Naked Voices

by Sadat Hasan Manto

  ‘Why are you asking for forgiveness?’

  ‘Because I want this matter to end right here. Though, if you want, I can bring him here and make him draw lines on the floor in front of you with his nose.’

  She turned her face away in disgust. ‘No, don’t bring him in front of me … he has offended me grievously.’ Once again her throat caught. Sitting on the marble step, her elbow touching the cold stone floor, she tried, unsuccessfully, to suppress the pain that seemed to well up from deep inside her.

  By now, I was out of my mind with worry. A robust young woman was crying in front of me and I could do nothing to stop her. Once when I had driven that same old Asghar’s car, I had blown the horn to miss a dog in front of me. The horn had got stuck and its sound had become a never-ending scream. No matter how hard I tried, the horn wouldn’t stop screaming. People turned to stare and I had kept sitting, helplessly.

  Thank God, there was no one else on the roof except Sharda and me. But my helplessness at that moment was greater than at the time of the incident of the horn. A woman sat crying in front of me, a woman who had been hurt very badly.

  Had it been any other woman, I would have done my duty and gone away, but Sharda was the daughter of an acquaintance and I had known her since she was a baby.

  She was a very nice girl, somewhat less pretty than her three younger sisters but certainly more intelligent.

  She was good at reading and sewing. And last year when we had heard that she had lost her husband barely eleven months after her marriage, we had been much saddened. The grief of losing her husband must have been intense, but this pain, caused by my immoral friend, was of a totally different sort, one that I could see was causing her such distress.

  I tried once again to quieten her. I sat on the marble step beside her and said, ‘Sharda devi, it isn’t seemly to go on crying like this. Go down and try to forget whatever it is that has happened. That wretch was drunk, or else, believe me, he is not such a wicked fellow. God knows what happens to him once he is drunk!’

  Sharda’s tears did not stop.

  I had an inkling of what Asghar must have done, for men usually have only one approach – through the body – but I wanted to hear from Sharda’s own mouth the exact nature of bestiality that Asghar had perpetrated on her. And so, I spoke to her sympathetically, ‘I don’t know exactly what discourtesy he has shown you, but I can attempt a guess. Why had you come up here?’

  Sharda spoke in a quavering voice, ‘I was sleeping in the room downstairs … two women started talking about me.’

  And her voice got muffled in her throat.

  I asked, ‘What were they saying about you?’

  Sharda rested her face against the cool marble slab and began to cry loudly. I softly patted her broad shoulders. ‘Hush, Sharda … quiet … shhh.’

  In between large tearful hiccups, she choked, ‘They were saying … that … why has that widow been called here?’ And as she said the word “widow”, she thrust one corner of her tear-drenched dupatta in her mouth. ‘I heard these words and left the room to come up to the roof … and ….’

  Her words made me sad. How cruel women can be, especially older women! Regardless of whether someone’s wounds are fresh or old, how gleefully they scrape them! I took Sharda’s hand in mine and pressed it with the deepest, most heartfelt sympathy. ‘One should never pay any heed to such things.’

  She began to bawl like a baby. ‘That is precisely what I had told myself … then I fell asleep on the terrace … Your friend came and pulled at my dupatta … he opened the buttons of my kurta and…’

  The buttons of her kurta were still undone.

  ‘Let it be, Sharda. Forget whatever happened.’ I plucked the handkerchief from my pocket and began to wipe her tears.

  A corner of her wet dupatta was still in her mouth; she had clenched it tighter between her teeth. I pulled it out of her mouth. She wrapped its wet corner around her fingers and asked despairingly, ‘Your friend molested me because I am a widow, isn’t it? He must have thought who’s there to protest this woman?’

  ‘No, Sharda, no,’ and I pulled her head to rest against my shoulder. ‘Forget whatever he thought, or what he did, and quieten down now.’

  I wanted to sing her a lullaby and put her to sleep.

  I had wiped her eyes a minute ago, but they glistened with fresh tears. Once again, I pulled out a corner of the dupatta that she had once again put in her mouth, and wiped her tears. Then, softly, I kissed both her eyes.

  ‘Enough! Don’t cry any more now.’

  Sharda nudged her head against my breast. I patted her cheek gently, ‘Enough, enough, enough.’

  Sometime later when I came down, Sharda stood on the marble steps with her mulmul dupatta swaying in the balmy breeze of a late March morning. Asghar’s misbehaviour entirely forgotten, she felt light as a feather. The shock and pain in her heart had been replaced by pleasure and excitement.

  SAHAY

  Don’t say one lakh Hindus and one lakh Muslims have died; say two lakh human beings have died. As a matter of fact, it isn’t such a tragedy that two lakh people have died. The real tragedy is that those who killed and those who got killed failed to move from one account to another. After killing one lakh Hindus, the Muslims must have thought that Hinduism is dead. But the Hindu religion is alive and shall always remain. Similarly, after killing one lakh Muslims, the Hindus must have been jubilant, believing that they have wiped off Islam. But the truth is before all of you – you know there isn’t so much as a scratch upon Islam. Only fools believe that they can hunt down religions with guns. Religion, faith, belief, conscience – they live in our soul, not in our bodies. They can never be destroyed with knives and swords and guns.

  That day Mumtaz was filled with a strange fervour. The three of us had gone to see him off at the ship. He was leaving us – no one knew for how long – and going away to Pakistan, to a country that none of us knew anything about.

  The three of us were Hindus. We had relatives in west Punjab who had borne loss of lives and property. And perhaps that was why Mumtaz was leaving us today. Jugal had received a letter from Lahore saying he had lost his uncle in the riots. The news had devastated him. One day, in the middle of an ordinary conversation, Jugal had said to Mumtaz, ‘You know, I have been wondering what I would do if we have riots in our neighbourhood.’

  Mumtaz had asked, ‘What will you do?’

  Jugal had answered with complete seriousness, ‘I have been thinking, you know, that I just might kill you.’

  Mumtaz had heard this and become completely silent; his silence had lasted almost eight days till he abruptly broke the news to us that he was leaving for Karachi by the 3.45 steamer. The three of us did not probe the reasons for his sudden departure. Jugal was acutely aware that his statement – ‘I have been thinking, y’know, that I just might kill you’ – might be the reason. And perhaps that was why he was the quietest of the lot. However, strangely enough, Mumtaz had become uncharacteristically talkative, almost garrulous a few hours before his departure.

  He had been drinking since morning. He finished his packing in a carefree manner as though he was off on a pleasure trip, chattered non- stop and laughed at his own jokes. If someone were to see him in that state they would think he was thrilled to be leaving Bombay. But the three of us knew he was trying to fool us – and himself – by hiding his true feelings.

  I tried several times to ask him why he had suddenly decided to leave. I made signs to Jugal, urging him to introduce the subject. But Mumtaz didn’t give us the slightest opportunity to do so.

  Jugal downed three or four pegs, becoming quieter than ever till he finally went to the other room to lie down. Brijmohan and I stayed with Mumtaz while he went about settling his accounts. He chattered and laughed as he paid the doctor’s bills and retrieved his clothes from the laundry. But when he bought a paan from Govind’s corner shop, his eyes welled up. He put a hand on Brijmohan’s shoulder as he turned away and said,
‘Remember, Brij, ten years ago when times were lean, Govind had loaned us one rupee.’

  Mumtaz stayed quiet all the way back but once home he started his non-stop monologue. The words kept tumbling out, with neither head nor tail, yet they were so entertaining in themselves that, willy-nilly, Brijmohan and I got caught up in the banter. As the hour of his departure drew closer, even Jugal joined in. But as the taxi took us towards the dockyard, all four of us fell silent.

  With his eyes, Mumtaz seemed to be bidding adieu to the wide streets and boulevards of Bombay.

  The taxi deposited us at our destination.

  The dock was crowded with thousands of refugees. Very few looked happy and prosperous; the vast majority looked poor and dishevelled. In that milling crowd, I felt it was only Mumtaz who was leaving, not the others. He was leaving us and going away to a land he did not know, a country that would remain a stranger to him no matter how hard he tried. But those were my views. I couldn’t fathom what Mumtaz was thinking of at that moment.

  Mumtaz took us up to the deck as soon as his luggage was stowed away. For a long time he kept gazing at the horizon – where the sea and the sky seemed to meet. He took Jugal’s hand in his own and said, ‘It’s only an illusion – this meeting of the sea and sky – but what a delightful illusion this union is, isn’t it?’

  Jugal stayed silent. Perhaps at that moment too, his own words – ‘I have been thinking, you know, that I just might kill you’ – were tormenting him.

  Mumtaz ordered some brandy from the ship’s bar. He had been drinking brandy since early morning. Glasses in hand, the four of us stood by the ship’s railing. Refugees were pouring into the ship and gulls were skimming over the almost-still sea.

  Jugal swallowed his brandy in a single gulp and blurted out in an awkward hurry, ‘Forgive me, Mumtaz, I think I hurt you that day.’

  After a moment’s silence, Mumtaz asked, ‘That day when you said “I have been thinking, you know, that I just might kill you” did you really mean it? Tell me honestly.’

  Jugal nodded his head to say ‘yes’ and said, ‘But I regret it sorely.’

  ‘You would have regretted it more had you killed me,’ Mumtaz sounded philosophical. ‘But only if you considered that you had killed Mumtaz, a Muslim, not a friend but a human being. If he was wicked you didn’t destroy his wickedness. If he was a Muslim, you didn’t destroy his Muslim-ness, but only the living proof of his being. If his corpse had fallen in the hands of Muslims, there would have been one more grave in some graveyard but one human being less in this world.’

  Mumtaz was quiet for some time, as though lost in thought, then he started speaking again, ‘Maybe my fellow Muslims would have regarded me as a martyr. But, by God, if it was at all possible, I would have burst through my grave and shouted, “I refuse to accept this mantle of martyrdom. I don’t want a degree for an exam that I haven’t taken.’’ A Muslim killed your uncle in Lahore. You heard the news in Bombay and killed me. Tell me, what medal would you and I deserve? And, in Lahore, what prize would your uncle and his killer deserve? I would say that those who died, died a dog’s death and the killer got his hands stained with blood needlessly – absolutely needlessly.’

  Mumtaz became very emotional as he talked. But there was love even in his excitability. His words made a strong impact on me. At that moment I believed that religion, faith, belief – whatever they might be – resided in our souls, not in our bodies. They could not be destroyed by knives and swords and guns. And so I said to him with great feeling, ‘You are absolutely right.’

  Mumtaz took stock of his thoughts and said with some restlessness, ‘No, not at all, I mean this is all very well but perhaps I am not able to say very clearly what I truly want to say. By religion I don’t mean the sort of thing in which ninety-nine per cent of us are trapped. By religion, or faith, I mean that other quality that elevates us above our fellow men, one that gives us a certain special aura that truly makes us human. But what is that thing? Unfortunately, I can’t place it on my palm and show it.’ A strange gleam came into his eyes and he began talking to himself, ‘What was so special about him, after all? He was a staunch Hindu. He had a most despicable profession yet his soul was resplendent.’

  I asked, ‘Whose?’

  ‘A pimp’s.’

  The three of us were startled. There wasn’t the slightest trace of false modesty in his accent. I asked with complete seriousness, ‘A pimp’s?’

  Mumtaz nodded, ‘I am surprised that he was a mere mortal. In fact, I am more surprised that for most people he was just a pimp, a man who traded in women, but his soul was pristine.’

  Mumtaz was quiet for some time, as though he was refreshing old incidents in his mind. Then, he started speaking, ‘I don’t remember his full name – it was “Something Sahay”. He was from Benares. He was very fastidious. He operated from a tiny room but kept it immaculately clean. He had it neatly curtained off to ensure privacy. There were no beds for the clients, but there were mattresses and pillows. The sheets and pillowcases were always spotlessly clean. He had a servant yet he cleaned the place himself. In fact, he did everything himself. He never lied or cheated. If it was very late in the night and the only liquor available was likely to be cheap booze mixed with water, he would tell his customers not to throw their money. Or, if he had qualms about a girl, he would come clean and say so. He once told me that he had earned twenty thousand rupees in the last three years – by taking two-and-a-half rupees as commission on every ten rupees that his girls fetched him. He wanted to earn another ten thousand – I don’t know why only ten thousand, why not more. He told me he would return to Benares when he had earned his thirty thousand and open a cloth shop. I can’t say why a cloth shop, why not some other trade.’

  At this point, I could no longer contain myself and interrupted, ‘What a strange man!’

  Mumtaz continued, ‘I used to think he was bogus through and through, a fraud from head to toe. Who could believe that he thought of the girls who plied his trade as his daughters? I found it very surprising that he had opened a savings account for each girl in the post office where every month he would deposit her earnings. It was equally preposterous that he paid for the boarding and lodging of ten or twelve girls. I thought there was guile and artifice in everything he said and did.

  ‘One day when I went to his establishment, he said, “Amina and Sakina are on leave today. I give them a weekly off so that they can go out and eat non-vegetarian food. Here, as you know, I run a strictly vegetarian kitchen.” I smiled to myself thinking he was trying to pull a fast one on me. Another day he told me about the Hindu girl from Ahmedabad he had got married to a Muslim customer. She lived in Lahore now and had written to say that she had prayed at the shrine of Data Sahab and her prayers had been answered. Now she was praying for Sahay to collect his thirty thousand rupees so that he could go home and start his draper’s business. I heard this and laughed out loud. I thought, “He is saying all this to please me because I am a Muslim.”’

  I asked Mumtaz, ‘And were you wrong?’

  ‘Absolutely; there was no difference between what he said and did. The man must have had his faults, no doubt. He must have made mistakes, like we all do. But, I tell you, he was a fine man, one of the best I have known.’

  Jugal asked, ‘How did you discover that?’

  ‘Upon his death.’ With these words Mumtaz fell silent. He began to look at the horizon where the sky and sea met in a hazy embrace. After a long silence, he resumed, ‘The riots had started. Early one morning, I was passing through Bhindi Bazaar. The curfew was on and there were very few people about. The trams were not running. As I walked up to J. J. Hospital in search of a taxi, I saw a man lying on the footpath huddled beside a large straw basket. I thought it must be a homeless person sleeping on the footpath. But I stopped when I saw large clots of blood on the road. Clearly, this was a case of murder. I was about to walk away when I noticed some movement in the body. I looked around. There was no one on
the road. I stooped to look closely at the man’s body. I spotted Sahay’s familiar face, covered though it was with blood and gore. I sat down on the footpath close beside him and began to inspect him closely. His white shirt that was always so immaculately white was drenched in blood. Obviously, he had been wounded in the chest. When he began to groan softly, I took him by the shoulders and shook him gently as one does with someone who has been sleeping. I called out to him by the half name I knew. I was about to get up and leave when he opened his eyes. For a long time he kept looking unblinkingly at me with his half-open eyes. Then, suddenly, a shiver ran through his body and he recognized me, ‘You … it is you!’

  ‘I immediately unleashed an avalanche of questions. How did he reach here? How did he get wounded? How long had he been lying on the footpath? Should I inform the hospital close by?

  ‘He didn’t have the strength to answer. When I had finished all my questions, all he could do was utter these words: “My time has come – it is God’s will.”’

  ‘I didn’t know what was God’s will but I knew what was clearly unacceptable to me: that I a Muslim should be standing in an all-Muslim neighbourhood to watch a man die – a man I knew to be a Hindu – knowing fully well that whoever had attacked him must have been a Muslim and I who stood beside him as he lay at Death’s door was also a Muslim. I am not a coward but at that moment I was more scared than any coward I know. I was terrified that I would be caught with a dying man, and even if I were not charged I would, at the very least, be arrested and interrogated. I thought of taking him to the hospital, but I hesitated: what if he were to falsely implicate me, just in order to take revenge on whoever had so grievously injured him? After all, Sahay knew he was dying; what did he have to lose? I was about to go – you might as well say I was about to flee – when Sahay called my name. I stopped. I didn’t want to stay, yet I stopped. I looked at him as though I was saying: hurry up and die; I have to go.