Manto

by Saadat Hasan Manto

  ‘Yes, alright,’ she replied in a quiet voice.

  After this, Babaji turned the conversation away from the subject of marriage and towards the political activities in the Jallianwala Bagh camp. Ghulam, Nigar and Kamal sat at length, discussing arrests, releases, milk, lassi and vegetables while I, still struck dumb, was left wondering why Babaji had been so tentative in giving his consent to the marriage. Did he doubt Ghulam Ali and Nigar’s love for each other? Did he mistrust Ghulam Ali’s integrity? Had he invited Nigar to the ashram so that she might forget her soon to be imprisoned fiancé? And as for Babaji’s question, ‘When will you marry, Kamal?’, why had Kamal replied, ‘But I am to go to your ashram’? Did men and women not marry in the ashram? My mind came under the grip of a strange turmoil even as those around me discussed whether the lady volunteers would be able to prepare chapattis on time for five hundred. Were there enough chickpeas? How big was the pan? And couldn’t a single large wood stove be constructed with a pan of the same size, on which as many as six women could make rotis simultaneously?

  I wondered whether Kamal, the panditani, would spend her time in the ashram singing patriotic and devotional songs for Babaji. I had met some of the ashram’s male volunteers. The whole lot of them, according to the rules of the place, rose early, bathed, brushed their teeth, lived in the open, sang devotional songs, but their clothes reeked of sweat, often their breath was bad and that colour and vigour that comes to men when they live in the outdoors was entirely absent in them.

  Stooped, subdued, sallow, sunken-eyed and weakbodied, like some cow’s deflated udders, lifeless and inert, yes, I’d seen the ashram’s men often in Jallianwala Bagh. But now I wondered, would the murky eyes of these same men who stank somehow of stale grass ogle this panditani made of milk, honey and saffron? Would these same men, with their foul-smelling breath, make conversation with this fragranced creature? Then I checked myself, India’s independence was more important than these considerations; maybe.

  For all my love of my country and my passion for independence, I couldn’t quite comprehend this ‘maybe’ because at that moment I thought of Nigar, sitting next to me, telling Babaji that turnips take a long time to soften. Where were turnips and where was the marriage that she and Ghulam Ali had come to seek permission for!

  I began to think of Nigar in the ashram. I hadn’t seen it myself, but I have always—I’m not sure why—felt a hatred for these places that go by the names of ashrams, shelters, seminaries and retreats. I have on many occasions seen the students and administrators of these shelters for the blind and orphaned, walking the streets in a column, begging for money. I have seen seminaries and madrasas with boys in shortened religious pyjamas, their foreheads calloused from prayer, in childhood; the older ones, with their thick, black beards; the younger, with that truly repugnant combination of thick and fine hair on their cheeks and chins. They carry on piously reading their prayers, but in each of their eyes, animal passions are clearly visible.

  Nigar was a woman, not a Muslim, Hindu or Christian woman, just a woman; no, she was more than that, she was like a prayer incarnate of her love for Ghulam Ali. A woman like this had no need to raise her hands in prayer at Babaji’s ashram, where daily prayer was a regulation.

  When I look back now, Babaji, Nigar, Ghulam Ali, the beautiful panditani and Amritsar’s entire atmosphere at that time, infused with the romance of the independence movement, appear to me like a dream, a dream which, once dreamt, begs to be dreamt again. And though I still haven’t seen Babaji’s ashram, the antipathy I possessed for it then, I still possess now.

  I have no regard for those places where men are frogmarched along rules that run contrary to their nature. Attaining independence was, without a doubt, the right thing to do and I could understand it if a man should die in attaining it, but that some poor wretch should be defanged, made as benign as a vegetable for its sake—this was utterly beyond my comprehension.

  Living in huts, forsaking bodily comforts, singing God’s praises, shouting patriotic slogans—all this was fine, but to slowly deaden one’s senses, one’s bodily desires—what was meant by that? What was left of a man in whom the longing for beauty and drama had died? What distinctiveness, what particularity could remain then between the various pastures of these ashrams, madrasas, shelters and retreats?

  Babaji sat at length, talking to Ghulam Ali and Nigar about the political activities at Jallianwala Bagh. At last, he said to this couple who, naturally, hadn’t forgotten their original purpose in coming to see him, that they should come the following evening to Jallianwala Bagh, where they would be made man and wife.

  Ghulam Ali and Nigar were elated. What better fortune could they have than Babaji himself conducting their marriage ceremony. Ghulam Ali told me much later, that he was so happy at the news that he felt he had misheard it. Even a slight gesture from Babaji’s frail hands became a historical incident. Would such a great personage really come to Jallianwala Bagh to take interest in the marriage of an ordinary man such as himself, who had only by accident become the Congress ‘dictator’! Surely, it would be front page news in every newspaper in India.

  Ghulam Ali was sure that Babaji wouldn’t come; he would be too busy—although he said this in the hope that the opposite would occur. He was proved wrong. At six in the evening in Jallianwala Bagh, when bushes of raat ki rani prepared to diffuse their fragrance, and countless volunteers, after erecting a tent for the bride and groom, now decorated it with jasmine and roses, Babaji, accompanied by the patriotic, song-singing panditani, his secretary and Lala Hari Ram, arrived, pawing the ground with his stick. News of his arrival reached Jallianwala Bagh the moment Lala Hari Ram’s green car stopped in front of the main entrance.

  I was there too. In one tent, the lady volunteers were dressing Nigar up as a bride. Ghulam Ali had made no special preparations. He had spent most of the day with the city’s Congress merchants, discussing the volunteers’ needs. His few spare moments, he spent talking to Nigar in private. He didn’t brief his subordinate officers any more than telling them that Nigar and he wished to raise the flag after the marriage ceremony.

  When Ghulam Ali received news of Babaji’s arrival, he was standing near the well. I was perhaps telling him at the time: ‘Ghulam Ali, do you know that when the bullets flew here, this well became full to the brim with bodies. Today, everyone drinks its water. The garden’s flowers soak it up and people come and pick the flowers. And yet, there’s never the salty taste of blood in the water or flower buds carrying something of its redness. What a thing!’

  I remember well, I said this and looked ahead at the window of a house from which it is said that a young girl had sat watching the scenes below, when she became the victim of one of General Dyer’s stray bullets. The streaks of blood from her chest faded slowly from the house’s old walls.

  But blood had become cheap, and spilling it hardly produced the same effect anymore. I remember that seven or eight months after the massacre in Jallianwala Bagh, my third or fourth grade teacher had brought the entire class here. The garden then was not a garden; it was a dry, desolate, uneven piece of land where, at every step, one’s foot knocked against the lumpy earth. I remember our teacher finding a piece of mud, stained perhaps with paan spittle. ‘Look,’ he said, holding it up before the class, ‘it’s still stained with the blood of our martyrs.’

  As I write this story, countless other incidents, etched into my memory, rise to the surface. But yes, I was recounting the story of Ghulam Ali and Nigar’s wedding!

  When Ghulam Ali heard of Babaji’s arrival, he rushed to gather all the other volunteers, who greeted Babaji with a military style salute. After this, he and Ghulam Ali spent considerable time doing the rounds of the various camps. Babaji, who had a sharp sense of humour, cracked a number of one-liners as he spoke to the lady volunteers and other workers.

  When candles could be seen burning in the occasional window, and a kind of half-light fell over Jallianwala Bagh, all the female v
olunteers began to sing devotional songs in one voice. A few were harmonious; the rest, tuneless. But their collective effect was pleasing. Babaji closed his eyes and listened. About one thousand people were present, sitting around the stage on the floor. Except for the girls singing devotional songs, everybody else sat in silence.

  The singing ended and for some moments a pregnant silence prevailed. When Babaji opened his eyes and said in his sweet voice, ‘Children, as you know, I’ve come here today to make two lovers of freedom one,’ the garden erupted in passionate slogans.

  Nigar, in her bridal clothes, sat on one end of the stage with her head lowered. She looked beautiful in her khadi tricolour sari. Babaji gestured to her to come over and sat her down next to Ghulam Ali. At this, more passionate slogans rang out. Ghulam Ali’s face glowed more brightly than usual. I looked closely and saw that when he took the marriage documents from his friend and gave them to Babaji, his hands were trembling.

  There was a maulvi on the stage as well. He read the Koranic verses that are usually read on these occasions. Babaji closed his eyes. Once the marriage rites were complete, Babaji blessed the couple in his distinct way. And when dried dates were showered on the stage, he jumped at them like a child, collecting a few to keep next to him.

  A Hindu girlfriend of Nigar’s, smiling shyly, gave Ghulam Ali a little box and said something to him. Ghulam Ali opened the little box and marked Nigar’s forehead with a streak of sindoor. Jallianwala Bagh once again thundered with applause. Babaji rose to address this clamour. The crowd immediately fell silent.

  The pleasant scent of raat ki rani and jasmine floated through the mild evening air. It was a beautiful evening. Babaji’s voice seemed sweeter still. After expressing his heartfelt joy at Ghulam Ali and Nigar’s marriage, he said, ‘These children will now serve their country and community with greater strength and purity. Because the true purpose of marriage is the pure friendship between a man and a woman. By being joined in friendship, Ghulam Ali and Nigar, together, can strive for freedom. In Europe, there are many such marriages whose objective is friendship and friendship alone. People such as these who remove lust from their lives are worthy of our respect.’

  Babaji spoke at length about his convictions on marriage. His belief was that the real happiness of marriage could only be attained when the relations between a man and a woman were not physical. He didn’t set nearly the same store by the sexual relationship between a man and a woman as society did. Thousands ate to satisfy their palate, but that didn’t mean that doing so was a human obligation. Far fewer ate only to stay alive. But in reality, it was these few who knew the correct principles behind eating and drinking. Similarly, those who married so that they might know the higher sentiments of marriage, and realise its full purity, were the ones who would know the true joy of conjugal life.

  Babaji explained the principles behind his convictions with a delicacy and subtlety that left the listener feeling that the doors to an entirely new world had opened for him. I myself found it very affecting. Ghulam Ali, who sat in front of me, seemed to drink in every word of his speech. When Babaji finished speaking, he said something to Nigar. After this, he rose and in a trembling voice announced: ‘Mine and Nigar’s marriage will be such an honourable marriage. Until the time when India attains its independence, mine and Nigar’s relationship will be no more than a friendship.’

  The still air of Jallianwala Bagh broke with the thunder of applause. Shahzada Ghulam Ali became emotional. His fair Kashmiri face filled with colour. In a surge of feeling he turned to Nigar and addressed her in a loud voice: ‘Nigar! Are you willing to mother a slave child? Would that please you?’

  Nigar, already unsettled, in part from becoming so recently married, and in part from hearing Babaji’s speech, became still more perturbed when she heard this bolt from the blue. She was only able to say, ‘Sorry? No, no, of course not.’

  The crowd applauded again and Ghulam Ali became still more emotional. He was so overjoyed at having saved Nigar from the shame of mothering slave children that he strayed from the subject at hand and launched into a tirade on attaining independence. For more than an hour, he spoke in a voice filled with emotion. Then, all of a sudden, his gaze fell on Nigar, and for some reason, his charge drained out of him. Like a drunk man forking out note after note and finding his wallet suddenly empty, Ghulam Ali found his power of speech exhausted. It left him in some turmoil, but then he looked immediately at Babaji, and lowering his head in reverence, said, ‘Babaji, we both ask your blessings that we may remain steadfast in the oath we have taken tonight.’

  The next day, at six in the morning, Ghulam Ali was arrested because in the speech he made after taking his oath, he had also threatened to overthrow the British government.

  A few days after his arrest, Ghulam Ali was sentenced to eight months in prison and sent to Multan jail. He was Amritsar’s forty first dictator and perhaps its forty thousand and first political prisoner. Forty thousand, as far as I can remember, was what the newspapers were quoting as the number arrested in the movement. The general view was that independence was now just a few steps away. But it had been the foreign politicians who had allowed the milk of this movement to reach its boiling point. And when they found they couldn’t come to an agreement with the major Indian leaders, it turned quickly to cold lassi.

  When the zealots were released from jail, they were forced to put the hardships of prison behind them, and set to work repairing their damaged businesses. Shahzada Ghulam Ali was released after only seven months. Though their former passion had fizzled out, people still gathered at Amritsar station to welcome him back. There were three or four dinners and meetings in his honour. I was present at all of them, but these gatherings were totally insipid. A strange fatigue prevailed, as if a man in the middle of a long distance run had suddenly been told, ‘Stop, this race has to be run again.’ And now, after catching their breath a while, it was as if the runners were reluctantly making their way back to the starting line.

  Many years passed. That joyless fatigue didn’t leave India. In my own world, many big and small revolutions occurred: my facial hair grew; I was admitted to college; I failed the FA examinations twice; my father died; I wandered about in search of employment. I was employed as a translator in a third rate newspaper. When I tired of this, I thought again of education. I was admitted to Aligarh University, but became a TB patient within only three months and went off to wander the Kashmiri countryside. Returning, I made for Bombay. Here, I saw three Hindu–Muslim riots in two years. When my nerves played up again, I went to Delhi. Compared to Bombay, I found everything there slowpaced. If there was movement here, it felt somehow effete. I felt Bombay was better. What did it matter that my next door neighbour didn’t even find the time to ask me my name? Besides, all kinds of sicknesses grew in places where people have too much time on their hands. And so after two cold years spent in Delhi, I went back to ever-moving Bombay.

  It had been some eight years since I had left home. I had had no news of friends or acquaintances, knew nothing of what state Amritsar’s streets and alleys were in. I had written no letters, kept up no correspondence. Truth be told, in those eight years, I had become somewhat uncaring of my future and so, didn’t dwell too long on the past. What was the point of accounting for what had been spent eight years before? After all, in life the pennies that are important are the ones you want to spend today or that might gain in value tomorrow.

  I speak now of a time six years ago, when neither from life’s rupees nor from silver ones, which carry the stamp of the emperor, had a penny been spent. But I couldn’t have been too broke though because I was on my way at the time to Fort to buy myself an expensive pair of shoes. On one side of the Army and Navy store on Harbani Road, there was a shop whose display windows had attracted me for a while. My memory is weak and so I spent a considerable amount of time looking for the shop.

  I had come to buy one pair of expensive shoes, but as is my tendency, I became absorbed
by the displays in the other shops. I looked at a cigarette case in one shop, a pipe in another, and in this way, had wandered down the street until I found myself outside a small shoe shop. Standing in front of it, I thought, why not just buy my shoes here? The shopkeeper welcomed me and said, ‘What are you looking for, sir?

  I thought for a moment about what I wanted, and said, ‘Yes, crepe rubber sole shoes.’

  ‘We don’t stock them here.’

  The monsoon was approaching and so I thought that maybe I should buy some gumboots.

  ‘In the next door shop,’ the man replied. ‘We don’t stock any items made of rubber in this shop.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked absentmindedly.

  ‘The owner’s wish.’

  Receiving this brief but faultless reply, I was about to leave the shop when I caught sight of a well dressed man standing on the pavement outside, carrying a child and buying oranges. I stepped outside and walked towards the fruit seller.

  ‘Arre! Ghulam Ali!’

  ‘Saadat!’ he said, and with the child still in his arms, pressed me against his chest. The child didn’t like this at all, and began to bawl. Ghulam Ali called over the man who a moment ago had told me that the shop didn’t stock anything made of rubber, and handed him the child. ‘Go and take him home,’ he said, then turning to me: ‘God, it’s been a long time!’

  I looked closely at his face. That playfulness, that rakish charm that had been his distinctive feature was gone. In place of the khadi clad young man, the fiery orator, there stood a domestic, ordinary sort of man. I remembered that last speech of his when he had set the still air of Jallianwala Bagh alight with the words, ‘Nigar! Are you willing to mother a slave child? Would that please you?’ Then, suddenly, I thought of the child he had been carrying a moment before. ‘Whose child was that?’ I asked. Without any hesitation, he replied, ‘Mine. And there’s one older than him as well. And you? How many have you produced?’