My Name Is Radha Read online

  Babu Gopinath, whose mind seemed to be elsewhere, started and said, ‘Yes, yes, Manto Sahib, you must come.’ Then he asked Sando, ‘Does Manto Sahib enjoy . . . You know . . .?’

  Sando exploded into laughter. ‘Are you kidding? He enjoys everything, not just that! Manto Sahib, you must come this evening. I’ve started drinking too, because it’s free.’

  Sando gave me the address. I arrived there at about six as promised. It was a neat and tidy three-room flat boasting brand new furniture. Apart from Sando and Babu Gopinath, two other men and two women were in the living room. Sando introduced them to me.

  One of the men was Ghaffar Sain, the perfect image of a Punjabi peasant. He was clad in a sarong and had a string of large beads around his neck. ‘Babu Gopinath’s legal adviser. You know what I mean?’ said Sando, introducing the man. ‘Any lunatic with a runny nose and a drooling mouth becomes a man of God in Punjab. This one’s also a man of God, or is getting there. He tagged along with Babu Gopinath from Lahore because he had no hope of ever finding another sucker in that land. Now he guzzles Scotch, smokes Craven A cigarettes and prays for Babu Gopinath’s well-being.’

  Throughout this introduction Ghaffar Sain kept smiling.

  The other man, tall and athletic with a pockmarked face, was called Ghulam Ali. Sando introduced him as: ‘My acolyte. He’s following precisely in the footsteps of his guru. The unmarried daughter of a well-known Lahore prostitute went bonkers over him. She brought all kinds of kuntiniutlian into motion to trap him, but he said, “Do or die, I’m not about to drop my pants.” He ran into Babu Gopinath at some shrine and has stuck to him ever since. He gets his meals and a tin of Craven A every day.’

  Ghulam Ali also kept smiling through this parsing of his person.

  There was also a fair-skinned, rosy-cheeked Kashmiri kabutri in the room. As soon as we walked in I concluded that she was the same Kashmiri kabutri Sando had alluded to in the office. A neat-looking young woman with short hair that gave the impression of just having been cut though it actually hadn’t been. Her eyes were clear and gleaming. Her features betrayed a coltishness and a lack of worldly experience. Sando introduced her thus: ‘Zeenat Begum, or Zeeno for short, as Babu Sahib calls her lovingly. This apple, plucked from Kashmir, was brought to Lahore by a seasoned madam. Babu Gopinath found out about her through his secret network and made off with her one night. A lot of legal wrangling ensued. For two whole months the police had a good time. At Babu Sahib’s expense, of course, but in the end, he won the court case and brought her here . . . dharan takhta!’

  The other woman, who sat quietly smoking a cigarette, was dark-complexioned and her red-streaked eyes oozed considerable brashness. Babu Gopinath pointed to her and said to Sando, ‘Say something about her too.’

  Slapping her on the thigh, Sando proclaimed, ‘And this, gentlemen, is teen patoti fulful boti, Mrs Abdur Rahim “Sando”, otherwise known as Sardar Begum. She too is a product of Lahore. Fell in love with me in 1936 and made a dharan takhta of me in two years flat. I fled Lahore. What do you know? Babu Gopinath sent for her to keep me amused. She too gets a daily ration of a tin of Craven A. She takes a morphine shot every evening, which costs two and a half rupees. Don’t let her dark complexion deceive you; she’s a real tit for tat woman.’

  ‘Don’t talk gibberish!’ Sardar only said this much, though not without a certain air—the feigned air of a seasoned professional.

  After introducing everyone, Sando began another round of my praises.

  ‘Enough, yaar,’ I said, ‘let’s talk about something else.’

  ‘Boy!’ he shouted with gusto. ‘Some whisky and soda,’ and then looking at the host, said, ‘Babu Gopinath, out with the green.’

  Babu Gopinath stuck his hand into his pocket, yanked out a wad of hundred-rupee bills and gave one to Sando. Sando stared at it with reverence, brandished it and said, ‘Oh God! My Rabbul Alameen,* would that a day might come when I too can lick my thumb and peel off note after note! On your feet, Ghulam Ali! Bring two bottles of Johnnie Walker Still-Going-Strong.’

  The bottles arrived in no time and we all began to drink. The evening lasted a good three hours, during which Abdur Rahim, as usual, talked the most. He downed the first glass in a single gulp and shouted, ‘Dharan takhta, Manto Sahib, now this is what I call perfect whisky. The second it goes blazing down my throat it inscribes “Long Live the Revolution!” inside my guts. Long Live Babu Gopinath!’

  Poor Babu Gopinath, he remained perfectly silent, though now and then he did chime in with Sando. I couldn’t help thinking that the man had no opinion of his own and went along with whatever anyone else said. Ghaffar Sain—whom Sando had anointed as Babu Gopinath’s ‘legal adviser’, which only meant Babu had faith in him—was the greatest proof of Babu’s gullibility. Then too, I gathered from the conversation that Babu had spent a good part of his time in Lahore in the company of fakirs and dervishes. There was an air of absent-mindedness in him, as if he was perpetually lost in distant thoughts, so I asked him at one point, ‘Babu Gopinath, what are you thinking about?’

  Startled, he said with a smile, ‘Me . . . nothing . . . nothing at all.’ Then glancing at Zeenat with a look full of tender love he exclaimed, ‘Just about these beauties. What else is there?’

  ‘He is a formidable home-wrecker, Manto Sahib, really formidable. You won’t find a single prostitute in all of Lahore who hasn’t had kuntinutely with him.’

  At this Babu Gopinath exclaimed with awkward modesty, ‘I don’t have it in me any more, Manto Sahib!’

  Soon the conversation veered towards smutty talk: a discussion of all the popular families of Lahore prostitutes, who among them was well to do, who a nautch-girl, who an employee of a bawd, how much did Babu Gopinath pay for the ritual deflowering of a girl. Only Sardar, Sando, Ghaffar Sain and Ghulam Ali participated in the conversation, using the typical jargon of Lahore’s bordellos. I understood most of it, though certain terms eluded me completely.

  All the while Zeenat remained absolutely silent. She only smiled occasionally when some remark or other caught her fancy. It seemed she had no interest in this sort of gossip. She didn’t drink any whisky either, not even watered down. And when she smoked, she didn’t evince any liking for either tobacco or smoke, though, strangely, she went through more cigarettes than anyone else. Nothing she did gave any clue as to whether she had any feelings for Babu Gopinath, though the latter’s considerable concern for her was quite evident. He had provided her with every item necessary for her comfort. Yet I sensed a certain tension between the two; instead of being close, they seemed somewhat distant.

  At about eight in the evening Sardar left to get her morphine shot at Dr Majeed’s. After three glasses of whisky, Ghaffar Sain picked up his rosary and dozed off on the carpet. Ghulam Ali was charged with bringing food from the restaurant. After Sando put the brakes on his interesting chatter, Babu Gopinath, fairly drunk by this time, shot the same loving glance at Zeenat and asked me, ‘Manto Sahib, what do you think about my Zeenat?’

  I wondered what to say and looked at her. She lowered her face with an endearing blush. Without thinking I blurted out, ‘I think very highly of her.’

  Babu Gopinath was pleased. ‘Manto Sahib,’ he began, ‘she is a very nice girl. She isn’t fond of jewellery or any of the other things women usually hanker after. I’ve asked her many times, “My dear, shall I buy you a house?” And do you know how she replied? “A house of my own, what for? I have nobody” . . . Tell me, Manto Sahib, how much would a car cost?’

  ‘I don’t have the foggiest idea.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ he said incredulously. ‘Impossible, Manto Sahib, impossible that you wouldn’t know the price of a car. Please come with me tomorrow. We’ll buy a car for Zeeno. She can’t do without a car in Bombay.’

  Zeenat’s face remained impassive.

  Babu Gopinath was quite drunk now and growing increasingly more sentimental. ‘You’re a very erudite man, Manto Sahib. By compari
son, I’m just an ignoramus. But tell me, please, how might I serve you! Yesterday Sando mentioned you in passing. I immediately sent for a taxi and told him, “Take me to Manto Sahib.” Please forgive me if I’ve offended you in any way. I’ve done many wrongs . . . Shall I send for some more whisky?’

  ‘Oh no. I’ve had enough.’

  He grew even more sentimental. ‘Have some more, Manto Sahib, please.’ He again took out the wad of notes and began peeling off a hundred-rupee note. I snatched the whole wad and pushed it back into his pocket. ‘What about the hundred-rupee note you gave to Ghulam Ali earlier?’

  For some reason that wasn’t clear to me, I was concerned about Babu Gopinath. How a bunch of suckers had stuck to this poor soul like leeches! I had taken him for a gullible fool, but he caught my meaning all right, looked at me and smiled. ‘Manto Sahib, whatever was left of that note will either fall out of Ghulam Ali’s pocket or . . .’

  Just then Ghulam Ali entered and announced, painfully, that some bastard pickpocket had cleaned him out at the restaurant. Babu Gopinath smiled at me. He quickly peeled off another hundred-rupee note and gave it to Ghulam Ali. ‘Go, get some food. Come on, quick.’

  It took me half a dozen meetings to discover Babu Gopinath’s true personality. While it’s not possible to know another person completely, I did discover quite a few interesting things about him. First, I must admit that my initial impression of him as an absolute moron turned out to be wrong. He knew well enough that Sando, Ghulam Ali, and Sardar who pretended to be his bosom buddies were, in fact, nothing more than a bunch of self-serving opportunists. He let them ride roughshod over him, accepted their curses and scorn, but never got angry. ‘Manto Sahib, to this day I’ve never turned down anyone’s counsel,’ he told me. ‘Whenever anyone offers his opinion, I say Subhanallah! They take me for a dullard, but I consider them wise. At least they had the wisdom to recognize in me the kind of ignorance that allows them to take advantage of me. You see, from early on, I’ve hung out with mendicants and kunjars.* I’ve developed a fellow feeling, a kind of affection for them. To tell you the truth, I can’t imagine myself living apart from them. I’ve already decided that when my fortune runs out, I’ll go and live in a shrine. A prostitute’s kotha and a pir’s mazaar—these are the two places that give me comfort and a sense of peace and serenity. Soon I shan’t be welcome at any more kothas for I’ll have exhausted all my money. But there’s no lack of pirs in Hindustan. I’ll retire to some mazaar or other.’

  ‘Why are you so attracted to kothas and mazaars?’ I asked.

  After some thought he answered, ‘Do you really want to know why? Because deceit, nothing but deceit resides there from floor to ceiling. Can you think of a better place for someone who wants to indulge in self-deception?’

  I asked him another question, ‘You’re fond of listening to singing girls; are you a music buff?’

  ‘No, not at all,’ he answered. ‘And it’s just as well. That way I can listen to the most disagreeable voice and still sway my head in appreciation . . . Manto Sahib, I’m not interested in listening to music, but I do immensely enjoy pulling a ten- or hundred-rupee note out of my pocket and flashing it in front of the singer. I pull out a note and show it to her, she gets up to retrieve it with a delightful air, she draws near, I stick it into my socks, she bends over to pull it out—oh, you can’t imagine the kick I get out of the whole routine! People like me love these triflings, otherwise who doesn’t know that parents send their daughters to whorehouses to prostitute and people send their God to tombs and shrines to do the same.’

  I don’t know much about Babu Gopinath’s folks except that his father was a penny-pinching moneylender who left him an estate worth ten lakh rupees. The minute he came into this fortune, he started squandering it however he pleased. He arrived in Bombay with fifty thousand rupees on him. Even though things were quite inexpensive, he still spent a hundred to a hundred and twenty-five rupees every day.

  He bought Zeeno a Fiat car for, perhaps, three thousand, and hired a chauffeur for her, a goonish character. For some reason Babu Gopinath felt drawn to such people.

  Over time our meetings became more frequent. While I merely found him interesting, he treated me with utmost deference, displaying greater courtesy and respect than anyone else.

  One evening when I arrived at his place I was totally bowled over to find Shafiq hanging out there. Perhaps you will understand better if I spell out his full name: Muhammad Shafiq Tusi. Widely known as something of an avant-garde singer and an exceptional wit, there was an aspect of his life most knew nothing about: Before having relations with three sisters, one after the other for three or four years each, he had had their mother as a mistress as well. Still lesser known was the fact that he didn’t like his first wife, who had died shortly after they were married, because she wasn’t coy and flirtatious like professional prostitutes.

  However, anyone even slightly acquainted with him knew that in his forty years (the normal lifespan for this period) literally hundreds of prostitutes had kept him as their lover. He dressed extremely well, ate the finest foods and drove the best cars, without spending a penny of his own money on any fille de joie.

  His wit, which betrayed a trace of the ribald humour of the miraasis, never failed to fascinate women, especially women of pleasure; they were instinctively drawn to him without his making any effort.

  I wasn’t surprised at all when I saw him talking pleasantly with Zeenat; what did surprise me though was how he had managed to drop in here so out of the blue. Only Sando knew him, but the two hadn’t been on speaking terms for some time. (I later found out that it was Sando, in fact, who had hauled him along. Apparently, they had patched things up.)

  Babu Gopinath sat in a corner puffing away at his hookah. I don’t recall having mentioned this before: He never smoked cigarettes. Muhammad Shafiq Tusi was rolling out his smutty jokes about miraasis. Zeenat appeared to be listening to them with only slight, and Sardar with great, interest. Shafiq saw me and shouted with gusto, ‘Welcome! Welcome! I didn’t know you too have a fondness for this alley!’

  Sando exclaimed, ‘Come in, come in . . . Here comes Mr Angel of Death. Dharan takhta!’

  I got his drift.

  A short gossip session ensued. I noticed that the exchange of glances between Zeenat and Muhammad Shafiq Tusi was more than just that. It was telling another story. She was a mere novice at this art, but Shafiq’s exceptional finesse more than made up for her lack of skill. Sardar was watching this exchange like a master trainer studying the manoeuvres of his pupils in the wrestling arena.

  By now I had become rather informal with Zeenat. She called me ‘brother’, which was fine with me. She was affable, not at all chatty, artless, and very neat and clean.

  I was dismayed to see her exchanging glances with Shafiq. For one thing, it was very awkward, for another . . . Let’s just say that her calling me brother also had something to do with it. At one point, when Shafiq and Sando got up and went out, I asked her about leering at Shafiq, perhaps a trifle sternly because big fat tears immediately flooded her eyes and she withdrew to another room, crying. Babu Gopinath left his hookah and hastily followed her. Sardar communicated something to him with her eyes, which I couldn’t fathom. He emerged after a short while and, saying, ‘Come, Manto Sahib,’ took me inside the other room.

  Zeenat was sitting on the bed. When she saw me she covered her face with her hands and lay down. Babu Gopinath and I sank into chairs near the bed. ‘Manto Sahib!’ he began gravely, ‘I love this woman dearly. She’s been with me for two years. I swear by Hazrat Ghaus-e A‘zam Jilani that she hasn’t given me any cause for complaint, not even once. Her sisters, I mean the other women in the profession, have been relentlessly ripping me off, but she has never taken or asked for even one paisa more than her due. Once, when I stayed away for weeks at some other woman’s, she pawned a piece of her own jewellery to meet her expenses. As I’ve told you before, it won’t be long before I leave this wo
rld. My wealth isn’t going to last much longer. I don’t wish to see her ruined. In Lahore I begged her repeatedly to observe other prostitutes and learn from them. Today I have money; tomorrow I’ll be a pauper. Women like her need many wealthy patrons. Unless she finds another lover like me after I’m gone, she’ll be ruined. But, Manto Sahib, would she listen? She insisted on staying at home all day like high-born ladies. I consulted with Ghaffar Sain. He said that I should bring her to Bombay. I know why he said that. He’s acquainted with two prostitutes who have made it into the movies here. I decided he was right. She’s been here for two months. I sent for Sardar from Lahore to show her the ropes of her calling. She can also learn a great deal from Ghaffar Sain. Although nobody knows me in Bombay, she thinks this will disgrace me. I told her not to worry about me. “Bombay is a huge city,” I said. “Many big cats live here. I’ve bought you a car. Go, find yourself someone good.” Manto Sahib, how I wish for her to stand on her own feet, become more aware, more worldly-wise. I’m even prepared to open a bank account in her name and deposit ten thousand rupees in it right this minute. But I know that woman, Sardar, will bilk her of every paisa in ten days flat. Here, you try to make her understand that she needs to become smarter. Every evening since she’s got the car, Sardar takes her out to Apollo Bunder. Alas! No luck so far. Sando had to practically drag Shafiq along this evening. What’s your opinion of the guy?’

  I was reluctant to give my opinion. Instead Babu Gopinath offered his. ‘He looks quite well-off . . . and handsome. Well, Zeeno, my darling, do you like him?’

  Zeeno remained silent.

  My head whirled when I learned the real reason why Babu Gopinath had brought her to Bombay. I couldn’t believe it. But my future observations removed all doubts. Babu Gopinath sincerely and ardently wished for Zeenat to become the mistress of some wealthy man here, or at least become artful enough to extract money from several such men.