Manto

by Saadat Hasan Manto

  The mention of his khadi kurta reminds me that Raj Kishore was an ardent Congress supporter. This was why he wore khadi, and yet I always suspected he didn’t love his country nearly as much as he loved himself.

  Many would feel that my description of Raj Kishore was unfair. Everyone, in and out of the studio, was an admirer of his body, his opinions, his simplicity and of course, his distinctive, Rawalpindi style of speaking.

  Unlike the other actors, Raj Kishore was neither aloof nor unapproachable. If the Congress staged a demonstration, he would certainly be there. If there was a literary gathering, he was sure to be present. He even took time out from his busy schedule to be there for his neighbours and acquaintances when they were in trouble.

  All the film producers respected him because the purity of his character was well known. Forget film producers, even the public knew that Raj Kishore was a man of moral fibre. And for any man to be part of the film world and remain free from the taint of scandal, is no small achievement. Raj Kishore was a successful actor, but it was these unique qualities that placed him on an even higher pedestal.

  In the evenings, outside the paan shop in Nagpara, talk would invariably turn to the lives of actors and actresses. Virtually each one had some scandal or another linked to their name, but whenever Raj Kishore’s name came up, Sham Lal, the paanwallah, would say with great pride: ‘Manto saab, Raj bhai is one actor who knows to keep his dick in his trousers.’

  How he’d come to call him ‘Raj bhai’, I don’t know. But it didn’t surprise me. Even the most ordinary things about ‘Raj bhai’ were turned into great feats and reached the ears of ordinary people. They knew how he spent his income—what he sent to his father; what he donated to orphanages; what he kept for himself—as if they’d been made to learn it by heart.

  Sham Lal told me one day that Raj bhai had very good relations with his stepmother. In the days when he had no money, his father and his new wife had tormented him constantly, but it was to his credit that when the time came, he did his duty by them, providing them with a comfortable life. They now slept on big beds, lording over people. Every morning, Raj went and saw his stepmother, even touching her feet. He stood with folded hands before his father and gave him anything he asked for. Now don’t take it amiss, but I’d become irritated whenever I heard Raj Kishore praised in this way. God, alone, knows why!

  As I’ve said before, I didn’t really hate him. He never gave me any reason to. And in that time when clerks were given no respect, he often sat for hours talking to me. So I can’t say that there was a reason, but a doubt, which had all the force of a conviction, struck like lightning in a dark corner of my mind, telling me that Raj was posturing; that his entire life was somehow fraudulent. The problem was that I couldn’t find anyone of the same mind as me—people worshipped him like a god—and this bothered me deeply.

  Raj had a wife and four children; he was a good husband and a good father; there was no corner of this stainless cover that could be lifted to reveal a dark element in his life.

  He was everything he appeared to be. And yet, I was racked with doubt.

  Believe me, I chided myself on many occasions. I felt I must truly be perverse for harbouring suspicions about a man the whole world thought so well of and who I, myself, had no cause for complaint about. What did it matter that he admired his own admittedly attractive physique? If I had such a physique, I would in all likelihood do the same.

  But I was never able to come round to seeing Raj Kishore the way others did and was often nettled by him. He’d say something I didn’t like and I’d pounce on him. Our bouts would invariably end with him smiling and me, left with a bad taste in my mouth, more troubled than ever.

  There wasn’t a hint of scandal in his life. Besides his wife’s, no other woman’s clean or dirty laundry could be linked to his name. I should also mention that he referred to all the other actresses as ‘sister’; and they, in turn, referred to him as ‘brother’. This only raised more questions in my mind. Why was it necessary to establish these intimacies? A brother and sister’s relationship was something apart; why call all women your sisters as if you were putting up a ‘Road Closed’ or ‘It Is Forbidden to Urinate Here’ sign?

  If you weren’t planning on having a sexual relationship with a woman, why make an announcement? If no thought of a woman other than your wife could enter your mind, why run an advertisement about it? I couldn’t understand it and this upset me.

  But, anyway! The Beauty of the Forest’s shooting continued; the studio was especially busy; women extras came regularly and our day would be spent laughing and joking with them.

  One morning, the makeup artist who we called Ustad arrived in Nayaz Muhammad Villain’s room with news that the new girl, meant to be playing the part of the vamp, had arrived and was to begin work imminently. We were on a break at the time, and the effect of hot tea along with this little bit of news fired us up. The arrival of a new girl in the studio was always cause for commotion. And so we emptied out of Nayaz Muhammad Villain’s and set off in the hope of catching a glimpse of her.

  In the evening, at the time when Harmzji Framji left his office for the billiards room, pressing two fragranced paans from Isa the tabla player’s silver box into his wide cheek, we caught sight of the girl.

  She was dark-skinned; and that was all I was able to discern. She was shaking hands with a businessman, then hurriedly got into the studio car and drove away. I ran into Nayaz Muhammad a few moments later, who was only able to say that she had thick lips; that was perhaps all he had been able to see of her. Ustad, who might not have even seen that much, shook his head and grunted, ‘Hoonh… Condemn,’ which meant bullshit.

  Four or five days passed, but the new girl didn’t appear at the studio. On the fifth or sixth day, as I was leaving Gulab’s Hotel after a cup of tea, I ran straight into her.

  I have always preferred to observe women furtively, with sidelong glances. If a woman appears suddenly, and directly, in front of me, I’m unable to make her out. And because we ran straight into one another, I wasn’t able to discern her face or features. I did, however, see her feet, on which she wore fashionable new slippers.

  The studio’s owners had gravelled the path that led from the laboratory to the studio. There were countless small round pebbles, on which the shoe routinely slipped. And because her slippers were open, she walked with some difficulty.

  But after this meeting, my friendship with Ms Neelam began gradually to grow. The studio people knew nothing of it, even though we came to be on fairly informal terms, and really quite close. Her real name was Radha. I once asked her why she had dropped such a pretty name. ‘Just like that,’ she replied, then a moment later, added, ‘It’s such a pretty name that I wouldn’t want it to end up in a film.’

  This remark might perhaps make you think that Radha was religious. Not in the slightest; she had no feeling whatsoever for religion and its superstitions. But just as I, before beginning any new writing, always inscribe the numerals denoting Bismillah—7, 8, 6—on the page, she had, even perhaps without meaning to, a special affection for the name Radha.

  Since she preferred to go by Neelam, I will refer to her from hereon as that.

  Neelam was the daughter of a Banarasi prostitute*. She spoke in the accent of that region, which is very pleasing to the ears. My name is Saadat, but she always referred to me as Sadaq. I once said to her, ‘Neelam, I know you can say Saadat so I don’t understand why you won’t correct yourself?’ When she heard this, a faint smile rose to her dark lips, which were in fact very thin. She replied, ‘The mistakes I make once, I don’t usually put right.’

  I don’t think many people in the studio were aware that the woman they took to be an ordinary actress possessed such idiosyncrasies. She wasn’t hustling like the other actresses. Her seriousness, which every man in the studio misconstrued, was in fact, a very endearing thing.

  It suited her, like rouge on her dark, clear skin. And the sadness that had settl
ed in her eyes and the corners of her mouth set her even further apart from the other women.

  I was—and still am—astonished that she had been chosen for the role of the vamp in The Beauty of the Forest; she didn’t seem at all fast or wanton. It was painful to see her for the first time on the set in the tight bodice she had to wear for her odious part. She was very good at sensing the reactions of others, and so upon seeing me, said immediately: ‘Director saab was saying, because your part isn’t that of a decent woman, you have been given these clothes to wear. I said, “If these are clothes, I might as well walk naked with you onto the set.” ’

  ‘And what did the director say to that?’

  A faint smile appeared on Neelam’s thin lips. She said, ‘He began imagining me naked. What fools, these people are! Dressed as I am, what need is there for the poor wretches to leave anything to the imagination!’

  As far as her sharp-wittedness went, little more need be said. But I want now to come to those incidents that will help me complete this story.

  The rains in Bombay begin as early as June and continue until the middle of September. The rain in the first two, two and a half months, is such that work in the studio becomes impossible. The shooting of The Beauty of the Forest began in the last week of April. And when the first rain came, we were just about to complete our third set. Only one small scene remained, and as it had no dialogue, we were able to continue our work despite the rain. But when this was finished, we were put out of action for a period.

  The studio crew had a lot of time to sit around and chat with each other. I’d spend whole days at Gulab’s Hotel, drinking tea. Everyone who came in was either partially or entirely drenched. The flies too, seeking shelter from the rain, collected within. It was squalid beyond words. A squeezed rag for making tea was draped on one chair; on another, lay a foul smelling knife, used for cutting onions, but now idle. Gulab saab stood nearby, devouring Bombay Urdu with his meat eating teeth: ‘I, there, not going… I going from here… there’ll be a big bust-up… O, yes, the shit is bound to hit the fan.’ Except for Harmzji Framji, his brother-in-law, Eedelji and the heroines, everyone came to Gulab’s Hotel, with its corrugated steel roof. Nayaz Muhammad, of course, came several times a day as he was rearing two cats called Chunni and Munni.

  Raj Kishore did the rounds once a day as well. As soon as his large, athletic frame appeared in the doorway, everyone’s eyes, save mine, brightened. The young male actors would jump up and offer their chairs. Once he’d sat down, they’d settle around him like moths. After this, one would hear praise of Raj Kishore’s past performances, which was ready on the lips of the male extras. Then from Raj Kishore himself, we would hear the history of his leaving school for college, and from college entering the world of film. I already knew all of this by heart, and would say my hellos and goodbyes as soon as he entered, then make for the door.

  One afternoon, when the rain let up and Harmzji Framji’s Alsatian, after being frightened off by Nayaz Muhammad’s cats, came bounding in the direction of Gulab’s Hotel, with his tail between his legs, I saw Neelam and Raj Kishore talking under a maulsari*. Raj Kishore was standing, swinging lightly, which he often did when by his own estimation, he was making riveting conversation. I can’t recall when or how Neelam met Raj Kishore, but she had known him before she entered the film world and might even have praised his well-proportioned, attractive body to me once or twice in passing.

  I had left Gulab’s Hotel and gone as far as the porch of the recording room when I saw Raj Kishore swing a khadi bag off his wide shoulders and take out a thick notebook. I understood; this was Raj Kishore’s diary.

  Every day Raj Kishore, having finished his work and taken his stepmother’s blessings, would write faithfully in his diary before going to bed. Though he loved Punjabi, he chose English for these daily entries, in which it was possible to see, here traces of Tagore’s delicate style, there of Gandhi’s political prose. There was even something of the influence of Shakespeare’s plays on his writing. But I never saw in this amalgam, anything of the writer’s own true self. Should this diary ever fall into your hands, you will know everything of Raj Kishore’s life over the last ten or fifteen years: how many rupees he gave to charity; how much he spent on feeding the poor; how many demonstrations he attended, what he wore, what he took off. And if my guess is right, on some page of this diary my name will appear next to ‘thirty five rupees’, which I once borrowed from Raj Kishore and haven’t returned to date, only because I’m certain the money’s repayment will never be recorded in the diary.

  Anyway! He was reading some pages from this diary to Neelam. I could tell from a distance, from the movement of his beautiful lips, that he was praising the Lord in Shakespearean style. Neelam sat in silence on the round, cemented platform under the maulsari. Raj Kishore’s words seemed to be having no effect on her.

  She was looking instead at his puffed up chest. The buttons of his kurta were open, and against his pale skin, his black chest hair looked especially attractive.

  The studio had been washed clean. Even Nayaz Muhammad’s cats, who were normally filthy, were immaculate today. They both sat on an adjacent bench cleaning their faces with their soft paws. Neelam was dressed in a spotless white georgette sari. Her blouse was of white linen and it produced the gentlest, most pleasing contrast against her dark, rounded arms.

  Why did she look so different?

  For a moment, the question took root in my mind. When our eyes met a moment later, the disquiet in them answered my question. She was in love. She gestured to me to come over. We spoke of generalities for some time. When Raj Kishore had left, she looked at me and said, ‘Today, you’re coming with me.’

  By six that evening, we were at Neelam’s place. As soon as we entered, she flung her bag onto the sofa, and without making eye contact with me, said, ‘You know, you’re mistaken?’

  I understood her meaning and said, ‘How did you know what I was thinking?’

  A faint, secretive smile played on her thin lips. ‘Because we both thought the same thing. You perhaps gave it no further thought. But I’ve thought hard about it and have come to the conclusion that we were both wrong.’

  ‘And if I say that we were both right?’

  Sitting down on the sofa, she said, ‘Then we’re both idiots.’ With this, the gravity of her expression immediately darkened. ‘Sadaq, how can it be? Am I a child that I don’t know what is in my heart? How old do you think I am?’

  ‘Twenty two.’

  ‘Exactly right. But what you don’t know is that I’ve known about love since I was ten, and not just vicariously. God knows I’ve been in love. From the age of ten to sixteen, I was in the grip of a dangerous love. What effect can love have on me now?’ I looked unmoved and she grew urgent: ‘You’re never going to believe me, are you? I could lay bare my heart to you and you still won’t believe me. I know you. God help anyone who lies to you! I tell you there’s no chance of my falling in love now, but I will say this much…’ Mid-sentence, she fell into silence.

  I didn’t say anything because she was submerged in some deep worry. She was perhaps thinking what the ‘this much’ she had referred to was.

  After some time, that same faint, secretive smile appeared on her lips. It brought a measure of mischief to her grave expression. She suddenly jumped up from the sofa and began saying, ‘I can say this much: it is not love; if it’s something else, I can’t say. I assure you, Sadaq…’

  ‘You mean to say,’ I said immediately, ‘you assure yourself.’

  She flared up. ‘You really are a cretin! There are ways of saying things, you know. I mean, in the end, what need is there for me to give you assurances? Yes, I’m trying to assure myself. The problem is that I’m not really succeeding. Aren’t you going to help me?’ She said this and came to sit down next to me. Clutching the little finger of her right hand, she began asking me, ‘What do you think of Raj Kishore? I mean what do you think it is about Raj Kishore that I like so muc
h?’ She let go of her little finger and began clutching each of her fingers, one by one.

  ‘I don’t like his conversation, I don’t like his acting, I don’t like his diary, Lord knows, he talks nonsense!’

  Becoming irritated, she rose. ‘I can’t understand what’s the matter with me. But I have this urge for a bust-up, to create a commotion, for the dust to fly, and for me to be reduced to a sweating heap.’ Then, turning suddenly to me, she said, ‘Sadaq, what do you think, what kind of woman do you think I am?’

  I smiled. ‘Cats and women have always remained beyond my comprehension.’

  ‘Why?’ she shot back.

  I thought about it for a moment, then answered, ‘In our house, there used to be a cat. Once a year, she would succumb to bouts of mewing and crying. In answer to her cries and meows, a tomcat would appear. Then the two would brawl and fight and there would be bloodletting like you won’t believe. But after it, this spinster cat would be the mother of four kittens.’

  Neelam’s face soured as if she had a bad taste in her mouth. ‘Thooo!’ she spat, ‘You really are filthy.’ Then after a while, sweetening her mouth with a cardamom, she said, ‘I have a horror of children. But anyway, moving on.’

  She opened her paan box, and with her slim fingers, began making me a paan. With a tiny spoon, she took out the paste and powder from various silver containers, and with great care, spread them onto a deveined paan leaf. Then, folding it into a long, triangular shape, she handed it to me. ‘Sadaq, what do you think?’

  She said this and seemed to go blank.

  ‘What about?’ I asked.

  Cutting roasted pieces of betel nut with a cutter, she replied, ‘About this nonsense that has needlessly begun—if it isn’t nonsense, what is it? I don’t understand any of it. I feel like I’m always the one tearing everything up and forever sewing it back together. If it carries on any longer, you know what’s going to happen… You have no idea, I can be a very fierce woman.’