Just as history is written on the whims of rulers, erasing it is also their proud prerogative. How can we keep pace? And as for the poet, all he wants is to fix a pair of iridescent butterfly wings to the body of history—let it fly, let it fly where it will, to heaven or to hell, to jannat or to jahannum, as it pleases. I have already told you that Emperor Bahadur Shah didn’t care for my ghazals. When Zauq sahib recited his shers, he would exclaim, ‘Hai hai!’ and ‘Kyabaat kyabaat!’ But when it came to my shers, all he would say was, ‘All right.’ Once, he told me, ‘You read very well, Mirza sahib.’ You understand the implication? That the meaning of the ghazal amounts to nothing at all. Now he had poetic ambitions too. Earlier, Zauq sahib used to polish Jahanpanah’s ghazals; after his death it was my turn. What did our emperor compose? What was he capable of composing? A coward like him—who had no mission besides living off his ancestral wealth, who was a puppet in the hands of Begum Zeenat Mahal, and a parasite all his life—was supposed to write ghazals? Conversations with lovers need plenty of stamina, Manto bhai.
Something happened at the wedding of the emperor’s youngest son Mirza Jawan Bakht. Being Begum Zeenat Mahal’s son, he was the probable successor to the throne. The wedding would be conducted with great pomp and ceremony. On the Begum’s instructions, I had to compose a sehra—a wedding song. At the end of the sehra I wrote:
I’d like to see someone, unbiased about Ghalib,
A connoisseur of poetry, write a better wedding song
The emperor assumed this was an insult to him and to his ustad, Ibrahim Zauq. What did this imply? That Zauq sahib, on whom he had bestowed the title of King of Poets, Malik-us-Shuara, was neither a connoisseur of poetry, nor capable of writing such verse. When I sought permission to leave, the emperor said, ‘Just a minute, Mirza. Let the ustad arrive.’
— As you please, Jahanpanah.
Suddenly the emperor began to recite:
There cannot be as many bad players at this board as I
Any move I make is a terrible one
Looking at me, he asked, ‘Do you know whose sher this is?’
— No, janab.
— It’s ustadji’s. You reminded me of it.
Zauq sahib arrived in court. The emperor was exhilarated.
— Come, ustadji. Read the wedding song that Mirza sahib has composed.
When he had read it, Zauq sahib glanced at me. His eyes held undisguised loathing for me. As though he was looking at a worm.
‘You must write one too, ustadji,’ said the emperor.
— Very well. He began writing his sehra. The last two lines were:
Let them learn, those who claim to be poets,
That this is how poets compose wedding songs
— Wonderful! Wonderful! The emperor exploded in joy. Do you know what happened after this? Zauq sahib’s wedding song rang out in the lanes and bylanes of Dilli that evening.
This was the emperor’s method for humiliating me. When he went off to fly kites, he would take me along. Do you know why? To humiliate me, to humiliate me as deeply as possible. Since I pay you every month, it doesn’t matter whether you’re Mirza Ghalib or someone else—you’re nothing but a eunuch in my harem. He would invite me to mushairas and keep me waiting, I would be called upon to read either at the end or in the middle.
To tell you the truth, Manto bhai, I did not want to hurt anyone with the last two lines of my sehra. Still I had to send a poem of apology to the emperor. What else could I have done? The poet was worse than a beggar in the eyes of society. Do you know why most people didn’t like me? No matter how good or bad the poetry was at the mushairas, everyone would exclaim ‘Brilliant! Wonderful!’ But not me. I was unable to praise anyone until I had understood the essence of their verse. People would be furious with me. But how could I praise something unless the purity of the Goddess Saraswati was expressed in it? When I liked a ghazal, though, my praise was unstinting. Once, Munshi Ghulam Ali Khan recited a sher over a game of chess. Oh, what a sher it was! It pierced my heart like an arrow. ‘Whose sher is this, Munshiji?’ I asked.
— Zauq sahib’s.
— Tell me again.
I would ask Munshiji to recite this sher over and over again. Zauq sahib had written—Exhausted, we seek shelter at the hands of death, but what if death does not bring peace either? I didn’t enjoy mushairas. Poetry is born in solitude—just as the best pearls in the world are born in the deepest depths of the ocean.
As Mir sahib wrote:
Each of my poems is like a coil of her hair
Mir’s poetry is extraordinary by nature
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No one knew what was going on in my heart, after all
Why did I have to become a poet, all honour is lost
t’s a happy day for us here in our graves, my brothers. I know your hearts have been growing heavy listening to Mirza sahib; but remember, his life was a continuous attempt to push a rock uphill. Every time he tried to reach the top, it rolled back to the bottom, and Mirza sahib continued to push it back uphill again. Can life spend itself pushing rocks uphill? Let hell be in turmoil instead. We will listen to the stories of bald angels, the Ganjay Farishtay. Most of them were people from Bombay’s world of cinema. Life was not the way it was depicted on the screen. Reality is not as neatly organized as films, after all. Life is another name for the war for bread, women, and power. Every story in the world is about this war. Hunger is the most primal of all urges, isn’t it, my brothers? No one can forget hunger. Ever since man came into this world, he has harboured greed for power and lust for women. These things never change, my brothers. Only when man develops a loathing for bread, women, and the throne does he think of Allah. He is even more mysterious and elusive than these three, he cannot be acquired through battle.
Pardon me, I’ve been chattering too much. I had promised to tell you Sitara’s story; I’m starting my account of the bald angels with her. Sitara was the name of a tigress, my brothers; a veritable tornado seemed hidden inside her, not visible outside. Sitara used to practise her dance for an hour every morning, but I never saw her tired. She was incapable of sitting still; she’d always be doing something, or plotting what to do. She had two sisters—Tara and Alaknanda. They had come to Bombay one by one from a village in Nepal to make their fortunes. But among the three sisters, Sitara was peerless. You get one girl in a million such as her. Sometimes I thought that Sitara was actually the name of many women—how else could she have toyed with so many men? Sitara was like a five-storied building in Bombay, with many flats on different floors, some lit up, some dark. She always dressed in thin, transparent muslin saris. The view of her body left nothing to the imagination.
Sitara had been brought to Bombay by a film director. I forget his name—we used to call him Desai. They had even got married. But they could not stay together very long. ‘I’m not capable of coping with this woman,’ Desai used to say. Sitara used to live with someone else at the time, but she would visit Desai regularly. But he didn’t let her stay with him for long stretches. They had been married according to the Hindu Marriage Act. So, although Sitara took new lovers regularly, she was known as Mrs Desai.
Mehboob sahib’s star was at its zenith then. He cast Sitara in one of his films. Mehboob sahib became her victim too. There were new scandals about them in our line of work. Once Mehboob sahib’s film was over and done with, Sitara found herself a new lover. His name was P.N. Arora. He had been trained in film-making in the UK. After this Sitara flung herself on Al-Naseer. Let me tell you a story about P.N. Arora in the meantime, my brothers. I was working in Delhi at the time. One day I saw Arora on the road, limping along with the help of a stick. He didn’t appear to have a drop of life left in him. Asking the tonga to stop, I went up to him.
— Oh, it’s Manto. How are you?
— I’m very well. But why are you in such a state? What’s the matter?
Arora sighed and then smiled. —Sitara, Manto, Sitara. It’s all because of Sitara.
/> Al-Naseer had arrived from Dehra Dun to be a hero. He was handsome, manly. He even got the hero’s role in a film, in which Sitara had acted as well. Al-Naseer found himself in the tigress’s lair. Don’t imagine, my brothers, that Sitara used to give up one lover before taking another. She used to have them all at once—Desai, Arora, Mehboob, Al-Naseer, and who knew how many more. Back in Bombay, I saw the state Al-Naseer was in. His complexion, which was once pink, had turned ashen. His handsome appearance was ruined, someone seemed to have sucked out all his blood. Al-Naseer said the same thing, ‘Sitara, Manto, Sitara. It’s all because of Sitara.’
— Why, what has she done?
— She’s a vampire, Manto. She has turned me to pulp. I’ll be finished if I can’t get away from her.
Al-Naseer ran away to Dehra Dun. He recovered to some extent after spending three months there and then returned to Bombay.
After this, Sitara did something very strange. Didn’t I tell you she was a girl in a million, my brothers? She was like the flame that moths dive into. This time Sitara snared Nazir sahib. He had taken her into his Society Film Company, and at once he was trapped in her web. Nazir sahib was a simple, large-hearted man. He would clasp the people he loved to his breast while heaping abuse on them. His relationship with Sitara lasted several years. Nazir sahib had a strong personality, which was why Sitara stayed away from other men initially. But she wasn’t capable of such fidelity, my brothers, and started visiting Arora and Al-Naseer and Mehboob and Desai again. Nazir sahib could not accept this. He began to beat her up regularly. Sitara seemed to experience a certain sexual pleasure even in that violence.
Now this story takes an excitingly different turn, my brothers. Nazir sahib’s nephew Asif used to live in the same flat. He may have been young, but he was well built, and handsome too. There had been no women in Asif’s life yet. He was more interested in learning about film-making from his uncle. He knew what was going on between Nazir sahib and Sitara. Her screams and the sounds of wild behaviour emerging from the locked room used to drive him mad every passing day. One day he even managed to get a look at them. He told me later, ‘It was like a dog and a bitch ripping each other apart, Manto bhai. How could my uncle cope with Sitara?’
— It was a dreadful game, wasn’t it, Asif?
— Animals. For the first time I realized that human beings are actually animals. And do you know what love is, Manto bhai?
— What is love?
— A confrontation with death. I want to have such a damned confrontation too, at least once.
— With Sitara?
— You bet. I am going to fight a bout with her at least once, Manto bhai. But you know what, the woman scares me.
— Why? Why should you be afraid of Sitara?
— She seems possessed by a djinn.
— Sitara’s much better than ice-cold women, Asif. Her wildness is full of life. Fight it out.
Asif began by just talking to Sitara. But he didn’t have the nerve to touch her because he was familiar with his uncle’s temper. And yet, everyone knew that Sitara would throw herself at Asif at the first signal from him. He was losing control every passing day. How long could a hungry young man restrain himself? Nazir sahib got wise to their game. One day he beat Sitara up mercilessly, and then told her to leave his flat. But still she didn’t go. That night, growling with rage, Nazir sahib went to his study and fell asleep. Asif sensed his opportunity. Going into Sitara’s room, he touched her wounds tenderly. Bullseye! Asif had his first encounter with death. Then he packed Sitara’s belongings and took her to her own flat in Dadar. Sitara’s new love affair with Asif began. That same night he told her, ‘Our relationship runs very deep, Sitara. Don’t go to anyone else. Be mine alone.’
— My love, it’s you I have been looking for all this time. Believe me, Sitara will never look at anyone else from now on.
— If you do, I’ll go mad.
— I promise.
Sitara showered kisses on Asif.
Asif went back, promising to return the next day. Then Sitara sat down at her dressing table. She did her face again, and changed her sari. Going out, she hailed a taxi and gave Arora’s address to the driver. Tell me, Mirza sahib, do you think this woman was driven by sexual appetite all her life? I see a desperate helplessness in her. The same helplessness that I saw in Saugandhi. Madhu was sucking her dry. Then Saugandhi threw Madhu out one day and went to sleep with her arms around her pet pi-dog. Sitara simply could not stand me, but I wanted her to be able to sleep like Saugandhi one day.
They were strange women, all of them, my brothers. Can I ever forget Nasim Bano, queen of angels? What eyes she had! Like lotus blooms in a lake. I saw Nasim up close when writing the story for the film Begum. S. Mukherjee and I used to discuss the story in Nasim’s home, tinkering with it continuously. We had assumed that she must live in a big house. But her home on Porbander Road was rather old-fashioned, the plaster peeling off the walls, with broken shutters on the windows. The rooms had ordinary furniture, all hired. One day I found her on the veranda, quarrelling with the milkman, who had apparently given her half a litre less than he should have. I was astonished. Nasim’s fans would have willingly let loose torrents of milk for her—and here she was, actually arguing with the milkman. Was the Noorjehan of Pukar like this in real life? And why shouldn’t she be? All of us are built on a scaffolding of straw, after all, which becomes visible every now and then.
The people in the movies like to keep this figure of straw under wraps permanently, my brothers. Nasim used to dress in pink most of the time. Pink is a dangerous colour; it dazzles the eyes. That was the effect Nasim wanted to create. But then, she had the right qualities to dazzle people with. Like pink flower petals—I don’t remember seeing another person with skin like hers.
Alongside her strong attraction to jewellery and perfume, I observed another love she harboured—for her father. She used to keep a photograph of him in her vanity bag. I saw the picture secretly. I had a bad habit, Mirza sahib—peeping into women’s bags in secret. I was peering into Nasim’s bag one day when she came up to me.
— What are you doing, Manto sahib?
— Pardon me. This is a very bad habit that I have. But I cannot control myself.
Nasim chuckled, ‘Thank goodness you’re not in the habit of examining girls’ hearts in secret.’
— I can see them anyway.
— Women’s hearts?
— Hmm.
— Can you tell me what’s in mine?
— A fluttering pink scarf.
— You’re fun, Manto sahib.
— But whose photograph is it?
— Why, it’s of my father, my abbajaan’s. Just saying that one word, abbajaan, seemed to take her back to her dew-soaked childhood days. I noticed the strong bonding and love that her face radiated.
While writing the story for Begum, an argument over a scene with S. Mukherjee carried on till two in the morning. Shafia was with me too that evening. As we were about to leave, Nasim said, ‘Is this any time to travel? Spend the night here.’
— No problem. There’s a train at three-thirty. It’ll be here before we take a turn around the platform.
But Nasim and her husband Ehsan wouldn’t listen. So we had to stay back. Nasim went into the bedroom with Shafia. Ehsan and I lay down on the veranda.
The next day I got a different picture of Nasim from Shafia, my brothers. First, Nasim put a fresh bedspread on the bed. Then she gave Shafia a nightgown, saying, ‘Put this on. It’s absolutely fresh. Then go to sleep.’
— And you?
— I have some things to do.
Nasim changed, removed her make-up and went to bed. Looking at her in surprise, Shafia said, ‘You look so different, Nasim. You’re so dark. Then how …’
— All thanks to cosmetics, Shafia. I’m no better than a bad girl.
Then Nasim proceeded to massage all sorts of oils into her face. Kneeling, she began to read the Quran Sharif. ‘You’re
much better than us, Nasim,’ Shafia said artlessly. Nasim didn’t answer; switching the light off, she went to sleep.
I have these fragmented memories of many people, Mirza sahib. Can I ever forget Noorjehan’s voice? People used to talk of how pretty she was, but her beauty never touched me. Only her voice. To me, Noorjehan meant an invitation from the sky. Never again did I hear such a generous voice, such an exquisite kharaj, or such a sharp, well-honed pancham, Mirza sahib. Just as tightrope walkers can be poised stock-still on a rope suspended in mid-air, so too could Noorjehan’s taan—she could easily hold it for an hour or so. But you know what, those whom God favours are the ones who squander their talent the most. Liquor ruins the singer’s voice, and Sahgal sahib couldn’t take a step without a drink. Sour and deep-fried food harm the vocal cords, and Noorjehan would consume a quart of pickles in oil at one go. Sometimes I feel that the Sahgals and Noorjehans were born for confrontations with the lord. As long as our planet survives, Mirza sahib, so will Noorjehan’s voice.
There was no count of the number of people who loved Noorjehan. Never mind the gentlemen, I know many restaurant chefs who used to cook for sahibs and memsahibs with a photograph of Noorjehan’s hanging near the stove, while they sang her songs tunelessly. When Rafiq introduced me to Noorjehan, he said, ‘This is Noor, Noor-e-Jehan, the light of the world. By God, she has been gifted with a voice that will make even the angels of heaven descend to earth if they hear it.’ I knew Noorjehan with my heart and soul even before Rafiq introduced us, simply on the strength of her singing. One of her admirers was a barber I knew. He always talked of her and sang her songs. One day the barber’s friend asked him, ‘Do you really love Noorjehan?’
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