My Name Is Radha Read online

  Just to keep the conversation rolling, I asked, ‘It doesn’t look as though she’s interested in this business; why don’t you send her back home to Punjab? I’ll give you her train fare.’

  Dhondo was put off by my offer. ‘Manto Sahib, train fare isn’t the problem. Do you think I can’t pay for it myself?’

  ‘So why don’t you?’ I tried to poke around.

  He was quiet for a while. Then he removed the cigarette tucked behind his ear, lit it, and, expelling twin jets of smoke from his nostrils, said only, ‘I don’t want her to go.’

  I had the uncanny feeling that I was finally on to something. ‘Are you in love with her?’ I asked.

  This had a strange effect on him. ‘What kind of talk is that, Manto Sahib?’ He touched both his ears, and said, ‘I swear by the Qur’an, I wouldn’t even dream of such a filthy thought. I just . . .’ he hesitated, ‘just . . . kind of like her.’

  ‘Why?’

  I guess I had asked him the right question for Dhondo also gave the right answer: ‘Because . . . because she isn’t like other girls. They crave money! What wouldn’t they do to grab it—those bitches! But this one, she’s something else. When I bring her out to a passenger, she gives the impression that she’s willing, so the deal is struck and she hops into the taxi or the victoria. Now, Manto Sahib, the passenger is out to have a good time, he wants some action, it’s why he’s spending so much money after all. So he tries to feel her with his hand, or just touch her. And that’s when all hell breaks loose. She creates a ruckus and resorts to fisticuffs. Now, if the man is a gentleman, he takes to his heels, but if he’s drunk or a rake, a storm erupts. Every time something like this happens I’m dragged into it and put on the spot. I have to return the money and get on my knees to calm down the enraged client. All for the sake of Siraj, I swear by the Qur’an . . . and, Manto Sahib, that saali has wrecked my business, it’s down by half—honestly.’

  I would rather not talk about the backstory my mind had woven for Siraj, except to say that it didn’t match whatever Dhondo had told me about her.

  The thought that I could meet her without Dhondo’s knowledge crossed my mind one day. She lived near Byculla Railway Station in an atrociously dingy area surrounded by great piles of garbage and refuse. The corporation had put up numerous metal housing units for the poor there. I don’t want to discuss the plush high-rise buildings that loomed just a short distance away from this slimy filth; they have nothing to do with this story. Where is there a world bereft of highs and lows?

  Dhondo had once told me about her place. I went there, doing my best not to let my respectable appearance stand out in this ramshackle milieu, but here, of course, it is not I who am the subject.

  Anyway, I went there. A she-goat was tethered outside her shack. It bleated the moment it saw me. An old hag came out tapping her walking stick, looking like a witch who had stepped straight out of some moth-eaten pages of ancient dastaans. I was about to turn back when I spotted two inordinately large eyes behind the tattered gunnysack curtain hanging over the entrance, gaping as wide as the holes in the curtain. And then I saw Siraj’s oval face. Anger at those eyes that had so brazenly appropriated most of that face swelled inside me. She saw me. God only knows what she was doing inside the shack. Whatever it was, she stopped and came out immediately. ‘What brings you here?’ she asked, ignoring the old crone.

  ‘I wanted to see you.’ I gave a brief answer.

  ‘Come in,’ she said, with equal brevity.

  ‘No, you come with me.’

  ‘It will be ten rupees,’ the dastaanesque old witch said in a brusque, businesslike manner.

  I pulled out a ten-rupee note from my wallet and gave it to the old hag. ‘Come,’ I said to Siraj.

  The penetrating intensity of her unusually large eyes subsided just a little for me to look into hers unhindered for the briefest moment. I again concluded that she was beautiful. A shrivelled, embalmed beauty, preserved and buried for centuries in an underground vault. For a moment I felt I was in Egypt, digging up ancient tombs. I don’t want to go into greater detail.

  Siraj and I went to a restaurant. She sat across from me in her filthy clothes, her eyes crowding her oval face, and not just her face but her entire being, so mercilessly that I couldn’t discern even an atom of her being.

  I had already handed over the ten rupees the old hag had quoted to me. I now gave Siraj forty more. I wanted her to quarrel with me, just as she did with the others, with the same vehemence. That’s why I didn’t say anything that might have seemed loving or sincere in the least. I was also apprehensive about her big eyes—big enough to see not just me but the whole world around me as well.

  She was absolutely silent. To touch her in a provocative manner required that I feel aroused not just in my body but also in my thoughts, so I downed four pegs of whisky and groped her like any old passenger. She didn’t resist. Then I did something totally atrocious, which I thought would be the spark needed to ignite the explosives collecting inside of her for ages. Instead—I noticed with not a little amazement—she became much calmer. She got up and, assessing me with her large eyes, said, ‘Get me a joint.’

  ‘Have some liquor instead.’

  ‘No. I want pot.’

  I ordered a joint. She took a drag in the peculiar manner of seasoned users and looked at me, her eyes having relinquished their relentless possession of her face, though not ungrudgingly. Her face now took on the desolation of an overrun kingdom, a land laid to waste. Its every feature merely traced a line of utter bleakness, of stark despair. What was this desolation . . . and why? Often it is the inhabited settlements that cause their own ruination. Was she a habitation that had been stifled in its growth by some invader, leaving its walls, barely a metre high, in ruins?

  I was extremely muddled, but I don’t want to drag you into this confusion. What I was thinking and what conclusion I drew is not your business.

  Whether or not Siraj was a virgin was not something I wanted to know. But in the curling smoke of the joint I did observe a gleam in her blank, melancholy eyes which even I can’t adequately describe.

  I wanted her to talk to me, but she had no interest. I wanted her to argue and squabble with me; here too she disappointed me.

  Finally I took her back to her place.

  Dhondo was quite offended when he found out about my secret meeting with Siraj. Both his friendly and business feelings were adversely affected. He didn’t let me explain myself and said only, ‘Manto Sahib, I didn’t expect this from you.’ He spoke his mind, stepped away from his lamp-post anchor, and left.

  Strangely, I didn’t see him at his haunt at his regular time the next evening, which made me think he might be sick. But he didn’t show up the following day either.

  A week went by. I passed this spot every morning and evening. The sight of the lamp post never failed to remind me of Dhondo. I even went to that unspeakably squalid slum near Byculla Station to find out if Siraj was still there, but I only found the crumbly old witch. ‘She left,’ she said when I asked her about Siraj. Then, evoking sexual desires that had lain dormant for aeons in her toothless smile, she added, ‘There are others . . . Shall I send for someone?’

  ‘What does this mean—both of them gone?’ I wondered. ‘And that too in the wake of my secret meeting?’ While I wasn’t at all concerned about my secret meeting—here again I don’t wish to reveal my thoughts—I was quite amazed at their simultaneous disappearance. Nothing like what passes for ‘love’ existed between the two. Dhondo was above such things. He had a wife and children whom he loved dearly. Then what was behind their disappearance?

  I thought it likely that Dhondo had suddenly decided it would be best for Siraj to return to her native Punjab. He might have been undecided about it earlier, but then he must have quickly made up his mind.

  A whole month passed.

  One evening, unexpectedly, I spotted Dhondo glued to the same lamp post. This gave me the unavoidable feeling that t
he electricity, which had been out for quite a while, had suddenly been restored and had brought the lamp post back to life, the telephone box too. The networks of lines above the post, running every which way, seemed to be whispering among themselves. He looked at me and smiled as I passed by.

  We were sitting in the Irani teahouse now. I didn’t ask him anything. He ordered the usual coffee–tea blend for himself, a plain tea for me, and squirmed in his seat a while before settling down in a way that suggested he was about to tell me something very serious. But he only said, ‘So tell me, Manto Sahib, how’s it going?’

  ‘What’s there to tell, Dhondo, it just plods along.’

  He smiled. ‘Absolutely right! It plods along . . . and will plod along. But this silly “plodding along” is strange. And if you ask me, just about everything in this world is strange.’

  ‘You’re right, Dhondo.’

  The tea arrived. As was his habit, he poured some in his saucer and said, ‘Manto Sahib, she told me everything. She said, “That seth friend of yours—he’s cuckoo in his head.”’

  I laughed. ‘What made her say that?’

  ‘She said, “He took me to a restaurant . . . gave me so much money . . . but he had nothing of the usual seths in him.”’

  I felt embarrassed at my callowness. ‘Couldn’t be helped. The whole thing was so weird.’

  Dhondo laughed his head off. ‘Don’t I know it! Please forgive me for having lost my cool that day.’ His voice inadvertently took on a shade of informality. ‘But that story is over now.’

  ‘What story?’

  ‘That saali . . . Siraj . . . her story, who else’s?’

  ‘What happened?’ I asked.

  Dhondo started twittering: ‘When she came back after meeting you that day, she told me, “I have forty rupees. Come, take me to Lahore.” I said, “Saali, what devil has gotten into your head all of a sudden?” She said, “No, Dhondo, let’s go. I beg you.” As you know, Manto Sahib, it’s not in me to turn her down, because I kind of like her. So I said, “Fine, let’s go.” We bought tickets and boarded the train. At Lahore, we stayed in a hotel. She asked me to get her a burqa so I did. She donned it and started roaming around the streets and alleys all over the city. After a few days, I told myself, “Well, Dhondo, that’s something! She was crazy and now you’ve gone bananas too. No sane person would have come with her to the end of the world.”

  ‘Then, one day, she suddenly asked the coachman to pull the tonga over. She pointed at a man and told me, “Dhondo, go get him. I’m going back to the hotel. You bring him there.” I lost my wits, Manto Sahib. I got down from the tonga and she took off. There I was, following that man. By the grace of God and your blessings, I kind of guessed what kind of man he was. I exchanged a few words with him and found out that he was the kind that are on the lookout for fun and action, no doubt about it. I told him, “I’ve got a choice piece from Bombay, what do you say?” He said, “Take me to her right away.” I said, “No, first show me the dough.” He pulled out a whole wad of notes. I said to myself, “Dhondo, my man, yes, you’re in business here too.” What puzzled me, though, was why Siraj had singled him out in all of Lahore. “Well,” I said to myself, “here goes.” I hired a tonga, took him straight to the hotel and informed Siraj. She said, “Wait for a while.” We waited for some time, and then I took the man inside. By the way, he was quite good-looking. The minute he saw Siraj he reared up like a horse, but she grabbed him.’

  Dhondo paused. He finished his coffee–tea mix, stone cold by now, in one big gulp and lit a biri.

  ‘So Siraj grabbed him,’ I prompted.

  ‘Yes, she did, that saala,’ he said in a loud voice. ‘She told him, “Let me see where you’ll escape to now. You made me leave my home—what for? I loved you. You said that you loved me too. But when I eloped with you, leaving behind my home and my parents, leaving Amritsar, we stayed here in this very hotel and you disappeared during the night. You left me all alone. Why did you bring me here? Why did you make me run away? I was ready for everything, but you didn’t care a fig about me. You took off. Come on, it’s me who’s calling you now. My love is still fresh. Come on . . .” Manto Sahib, she draped herself around him. That saala started shedding big fat tears. He begged for her forgiveness, saying, “I made a terrible mistake. I panicked. I’ll never leave you again.” He kept swearing to God that he would never do such a thing again. God knows what else he kept babbling! Siraj gave me a sign and I left the room. Next morning as I was sleeping on a cot outside, Siraj woke me up. “Well, Dhondo, let’s go,” she said, “Go where?” I asked. “Back to Bombay,” she answered. “And where is that saala?” I asked. She said, “He’s sleeping. I’ve put my burqa on top of him.”’

  Just as Dhondo was ordering another cup of coffee mixed with tea, Siraj came in, her fair, oval face fresh and blossoming, her great big eyes looking like two lowered railway signals.

  Sharda

  Nazir went to buy a bottle of whisky from the black market. There was a cigarette stall near the entrance to the pier, just before the main post office, where he always got Scotch at a reasonable price. He paid thirty-five rupees and took a bottle wrapped in paper. Must have been around eleven in the morning. Although he usually started drinking after sundown, the weather was so gorgeous that he’d thought he might get started now and keep going well into the evening.

  Bottle in hand, he set out for home in an exuberant mood. He decided to catch a taxi at the Bori Bunder stand, leisurely sip a bit of the Scotch during the ride and arrive home pleasantly inebriated. If his wife made a fuss, he would simply say, ‘Just look at the weather—isn’t it heavenly?’ and then recite a few lines of insipid poetry, ‘The clouds won’t let the angels in; / all sins will be counted as good deeds today.’ Of course, she would nag him for a while, but eventually she would calm down and, perhaps, at his request, get busy making parathas filled with ground meat.

  He had only taken a few steps away from the stall when a man greeted him. Given his weak memory, Nazir failed to recognize him but he pretended otherwise and said courteously, ‘Where have you been all these days? Haven’t seen you in ages.’

  The man smiled. ‘Sir, I’m always right here; it’s you who have made yourself scarce.’

  Nazir still couldn’t place him. ‘Well, I’m here now.’

  ‘In that case, come with me.’

  Nazir was in a very buoyant mood. He said, ‘All right, let’s go.’

  Spotting the bottle tucked under Nazir’s arm, the man said with a knowing smile, ‘You seem to have everything else with you.’

  ‘He’s got to be a pimp,’ Nazir suddenly realized. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

  ‘Karim. Don’t tell me you forgot.’

  It all came back to Nazir. Before he got married, a certain Karim used to procure nice girls for him. He was an exceptionally honest pimp. Nazir looked at him closely and saw a familiar face. The events of a not-so-long-ago past floated in his memory. ‘Sorry, yaar, I didn’t recognize you,’ he apologized. ‘It’s been nearly six years since we last met, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘You used to do your business at the corner of Grant Road.’

  ‘I’ve moved,’ Karim said with burgeoning pride as he lit his biri, ‘thanks to your good wishes. Now I work from a hotel.’

  ‘Excellent!’ Nazir congratulated him. ‘You’ve done well for yourself.’

  ‘Altogether I have ten girls,’ Karim said with even greater pride, ‘and one of them is brand new.’

  ‘Oh, you guys! You always say that,’ Nazir teased him.

  But Karim took it badly. ‘I swear by the Qur’an, I’ve never lied in my entire life. May I eat a pig’s flesh if this girl isn’t a novice.’ He then dropped his voice and whispered conspiratorially, ‘She had her first passenger just eight days ago—I’ll be damned if I lie.’

  ‘Was she a virgin?’

  ‘Absolutely. That passenger had to shell out two hundred rupees.�
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  Nazir poked Karim in the ribs. ‘I see you’re already at it, I mean fixing the price.’

  Karim felt offended. ‘By the Qur’an, may he who bargains with you become a swine. Please come with me. Pay whatever you will. I’ll accept it gladly. Karim has a lot to thank you for.’

  Nazir had four hundred and fifty rupees on him. The weather was exceptional, and his mood no less exuberant. He travelled six years back in time, inebriated already without even having a drop. ‘Why not, yaar, let’s live it up. But first, let’s get another bottle.’

  ‘How much did you pay for this one?’ Karim inquired.

  ‘Thirty-five.’

  ‘Brand?’

  ‘Johnnie Walker.’

  ‘I’ll get you one for thirty,’ Karim said, patting his chest.

  ‘Don’t let me stand in your way, be my guest—here.’ Nazir took out three ten-rupee notes and handed them to Karim. ‘After you’ve taken me to her, the first thing you should do is get the bottle. Remember, I don’t like to drink alone.’

  ‘And, perhaps you remember, I never drink more than a peg and a half,’ Karim said smiling.

  Yes—Nazir recalled—six years ago, Karim had always drunk only a peg and a half. The memory made him smile. ‘Have two today.’

  ‘No, sir, not a drop more.’

  Karim stopped near a dismal building with a shabby sign in one corner announcing Marina Hotel. It was a beautiful name, but the building was filthy, with a rickety, crumbling staircase. A bunch of Pathan moneylenders in baggy shalwars lounged on cots near the entrance. The ground floor seemed to have been appropriated by Christians; a slew of native sailors lived on the second floor; and the third had been taken over by the hotel’s owner for his personal use. Karim had a corner room on the fourth floor, where several girls sat huddled together like chickens cooped up in their pen.

  He sent for the key from the owner and opened the door to a spacious but ill-proportioned room. It had a steel-frame cot, a chair and a tea table. The room was exposed on three sides, that is, it had a profusion of windows, most of them with the glass broken. If nothing else, at least it boasted an airy environment.