‘And what do you hope to accomplish with this fierceness?’
The same faint, hidden smile rose to Neelam’s thin lips. ‘You’re shameless. You understand everything, but you must draw it all out, with this gentle prodding of yours.’ As she said this, her eyes became bloodshot.
‘Why won’t you understand that I’m a very hottempered woman!’ She rose suddenly and said, ‘Now, go. I want to have a bath.’
I left.
For many days after this, Neelam said nothing about Raj Kishore to me. But we were both aware of each other’s thoughts. I would know what she was thinking and she would know what I was thinking. For several days, this silent back and forth continued.
One afternoon, Kriplani, the director of The Beauty of the Forest, was conducting the heroine’s rehearsal and we were all gathered in the music room. Neelam sat on a chair, gently keeping time with the movement of her foot. It was a popular song, but the music was good. When the rehearsal ended, Raj Kishore, his khadi bag slung over one shoulder, entered the room. He greeted director Kriplani, music director Ghosh and sound recordist PN Mogha in English, then greeted the heroine, Ms Eedan Bai, with folded hands. ‘Sister Eedan, I saw you in Crawford Market yesterday. I was buying oranges for your bhabhi when I saw your car.’ Swaying, talking, his gaze fell on Neelam, who sat slouched in a low chair near the piano. Immediately, he folded his hands in greeting. Neelam saw this and rose. ‘Raj saab, please. Don’t address me as “sister”.’
She said it in a tone that, for a moment, left everyone in the music room dumbfounded. Raj Kishore flushed and managed only to say, ‘Why?’
Neelam left the room without a reply.
Three days later, when I passed through Nagpara late in the afternoon, this incident was being mulled over at Sham Lal’s, the paanwallah. Sham Lal was saying with great pride: ‘The bitch must have a dirty mind. Otherwise, who could take offence at Raj bhai calling them “sister”? Whatever it is, she won’t have her way with him. Raj bhai knows to keep his dick in his trousers.’
I was pretty fed up with Raj bhai’s trousers, but I didn’t say anything to Sham Lal. I sat in silence, listening to his and his client-friends’ banter, in which there was mostly rumour and little truth.
The incident in the music room became known to everyone in the studio. And for three days, it was the only subject of conversation; why had Ms Neelam stopped Raj Kishore from calling her ‘sister’? I hadn’t heard anything directly from Raj Kishore on the subject, but I found out through a friend of his that he’d written a riveting reflection on it in his diary, in which he’d prayed that Ms Neelam’s heart and mind be cleansed of corruption.
Days passed after this incident and nothing worthy of mention occurred.
Neelam became more serious than before and Raj Kishore’s kurta buttons were now always open, his pale chest bulging, its black hair poking out.
Since the rain had subsided and The Beauty of the Forest’s fourth set had dried, director Kriplani pasted a shooting schedule on the notice board. The scene that was to be shot was between Raj Kishore and Neelam. Because I’d written the dialogue for it, I knew that Raj Kishore, mid-conversation, was to take Neelam’s hand and kiss it.
The scene didn’t in any way lend itself to the kiss. But just as women are often made to wear racy clothes on screen to tantalise the audience, the director thought he’d use an old formula and add this little ‘touch’ of the hand kiss.
I was present on the set, my heart racing as the shooting began. What would Raj Kishore and Neelam’s reaction be? Just thinking of it sent a wave of excitement through my body. But the scene was completed without incident. After every dialogue, the electric lamps, with wearying tedium, brightened and darkened. The orders to ‘start’ and ‘cut’ rang out. In the evening, when the time for the scene’s climax approached, Raj Kishore played his part with great romantic flair, taking Neelam’s hand in his. But just as he was about to kiss it, he turned his back to the camera, kissing his own hand and letting go of hers.
I thought Neelam would pull her hand away and slap Raj Kishore across the face, so hard that in the recording room, PN Mogha’s eardrums would burst. But instead, I saw a faint smile appear on her thin lips. There wasn’t a trace of a woman’s hurt feelings in that smile. It was not at all what I expected of Neelam, but I didn’t mention it to her. Two or three days went by without her mentioning it either, and I came to the conclusion that she had not felt the sting of the incident. Perhaps the thought had not entered her usually sensitive mind. And the only possible reason for this was that in Raj Kishore’s voice, so used to referring to women as ‘sister’, she had been hearing terms of endearment.
Why had Raj Kishore kissed his own hand instead of Neelam’s? Had he been taking revenge? Had he been trying to humiliate her? Questions arose in my mind, but no answer was forthcoming.
Four days later, when I paid my customary visit to Sham Lal’s in Nagpara, he complained bitterly, ‘Manto saab, you don’t give us any news of what goes on in your company! You either don’t want to tell us or else you don’t know? Do you know what Raj bhai did?’
He recounted his own version of the story: ‘There was a scene in The Beauty of the Forest, for which the director asked Raj bhai to kiss Ms Neelam on the mouth, but saab, can you imagine, Raj bhai on one hand, and that cheap slut on the other? Raj bhai said right away, “No, sir. This, I’m never going to do. I have a wife. Am I to return home and touch my lips to hers after I’ve kissed this debased woman?” That was enough, the director immediately changed the scene and said, “Alright, don’t kiss her mouth, just her hand will do.” But Raj saab was no amateur. When the time came, he clearly kissed his own hand, but in such a way that his audience felt he kissed this bitch’s hand.’
I didn’t mention any of this talk to Neelam; I felt that as she knew nothing of this entire episode, there was no point in needlessly upsetting her.
Malaria is common in Bombay. I don’t remember what month it was, or the date; I only remember that the fifth set of The Beauty of the Forest was up and it was raining hard when Neelam suddenly succumbed to a high fever. I didn’t have much work at the studio and so I sat for hours at her bedside, tending to her. The malaria had brought an unnatural yellow tone to her dark complexion. There was now a trace of helplessness in the bitter downturn of her eyes and mouth.
The quinine injections had reduced her power of hearing and she was forced to raise her frail voice when she spoke. Her own feeling was that it was me who had gone deaf.
One day, after her fever had subsided, she lay in bed, thanking Eedan Bai in a weakened voice for coming to see her, when there was the sound of a car horn downstairs. I looked; the noise sent a shudder through Neelam’s body.
After a while, the room’s heavy teak door opened and Raj Kishore appeared in a white kurta and close-fitting pyjamas. He entered the room with his dowdy wife at his side.
He greeted Eedan Bai as ‘sister Eedan’, shook my hand, and after introducing us all to his homely, tired-faced wife, sat down at Neelam’s bedside. For some time, he just sat there, smiling into the emptiness. Then he turned towards Neelam, and for the first time, I saw in his clear eyes a murky emotion.
I had barely registered my surprise when he began saying in a playful tone, ‘I’d been meaning to come and see you for many days, but my wretched car engine’s been giving trouble. It’s been lying in the workshop for the past ten days. It returned today and so I said [he gestured to his wife], “Come on Shanti, we’ll go this minute. Do the housework another time. And by pure chance, today is Raksha Bandhan, we’ll go and check up on sister Neelam as well as get her to tie my rakhi.” ’
With this, he took out a silk, tasselled rakhi from the pocket of his kurta. Neelam’s sallow face became still paler, and still more distressing.
Raj Kishore didn’t look in her direction. Addressing Eedan Bai, he said, ‘But not like this. This is a happy occasion; my sister can’t tie a rakhi on me in this state. Come on Shanti
, get up. Help her put on some lipstick or something. Where is the makeup box?’
Neelam’s makeup case lay on the mantelpiece. Taking two long strides, Raj Kishore brought it over. Neelam was silent. Her thin lips were tightly compressed, as if holding back a scream.
Shanti rose like an obedient wife and began putting makeup on Neelam, who offered no resistance; Eedan Bai propped up the lifeless corpse. When Shanti started painting Neelam’s lips in a singularly artless fashion, she looked at me and smiled; a smile that was really a scream.
I thought, no! Any minute now, Neelam’s tightly compressed lips will suddenly open, and like a mountain stream in the rains, tearing through solid dams, running madly forward, her bottled up emotions will burst forth with torrential speed, uproot us all from where we stand, and sweep us away to Lord knows what unknown depth. But to my great surprise, she didn’t say a word. The yellow of her skin was concealed by the dust of rouge; and she remained as expressionless as a stone figurine. When at last she was made up, she said in a firm voice to Raj Kishore: ‘Come, give it to me. I’ll tie the rakhi now.’
A moment later, the silk, tasselled rakhi was on Raj Kishore’s wrist. Neelam’s hands, far from trembling, were tying its knot, with stony composure. As it was happening, I saw once again, in Raj Kishore’s clear eyes, that same clouded emotion, but it melted into the sound of his laughter. In accordance with custom, he took out some money from an envelope and handed it to Neelam, who thanked him and put it under her pillow.
When everyone had gone, and Neelam and I were alone, she looked at me with a discomfited gaze. Then she rested her head on the pillow and remained silent. Raj Kishore had forgotten his bag on her bed. Neelam saw it and kicked it to one side. I sat for about two hours by her bedside, reading the newspaper. When she’d said nothing for a while, I got up and left without a word.
Three days after this incident, I was in my tiny, nine rupees a month room in Nagpara, shaving and listening to my neighbour, Mrs Fernandez, swear in the next door room, when I heard someone come in. I turned to look; it was Neelam.
For a moment, I thought I was mistaken; it had to be somebody else. Her dark red lipstick was smudged, making it appear as if her lips were bleeding; not a strand of hair was in place. The flowers on her white sari looked windswept. Three or four of her blouse’s hooks were open and there were scratches visible on her dark breasts.
I was too shocked to see Neelam in this state to ask what had happened, or even how she’d found out where I lived.
I shut the door immediately and pulled up a chair to sit next to her. She said, ‘I came straight here.’
‘From where?’ I asked softly.
‘From my house. And I’ve come to say that all the bullshit is over.’
‘Which?’
‘I knew he’d come back to my place when there was no one there. And he did. To get his bag!’ As she said this, that same faint, secretive smile played on the mouth which the lipstick had so completely defaced. ‘He came to get his bag. I said, “Sure, go ahead, it’s lying in the other room.” There must have been something different about my tone because he looked a little frightened. I said, “Don’t be afraid.” But when we went into the other room, instead of giving him the bag, I sat down at the dressing table and did my makeup.’
Neelam fell silent. She picked up the glass of water on the broken table in front of us, and drank it in a few short gulps. Wiping her lips with the end of her sari, she resumed her story: ‘For an hour, I did my makeup. I piled on as much lipstick as I could. I daubed my cheeks with as much rouge as they could take. He stood in silence in one corner, watching me in the mirror as I transformed into a proper witch. Then I walked with firm steps towards the door and locked it.’
‘What happened then?’
I looked at Neelam for the answer to my question. She had completely changed. She had wiped her mouth with her sari, and her lips had lost all colour. The tone of her voice was subdued, like red hot iron that had been beaten down with a hammer and anvil. She didn’t look like one now, but I can imagine she must truly have looked like a witch with her full makeup on.
She didn’t reply immediately to my question, but rose from the charpoy and went to sit at my desk. ‘I tore at him,’ she said at last. ‘I clung to him like a junglee cat. He clawed at my face; I clawed at his. For a long time, we wrestled with each other. And… he had the strength of a wild cat, but… But, like I once told you, I’m a fierce woman. My weakness, the weakness that the malaria had left—I didn’t feel at all. My body was burning up; sparks flew from my eyes; my bones stiffened. I caught him and began fighting him like a cat. I don’t know why or for what reason, I attacked him. Nothing passed between us that could be misconstrued. I was shrieking; he was groaning. I clawed the flowers from his white khadi kurta; he ripped several clumps of my hair from their root. He used all his strength, but I had already decided that victory would be mine. In the end, he lay on the carpet lifeless. I was panting, as if my breathing was about to stop. And though I was short of breath, I shredded his kurta to pieces. It was at that exact moment when I saw his firm, wide chest that I understood what it had been—what we’d tried, and failed, to understand…’ She got up quickly and threw her dishevelled hair to one side with a jerk of the head. ‘Sadaq,’ she said, ‘the bastard! His body really was beautiful. I don’t know what got into me. I lowered my head and began biting into it. He just lay there, whimpering. And when I joined my bleeding mouth to his and gave him a wild, heated kiss, he became cold, like a woman resigned to her fate. I got up and felt an immediate loathing for him. I looked down at him. My blood and lipstick had left vile, almost floral bruises on his beautiful body. When I looked up at my room, everything in it seemed illusory. And so I threw open the door, from fear that I would suffocate, and came directly to you.’
With this, she was silent, like a corpse. I became afraid; I touched her hand; it hung limply at her side, and was burning hot.
‘Neelam… Neelam.’
I called her name many times, but she didn’t respond. When at last I called it loudly, and in a frightened voice, she gave a start. Rising to leave, she said only this: ‘Saadat, my name is Radha.’
* The word in Urdu is tawwaif, which covers anything from a working prostitute to a dancing girl or courtesan.
* Spanish cherry tree
Ram Khilavan
I had just killed a bedbug, and was going through some old papers in a trunk, when I discovered Saeed bhaijan’s picture. I put the picture in an empty frame lying on the table and sat down to wait for the dhobi.
Every Sunday I would wait like this, because by the end of the week, my supply of clean clothes had run out. I can hardly call it supply; in those days of poverty, I had just about enough clothes to meet my own basic standards for five or six days. My marriage was being negotiated at the time and because of this I had been going for the past two or three Sundays to Mahim.
The dhobi was an honest man. Despite my sometimes being unable to pay him, he would return my clothes every Sunday by ten. I was worried that one of these days he would grow tired of my unpaid bills and sell my clothes in the flea market, leaving me with no clothes in which to negotiate my marriage. Which, needless to say, would have been cause for great humiliation.
The vile, unmistakable stench of dead bedbugs filled my room. I was wondering how to dispel it when the dhobi arrived. With a ‘salaam saab’, he opened his bundle and put my clean clothes on the table. As he was doing this, his gaze fell on Saeed bhaijan’s photograph. Taken aback, he looked closely at the picture and emitted a strange sound from his throat: ‘He, he, he, hein?’
‘What’s the matter, dhobi?’ I asked.
The dhobi’s gaze fixed on the picture. ‘But this, this is barrister Saeed Salim!’
‘You know him?’
The dhobi nodded his head vigorously. ‘Yes, two brothers. Lived in Colaba. Saeed Salim, barrister. I used to wash his clothes. ’
Saeed Hassan bhaijan and Mahmood
Hassan bhaijan, before immigrating to Fiji, did in fact have a practice in Bombay for a year, but this would have been a few years ago.
I said, ‘You’re referring to a couple of years ago?’
The dhobi nodded vigorously again. ‘Saeed Salim barrister when he left, he gave me one turban, one dhoti, one kurta. New. They were very nice people. One had a beard, this big.’ He made a gesture with his hand to show the length of the beard. Then pointing to Saeed bhaijan’s picture, said, ‘He was younger. He had three little runts… they used to like to play with me. They had a house in Colaba; a big house!’
I said, ‘Dhobi, they’re my brothers.’
The dhobi made that strange ‘he, he, he, hein?’ sound again. ‘Saeed Salim, barrister?’
To lessen his surprise, I said, ‘This is Saeed Hassan’s picture and the one with the beard is Mahmood Hassan, the eldest.’
The dhobi stared wide-eyed at me, then surveyed the squalor of my room. It was a tiny room, destitute of even an electric light. There was one table, one chair and one sack-covered cot with a thousand bedbugs. He couldn’t believe I was barrister Saeed Salim’s brother, but when I told him many stories about him, he shook his head incredulously and said, ‘Saeed Salim, barrister lived in Colaba, and you in this quarter?’
I responded philosophically: ‘The world has many colours, dhobi. Sun in places; shade in others. Five fingers are not alike.’
‘Yes, saab. That is true.’
With this, he lifted his bundle and headed to the door. I remembered his bill. I had eight annas in my pocket, which would barely get me to Mahim and back. But just so that he knew I was not entirely without principles, I said, ‘Dhobi, I hope you’re keeping accounts. God knows how many washes I owe you for.’
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