My Name Is Radha Read online

  Everyone at the studio knew what happened in the music room. Actually, for the third day running this was the only topic one heard being discussed: Why did Miss Neelam suddenly forbid Raj Kishore from calling her ‘sister’? While I didn’t hear anything directly from Raj Kishore about the matter, it reached me through one of his friends that he had made interesting comments about the incident in his diary and prayed to God to keep Miss Neelam’s heart and mind chaste. Nothing notable happened for a few days after the incident.

  Neelam had grown more sedate than before, and Raj Kishore’s shirt remained open all the time, the dark black hair on his muscled white chest poking out.

  Since it hadn’t rained for a couple of days and the paint on the fourth set of Ban ki Sundri had dried, director Kirpalani put up a notice saying that shooting would start shortly. The scene to be shot was between Neelam and Raj Kishore. I had written the dialogues, so I knew he would kiss her hand during their conversation. There was no compelling reason for a kiss in the scene, but as per the formula, it had been thrown in merely to excite the public, just as women were made to appear on screen in clothing that titillated the senses.

  I was present when filming started. My heart was throbbing. I was wondering how the two would react. The very thought of it sent a tingling sensation through my body. The scene ended and nothing happened. Electric lamps came on and went off after every dialogue with tiring monotony, and the calls of ‘Start’ and ‘Cut’ rose and subsided. Around dusk, at the climax of the scene, Raj Kishore grabbed Neelam’s hand romantically, but turned his back to the camera and kissed his own hand instead before releasing hers.

  I was expecting her to pull her hand away and smack his face so loudly that it would burst the eardrums of P.N. Mogha in the sound studio. But on the contrary, I found a melting smile on her thin lips, entirely bereft of even the slightest trace of wounded feelings.

  I was terribly disappointed, but I didn’t mention it to Neelam. When a couple of days had passed and she too hadn’t said anything about it, I imagined that she probably hadn’t realized the significance of that kiss; rather I should say, the thought of it hadn’t even crossed her sensitive mind. The only reason could be that in those moments she was listening to words of love pouring out of the mouth of someone who was otherwise used to calling women his sisters.

  But why had he kissed his own hand? Was he getting even with her? Was he trying to humiliate her? A spate of such questions crowded my mind without yielding a satisfactory answer.

  On the fourth day, when I went, as usual, to Shamlal’s, he complained, ‘Manto Sahib, you never tell us anything about your company. Is it because you don’t want to or because you don’t know anything? Do you know what Raj Bhai did?’

  Then he began telling the story in his own style: ‘There was this scene in Ban ki Sundri in which Director Sahib ordered Raj Bhai to kiss Miss Neelam on the lips. But Sahib, Raj Bhai is one thing, and that saali, that whore, is quite another entirely. No comparison. Raj Bhai blurted out right away, “No, Sahib, not a chance. I won’t ever do such a thing. I have my own wife. How will I ever touch her chaste lips after kissing this foul woman?” Well, sir, Director Sahib had to change the scene right away and Raj Bhai was told, all right, don’t kiss her lips, just kiss her hand. But Raj Bhai is no greenhorn whom you can take for a ride. No sir! When the time came, he kissed his own hand instead so deftly that everyone thought he had kissed that saali’s.’

  I didn’t mention this to Neelam. She was totally unaware of the whole thing, so why make her unhappy.

  Malaria is rampant in Bombay. I remember neither the month nor the date, except that it was raining hard when they were putting up the fifth set of Ban ki Sundri. Neelam suddenly came down with a high fever. Since there was no work for me at the studio, I would sit by her side for hours and look after her. Malaria had added a strangely melancholic pallor to the brownish hue of her face. A glimpse of some obscure vulnerability could be seen in the indescribable bitterness that never left her eyes and the corners of her thin lips.

  The quinine shots affected her hearing so much that she had to raise her voice when she spoke, perhaps thinking that I too was hard of hearing.

  One day, after her fever broke and she was lying in bed thanking Eidan Bai in a feeble voice for inquiring after her, a car honked in the street below. I noticed that the noise sent a shiver through Neelam’s body.

  Minutes later the room’s heavy teakwood door opened and Raj Kishore appeared in his white khadi shirt and tight pyjamas, with his old-fashioned wife in tow. He greeted Eidan Bai by addressing her as ‘Sister Eidan’, shook hands with me and, after introducing his wife—very much an ordinary-looking housewife but with prominent features—sat down on Neelam’s bed. For a few moments he stared vacantly into space, smiling, and then looked at Neelam. For the first time I spotted the traces of some obscure feeling in his limpid eyes. I hadn’t yet been fully surprised when he started out in his playful manner. ‘I have been meaning to come and inquire after you for some time, but this blasted car, the engine gave out on me. The garage took ten days to fix it. I just got it back today. I immediately said to Shanti (he pointed at his wife), “Get up, right now, let’s go . . . someone else will take care of the kitchen work. Luckily, today is also the festival of Raksha Bandhan. We’ll both inquire after sister Neelam and have her tie the rakhi on my wrist.”’ He promptly took a silken gajra out of the pocket of his khadi shirt. The pallor on Neelam’s face became slightly more pronounced.

  Raj Kishore was purposely avoiding Neelam’s eyes. ‘But no,’ he said to Eidan Bai instead, ‘not like this. It’s a joyous festival. Sister Neelam shouldn’t tie the rakhi when she’s feeling indisposed . . . Shanti, get up and put some lipstick on her.’

  ‘Where’s the make-up box?’

  It was lying on the mantelpiece. Raj Kishore took a few giant strides and brought it over. Neelam remained silent . . . her thin lips tightened, as if she was finding it hard to hold back from screaming.

  Neelam didn’t resist when Shanti, like a dutiful wife, tried to put some make-up on her. Eidan Bai propped her up, supporting her listless body like a corpse. Shanti began applying a coat of lipstick rather awkwardly. Neelam looked at me and smiled. And in that smile I could feel the resonance of a stifled scream.

  I thought . . . no, I was positive that something was about to happen . . . Neelam’s tightly pressed lips would explode and, like mountain streams that break through the most formidable dykes under the onslaught of punishing rains, she would release a torrential deluge of dammed emotions that would topple us and carry us to God knows what unknown depths in their fury. Strangely, she remained silent, absolutely silent, only the melancholy pallor of her face tried to hide behind the vaporous redness of powder. She remained as inert as a graven image. Her make-up done, she said to Raj Kishore in a strangely firm manner, ‘Please give me the rakhi, I will tie it on your wrist now.’

  Within seconds the tasselled silken rakhi was on his wrist and Neelam, whose hands should have trembled, was knotting the cord with steely calm. During all this, I once again caught a glimpse of some obscure emotion floating in Raj Kishore’s limpid eyes before it quickly dissolved in a laugh.

  According to custom, he gave Neelam a gift of money in an envelope. She thanked him and tucked the envelope under her pillow.

  After they left and Neelam and I were alone, she cast a desolate glance at me and lay down quietly, resting her head on the pillow. Raj Kishore had forgotten to take his bag; it was still on the bed. When she saw it, she pushed it aside with her foot. I sat by her side browsing through the newspaper for nearly two hours. When she didn’t say anything, I left without asking her permission.

  Three days later, as I was shaving inside my nine-rupees-a-month kholi in Nagpara, and listening to the vituperations of Mrs Fernandez who lived next door, someone barged in. I turned around to look. It was Neelam.

  For a moment I thought it was someone else . . . the deep red lipstick smeared acr
oss her lips somehow gave the impression of a mouth that had been left unwiped after spitting blood . . . her hair terribly mussed up, her white sari practically in tatters, several buttons on the front of her blouse torn open, revealing scratches on her light-almond-coloured breasts.

  I was so dazed looking at her in this condition that I couldn’t even ask what had happened or how she had found the address to my kholi. The first thing I did was shut the door. After I pulled up a chair and sat down across from her, she opened her lipstick-coated lips to say, ‘I came straight here.’

  ‘From where?’ I asked, softly.

  ‘From my place . . . and I’ve come to tell you that that silliness has now ended.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I knew he would return when I was quite alone. So he came . . . to reclaim his bag.’ The same mysterious smile curved her thin lips, now utterly disfigured by lipstick. ‘He came to pick up his bag . . . I said to him, “Come, it’s in the other room.” Perhaps my tone sounded different, because he tensed a little . . . “Don’t be nervous,” I said. In the other room, I didn’t return his bag. I sat down at the dressing table and started putting on make-up.’

  She stopped, picked up the glass sitting on my broken table, quickly emptied it, wiped her mouth with the corner of her sari, and resumed. ‘I kept applying make-up for a whole hour. I smeared my lips with as much lipstick as I could and rubbed on as much rouge on my cheeks as I could, while he stood in a corner, watching my face in the mirror. When I had turned myself into a veritable witch, I walked over to the door on firm feet and bolted it.’

  ‘And then?’

  When I looked at her for the answer, she seemed totally changed. Her lips seemed different now that they’d been wiped; her tone sounded about as muted as a piece of red-hot iron being pounded with a hammer.

  At the moment she didn’t look at all like the witch she had no doubt resembled after painting herself with all that make-up.

  She didn’t answer right away. She got up from my charpoy, installed herself on top of the table, and said, ‘I gnawed at him . . . stuck to him like a wild cat. He scratched my face, I clawed at his. We wrestled for quite a while . . . oh, he was so strong . . . but . . . as I once told you, I’m a formidable woman. The weakness brought on by the malaria just vanished. My body was on fire . . . my eyes were shooting sparks . . . my bones were becoming rigid. I grabbed him and sprang on him like a furious cat . . . I don’t know why . . . I have no idea why I tangled with him so thoughtlessly. Neither of us said anything that anyone might understand . . . I kept screaming, and he kept saying, “Yes, yes” . . . I tore off pieces of his white khadi kurta with my fingers . . . He yanked out clumps of my hair right from their roots . . . He used his utmost force, but I was determined to win at all costs. This left us totally exhausted. He was lying on the rug like a corpse and I was gasping so hard, I felt my heart would give out any moment. In spite of my breathless state I still managed to tear his kurta to shreds. As soon as I saw his broad chest I realized the essence of that silliness . . . the silliness that both of us had wondered about but neither of us could make any sense of . . .’

  She got up quickly, jerked her dishevelled hair over one shoulder and continued, ‘Sadiq . . . the bastard, he really has an exquisite body . . . I don’t know what came over me. I suddenly lowered myself over him and started biting him. He cringed with pain. But when I stuck my bleeding lips to his and kissed him passionately, he suddenly cooled off like a sated woman . . . I got up . . . And in a flash I felt hatred for the man surge up in me. I peered down at him intently . . . the red of my blood and lipstick had traced hideous patterns on his broad chest . . . I glanced around my room and suddenly everything seemed like a sham. Afraid that I might suffocate, I quickly opened the door and came straight to you.’

  She fell silent, as silent as a corpse. I was frightened. I touched her arm dangling from the edge of the bed . . . it was as hot as fire.

  I called her name loudly several times, but she didn’t answer. Finally, when I screamed, ‘Neelam!’ in sheer terror, she started.

  As she was leaving she only said, ‘My name is Radha!’

  Scorned

  Drained from the day’s gruelling work, Saugandhi had fallen asleep almost as soon as she hit the bed. Minutes ago, the city’s sanitary inspector—she called him ‘Seth’—had gone home to his wife, dead drunk, after a prolonged session of stormy sex which had left even her bones aching. He would have stayed for the night but for the regard he had for his wife who loved him dearly.

  The money that she had received from the inspector for her services was still stuffed in her tight-fitting bra, now stained with the man’s drool. Every so often the silver coins clinked a bit with the rise and fall of her breathing, the sound blending with the irregular rhythm of her heart. It was as if the molten silver of the coins was dripping into her bloodstream. Her chest was on fire, partly from the half-bottle of brandy the inspector had brought along and partly from the raw country liquor they had downed with plain water when the soda ran out.

  She was lying face down on the large teakwood bed, her bare arms splayed out like the bow-shaped rib of a kite that has come loose from its dew-drenched paper. The grainy flesh visible in her right armpit had acquired a bluish tint from frequent shaving and looked like a graft from the skin of a freshly plucked chicken.

  It was a small room. Miscellaneous objects were strewn about. A mangy dog was stretched out under the bed on a heap of shrivelled, weather-beaten chappals, snarling at some invisible object in his sleep. The mange had left the severely affected areas of his body so totally hairless that a person might think a folded rag being used as a doormat had been left on the floor.

  A small shelf on the wall held an assortment of make-up: rouge, lipstick, face powder, combs and metallic hairpins that she probably used to keep her chignon in place. In a birdcage hanging from a hook near the rack slept her parrot, its head tucked inside its feathers. Bits of unripe guava and rotting orange peel lay inside the cage, their putrid smell attracting a hovering swarm of mosquitoes and minuscule fruit flies. A wickerwork chair, its backrest grimy from overuse, stood near the bed. To its right was an elegant three-legged tea table supporting a portable His Master’s Voice gramophone draped with a decaying black cloth. Rusted gramophone needles were scattered not just on the table but all over the dingy room. Four framed photographs of some individuals hung on the wall directly above the table.

  Slightly to one side of the photographs, near the entrance, hung a brightly coloured portrait of Ganeshji, adorned with strings of faded flowers. The picture was likely some fabric brand label that had been removed from the bolt and stuck into a frame. A lamp and a cup filled with oil sat on a small, greasy rack near Ganeshji’s picture, along with a smattering of curled-up ash that had fallen from incense sticks. In the stagnant atmosphere of the room, the flame in the lamp burned as perfectly straight as the tilak mark on someone’s forehead. Saugandhi habitually touched her day’s first earnings against this image of Ganeshji and then against her own forehead before tucking them inside her bra; regardless of how many banknotes she stuffed there, they remained safe in the hospitable space between her ample, protruding breasts—safe, that is, until Madho showed up from Puna, taking a day or two off from his job. Then she would be forced to stash some of the money inside the hole she had dug under one of her bedposts just for such a situation. It was Ramlal who had let Saugandhi in on this trick for keeping her money safe. Hearing how Madho came over from Puna now and then and played around with her infuriated Ramlal so much that he let her have it one day: ‘Since when have you made that son-of-a-bitch your lover? Some affair you’ve got there! That bum! Doesn’t have to spend even a paisa of his own money, but ends up having a good time with you all the same. And to top it all off, he even swindles you out of some of your own money . . . Why, don’t I know every last weakness of you girls? After all, I’ve been in this business for seven years.’

  Ramlal, who worked as a pim
p in different quarters of Bombay for some one hundred and twenty girls who could be had for anywhere from ten to a hundred rupees, went on to give Saugandhi a piece of his mind. ‘Stupid woman, don’t fritter away your money. You just watch, one day he’ll snatch the very clothes off your body. I’m telling you, he will—that damned lover of your goddam mother! Listen to me; dig a hole under one of the bedposts and stash all your earnings in it. When he shows up, say: “By your life, Madho, I haven’t seen even a paisa since morning. Come on, send for a cup of tea and some Aflatoon biscuits from the café downstairs. I’m so ravenously hungry and starved that my stomach is rumbling.” Understand! These are critical times, my dear. The damned Congress has slapped this accursed ban on alcohol and ruined our business. You, at least, get something to drink, one way or another. Do you know how I feel when I see an empty bottle in your room and the smell of booze wafts up my nostrils—by God, I feel like migrating inside your skin.’

  Saugandhi was particularly fond of her breasts. One time Jamuna had advised her: ‘Keep those watermelons of yours in good shape. Use a bra and they’ll stay firm.’

  Saugandhi laughed and said, ‘Jamuna, you think everyone is like you. People come and ride roughshod all over your body for a measly ten rupees a pass and you think this is what happens to everyone else. Let anyone so much as touch me in places I don’t want them to and . . . Which reminds me to tell you about yesterday. Ramlal brought this guy, a Punjabi, at two in the morning. We settled on thirty rupees for the night. Anyway, when we slipped into bed I turned off the light. Would you believe it, the guy panicked! Did you hear me? All his swagger, that macho bravado—it vanished in the dark, just like that! He took such a fright. I said, “Get on with it, man, why are you wasting time. It’s nearly three and it will be daybreak soon.” “Roshni,” he begged, “roshni, please.” “Roshni,” I said, “what’s that?” “The light! The light! Please turn on the light.” His choking voice made me laugh. “No, I’m not going to,” I said, and pinched his fleshy thigh. He jumped up and immediately switched on the light. I quickly pulled the sheet over my body and said, “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, lout?” When he climbed back into bed I got up and turned the light off once more with a quick movement of my hand. He began to feel nervous all over again. I swear by your life, Jamuna, the night was totally out of this world! So enjoyable—now dark, now light, off again, on again. As soon as the rumble of the first tram was heard, he hurriedly slipped on his pants and took off. The son-of-a-bitch must have made the thirty rupees playing the stock market. He just threw them away without getting anything for them . . . You really are terribly naive, Jamuna. But me, I know a lot of tricks for dealing with them.’