Naked Voices

by Sadat Hasan Manto

  ‘Doubling up with pain, he unbuttoned his bloodied shirt and put his hand inside. The effort exhausted him and he could do no more. He said to me, “Look under my vest. You will find some jewellery and twelve hundred rupees … They belong to Sultana … I had left them with a friend for safekeeping … I had gone to get them back … I wanted to send them to Sultana because … as you know … every day it is getting more and more unsafe … Take them … Give them to Sultana … Tell her to leave … immediately … and you … you look after yourself.”’

  Mumtaz finished his story and lapsed into silence. I began to imagine that his voice and Sahay’s voice – that had last been heard on a footpath beside the J. J. Hospital – were becoming one just like the sea and the sky were meeting in a hazy embrace on the distant horizon.

  The ship blew its whistle and Mumtaz said, ‘I went to meet Sultana. I gave her the money and the jewels and watched her eyes fill up with tears.’

  We said our farewells and got off the ship. Mumtaz stood on the deck, waving his right hand. I said to Jugal, ‘Don’t you get the feeling that Mumtaz is beckoning the spirit of Sahay, asking him to accompany him?’

  Jugal said, ‘I wish I was Sahay’s spirit.’

  THE CANDLE’S TEARS

  Planted in the grubby niche in the peeling wall, the candle had cried all night long.

  Wax had fallen on the damp floor, scattering like milky frozen droplets. Little Lajo had been crying for a pearl necklace. Her mother strung the candle’s waxen tears on a string and made a necklace for her. Lajo placed the string of wax pearls around her neck gleefully and went out, clapping her hands with joy.

  Night fell. A fresh candle was lit in the grime-encrusted niche. Its one-eyed light took in the room’s darkness and for an instant flickered brightly with surprise. But after some time, as it grew used to its grim surroundings, it began to look all round with a steady unblinking gaze.

  Little Lajo lay fast asleep on a cot, fighting with her friend Bindu in her dreams, telling her vehemently that she would not marry off her doll to Bindu’s boy-doll because he was terribly ugly.

  Lajo’s mother stood at the window, looking yearningly at the mud splattered on the silent and dimly lit street. Across the road, hanging from an iron pole, a lantern dozed like a sleepy watchman in the cold December night. Directly in front of her, on the stoop of a closed restaurant, embers from a half-dead fire, flared fitfully like wilful children, and fell in little, unexpected showers. The clock tower struck twelve in a sleepy haze; the last note shivered briefly in the December night, then pulled the blanket of silence over itself and went to sleep. The sweet song of sleep sighed in Lajo’s mother’s ears but by then her nerves had already relayed another message to her brain.

  Like a chilly blast of air, the sound of tinkling bells reached her ears. To hear the sound fully well, she concentrated with all her will power.

  In the stillness of the night, the bells sounded like the last bit of breath left rattling in a dying man’s throat. Lajo’s mother sat down with satisfaction. Soon, the tired neighing of a horse rent the silent night and a tonga came and stood beside the lantern. Its coachman got off, patted his horse and looked towards the window. The blinds on the window were rolled up and he could see the shadowy figure inside.

  The coachman wrapped his coarse blanket snugly around himself and put his hand in his pocket. He had three and a half rupees, of which he kept aside a rupee and four annas for himself and the rest he hid beneath the cushion on the tonga’s front seat. Then he moved towards the stairs going up to the brothel.

  Lajo’s mother, Chando Sunyari, got up to open the door.

  The coachman, Madho, came in, bolted the door and clasped Chando Sunyari to his bosom.

  ‘God knows how much I love you! Had I met you in my youth, my horse and cart would have been sold off long ago,’ and with that he placed one rupee in her hand.

  Chando Sunyari asked, ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Here, take this too,’ and he placed a silver anna in her other hand. ‘I swear on your life, this is all I have.’

  The horse stood neighing softly in the cold night. And the lantern atop its pole dozed on, as before.

  Madho lay on the iron cot, dead to the world. Beside him Chando Sunyari lay with her eyes wide open, looking at the drops of molten wax as they fell on the damp floor and froze into small milky balls. Suddenly, like a woman possessed, she flew out of her bed and went to sit beside Lajo’s bed. Drops of wax trembled on Lajo’s chest. To Chando Sunyari’s bleary eyes it seemed as though her Lajo’s childhood crouched, hidden among those drops of frozen tears. She raised a trembling hand and plucked the wax beads from Lajo’s throat.

  The thread slipped from the nearly-empty puddle of molten wax in the niche and fell to the floor, where it promptly went to sleep in its stony embrace. Now, the room became not just quiet but dark too.

  THE MAKER OF MARTYRS

  I am a native of Gujarat, Kathiawad to be precise. And a Bania by caste. I was at a loose end last year during the tanta of Partition. Forgive me for using the word tanta, though there is nothing wrong in using this word. Urdu must get words from other languages, even if it is Gujarati.

  As I was saying, I was without work. There was a small cocaine business still running which got me a little money. At the time of the Partition when thousands of people from here went there, and those from there began to pour in here, I, too, thought of leaving for Pakistan. If not cocaine, I could begin some new venture. So I left, and after doing several odd jobs along the way, I eventually reached Pakistan.

  I had left with the intention of starting some lucrative business. So the moment I reached Pakistan, I began to study the situation there closely. I chose the business of ‘allotments’. I was an old hand at greasing the system and saying the right things to the right people. I befriended some people and managed to get a small house allotted in my name. I made a neat profit on this and decided to travel to different cities, scout for homes and shops and get them allotted in my name. No matter what the work, a man has to work hard. I had to do my share of running around to make money in allotments. Some flattery here, some greasing of palms there, invitations to dinner, to evenings of song and dance and .... What I mean to say is that there were endless headaches. I would toil all day long, sniff around deserted mansions, scour the city in search of handsome homes that could yield the maximum profit after allotment.

  A man’s hard work never goes waste. Within a year, I had amassed several lakh rupees. I had everything a man can ask the Good Lord to provide – a wonderful house to live in and countless maal-pani stashed away in my bank.

  Forgive me again. I have used a slang from my Kathiawad. But never mind, Urdu must take in more words from outside – as I was saying, by the grace of God, I had everything – a fine house, plenty of servants, a Packard car, two-and-a-half lakh rupees in the bank, besides several shops and factories. I had all this but somewhere along the way I had lost my peace of mind. It is true that while I was in the cocaine trade, I had felt an occasional burden on my heart. But now it was almost as though I had no heart. Or maybe, the burden was such that my heart had quite disappeared under it. But what was the burden that so weighed my heart?

  I am a clever man. If a question arises in my mind, I invariably find an answer for it. With a cool heart (even though I didn’t quite know where my heart was), I tried to think my way through – what was the reason behind my unease?

  Women?…Yes, maybe. I had no woman of my own. The one I had to begin with had died in Kathiawad, Gujarat. But there were plenty of women belonging to other men. For instance, there was my gardener’s wife. There is no accounting for tastes, my dear sir! To tell you the truth, for me, a woman just needs to be young; it is not necessary that she be educated, or be able to dance. Any nubile woman will do – as we say in a piquant, difficult-to-translate way in our Kathiawad, Gujarat.

  So there was no question of a woman and money was certainly not an issue. I am not a greedy
man. I am happy with whatever I have. But then why had this matter of the heart arisen?

  I am a clever man. I try to get to the bottom of things. My factories were flourishing, so were the shops; money was rolling in practically on its own. I went off on my own and tried to think carefully till I came to the conclusion that my unease stemmed from the fact that I had not done any good deed since I had come here.

  I had done countless good samaritan acts in Kathiawad, Gujarat. For instance, when my friend Pandurang had died, I had installed his widow as my mistress in my house. This way I kept her from peddling herself for over two years. When Vinayak’s girl broke her leg, I bought her a new one. That cost me a cool forty bucks. When the ‘heat’ got Jamuna Bai, and the bitch (forgive me) didn’t know what had hit her, I was the one who took her to the doctor. No one ever came to know. I got her treated for over six months … But I hadn’t done any good deeds since I had come to Pakistan and this could be the only reason behind my uneasy heart. For everything else was just fine.

  I thought: so, what should I do? I thought of charity but I spent one day roaming around the city and found that every man was a beggar. Every other man was either naked or hungry. How many could I feed or dress? I toyed with the idea of opening a public kitchen. But what good could one kitchen do and where would I get the rations? The thought of buying from the black market immediately led me to ponder the merit of buying from the black market on the one hand, and doing good deeds on the other.

  I spent countless hours listening to people narrating their tales of woe. To tell you the truth, the world seemed full of sad people – those who slept on the uncovered stoops of shops as well as those who lived in high-rise mansions. The man who walks about on foot worries that he doesn’t have decent shoes to wear. The man who rides the automobile frets that he doesn’t have the latest model car. Every man’s complaint is valid in its own way. Every man’s wish is legitimate in its own right.

  I had once heard a ghazal by Ghalib recited by Ameenabai Chitlekar of Sholapur – God bless her soul – now I remember just one couplet from it: Kiski hajat rava kare koi (Whose wishes should one satisfy). Forgive me, perhaps it is the second line of the couplet, or maybe it is the first.

  Yes sir, whose needs should I satisfy first when of any given hundred people all hundred are needy. I also thought that giving charity was not such a great idea. You might not agree with me but I had gone to several refugee camps and seen things at close quarters and come to the conclusion that charity had made nincompoops out of the refugees. They would sit idle all day long, or play cards or do jugar (forgive me, jugar means gambling or rolling the dice) or use bad language or loll about eating phoket, meaning free, meals. How could such men make the foundations of a strong Pakistan? So I reached the conclusion that giving charity was by no means a good deed. But what was a good deed?

  Men were dying like flies in the refugee camps. It was cholera one day; the plague on another. There wasn’t an inch of space left in hospitals. I was overwhelmed with pity. I almost thought of getting a hospital built but when I thought some more, I abandoned the idea. I had the ‘scheme’ almost worked out in my head. I would have invited tenders for the building, collected money through applicants’ fees, set up a spurious company of my own, and had the tender passed in its name. I thought of allocating one lakh on building costs. Obviously, out of that I would have had the building up in seventy thousand; the remaining thirty would have gone into my pocket. But I had to abandon the entire scheme when I thought that if I ended up saving more, people what would happen to the exploding population? How would I help in lessening the numbers?

  If you think about it, the real lafda is one of numbers. By lafda I mean problem, the problem that has the connotation of nuisance, though that does not, by any means, provide the exact shade of meaning I wish to convey.

  Yes sir, the entire lafda is due to a booming population. If the numbers keep increasing, the earth won’t expand to keep pace, neither will the sky stretch, nor will more rain fall, nor more grain grow to feed more and more people. And so I reached the conclusion that constructing a hospital can not be regarded as a good deed. Then I thought of having a mosque built. But then a sher I had once heard sung by Ameenabai Chitlekar of Sholapur – may God bless her soul! – came back to haunt me: Naam manjoor hai to faij ke asbab bana. She used to pronounce ‘manzoor’ as ‘manjoor’ and ‘faiz’ as ‘faij’. (If you want your name to live on, build bridges, build tanks and mosques and such like.)

  But which poor sod wants name and fame? Those who have bridges built to earn a good name don’t do it out of the goodness of their heart. What rubbish! So I said to myself – no, never, this idea of getting a mosque built is all wrong. It does the common weal no good to have several scattered mosques; it divides the people.

  Tired and dispirited, I was preparing to go on the Haj pilgrimage when God Himself showed me the way. There was a public function in the city. By the time it ended, there was a stampede. Thirty people died in that mad scramble. When the newspapers reported this incident the next day, we learnt that those thirty people had not died; they had become martyrs.

  I began to think. I also began to consult religious leaders and thinkers. I learnt that those who die in sudden accidents reach the level of martyrdom – above which there is no other station. I began to think that it would be wonderful if people were to become martyrs instead of dying ordinary deaths. Those who die ordinary deaths, obviously gain nothing by dying. It is only when someone becomes a martyr that it means something.

  I began to examine this distinction more closely.

  Everywhere I looked, I saw broken-down dilapidated human beings. Wan-faced, sunken-eyed, dressed in rags, weighed down by worries and anxieties, besieged by the fear of earning their daily bread, there they were – dumped in some poky shack-like discarded railway goods or wandering aimlessly around shops and markets like ownerless animals with upturned snouts. Why are they alive, whom do they live for and how – no one has the answers. Thousands die every time there is an outbreak of some disease or the other; if nothing else, they die slowly, painfully, dissolving bit by bit, due to hunger and thirst. In winter they freeze to death; in summer they dry up. Sometimes someone sheds a tear or two at their passing away; most die unwept. So they didn’t make much of life … hat is all right. It gave them nothing … that too is all right. But as Ameenabai Chitlekar of Sholapur – may God bless her soul! – used to sing so soulfully: Mar ke bhi chain na payaa to kidhar jaayenge (where will we go if death brings no respite.) What I mean to say is this: if things don’t improve significantly after death, then what the hell is the point of all this! I thought why not do something for these wretched souls, these down-at-heel miserable creatures who have never known any pleasures in this life? Why not do something that will give them a special status in the other world when those who don’t even wish to look at them in this world, will swoon with envy when they look at them there. There was only one way to achieve this, that they should not die ordinary deaths; they must be martyred.

  The question then arose: would they be ready to become martyrs. I thought: why not? Show me a good Muslim who does not want to become a martyr! In fact, the copycat Hindus and Sikhs too have devised a special category of martyrs. But I was in for a surprise when I asked a frail, half-dead man: ‘Do you want to become a martyr?’ And he said: ‘No.’

  I couldn’t figure out why that man wished to live on or what he hoped to achieve by living some more. I did my best to convince him. I said, ‘Look here, old man, you can’t expect to live for more than a couple of months. You don’t have the strength to walk. The way you double up when a spasm of coughing catches you, one would think you are going to fall down and die right now. You don’t have a paisa to call your own. You haven’t known a moment’s happiness in your entire life, neither are you likely to in the future. Why do you want to live any more? You can’t enlist in the army, so you obviously can’t lay down your life fighting for your country in a
field of honour. So don’t you think it would be far more appropriate if you make preparations for your martyrdom – either here in the marketplace or in the night shelter where you doss down for the night?’

  He asked: ‘How can that be?’

  I answered: ‘You see that banana peel lying over there? Suppose you were to slip on that … obviously you would die. And you would become a martyr.’ But he couldn’t understand the simple logic of my words. He said: ‘Why would I step on a banana peel when I can see it lying over there … do you think I don’t care for my life?’

  It made me sad, sadder still later when I heard that the wretched old man, who could so easily have attained martyrdom, coughed and coughed till he died on a rusty iron cot in a charitable hospitable.

  There was an old woman – a toothless old hag – counting her last breaths. She filled me with pity. She had spent her entire life in poverty and misery, worrying and anxious all the time. I picked her up and took her to the railway pata (forgive me, where I come from, we say pata for the railway tracks). But believe me sir, she heard the sound of the approaching train and jumped off the track and bounded away like a wound-up toy.

  It nearly broke my heart but, still, I didn’t give up. The son of a Bania, they say, is the persevering sort. I did not, for a minute, allow the straight and narrow path of virtuosity that I could see gleaming ahead of me disappear from my sight.

  A large, derelict compound, dating back to the Mughal times, was lying empty. It had a hundred and fifty-one tiny rooms. They were in a terrible state of disrepair. My experienced eyes sized them up and figured that the first heavy rains of the season would bring the roof crashing down. I bought the compound for Rs 10,500 and settled a thousand of the homeless and very poor. I collected two months’ rent – at the rate of a rupee a month from every tenant – and as I had calculated, within three months the first heavy downpour brought the roof down, killing seven hundred people including young and old alike, martyring every single one of them.