorrow. She’s knitting something out of wool, but it seems more like she’s untangling her confused thoughts that tangle up again like the yarn. ASGHARI enters.
BEGUM SAHIB: Did you find Majeed Mian?
ASGHARI: Yes.
BEGUM SAHIB: Where was he?
ASGHARI: In the garden.
BEGUM SAHIB: What was he doing?
ASGHARI: He . . . (faltering) he was sitting there, all by himself.
BEGUM SAHIB (looking at ASGHARI and then lowering her gaze): Is he coming?
ASGHARI: Yes, he is.
BEGUM SAHIB: You may go now.
(ASGHARI leaves just as MAJEED enters, looking at her.)
MAJEED: What is it, Mother?
BEGUM SAHIB: Oh, nothing. Sit down.
MAJEED (sitting in the chair near the couch): It’s chilly in here.
BEGUM SAHIB: Yes, quite chilly.
MAJEED (after a pause; uneasily): I have the distinct feeling that you’ve called me here because you have something to say.
BEGUM SAHIB: Yes . . .
MAJEED: Well? I’m listening.
BEGUM SAHIB: I want to send you away from here.
MAJEED (rising suddenly): Me? Where?
BEGUM SAHIB: Sit down.
MAJEED (sitting): Okay.
BEGUM SAHIB: I haven’t told Amjad yet.
MAJEED (rises again): About what?
BEGUM SAHIB: That I’m sending you away.
MAJEED: But why? I mean . . . is it some important business or . . .?
BEGUM SAHIB: Sit down.
MAJEED (sitting down again): Is it?
My Name Is Radha Page 47