My Name Is Radha Read online

  Four days later she arrived. She had travelled a long distance, from Peshawar to Bombay and then on to Puna. After the train came to a halt, I started down from one end and began looking for her, someone I’d never seen before. I had passed only a few carriages when a woman got out of a second-class compartment with my photograph in her hand. Standing with her back towards me, she rose up on her toes and started looking for me in the crowd. I came closer to her and said, ‘Perhaps I’m the one you’re looking for.’

  She turned around. ‘Oh, you.’ She looked at my photo and said quite casually, ‘Saadat Sahib, it was such a long journey. At Bombay, after I got off of the Frontier Mail, the atrocious wait for this train drained everything out of me. I really am totally worn out.’

  ‘Your luggage?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ll bring it out,’ she said. Stepping back into the carriage, she brought out two suitcases and a bedroll.

  I hailed a coolie.

  Outside the station she said, ‘I’ll stay in a hotel.’

  I got her a room in the hotel right across the road from the station. She needed to take a bath, change and get some rest, so I gave her my address, asked her to come to see me at ten in the morning, and left.

  At half-past ten the following day she arrived at my place in Prabhat Nagar; I was staying in a friend’s small, newly built flat. Janki had got delayed because it took her quite a while to find the place. My friend was out. I’d woken up late as I was working on my film script well into the night. After my bath, I was having tea when, all of a sudden, she walked in.

  Despite the fatigue of the trip, she had appeared quite sprightly on the platform and, later, at the hotel. Now, though, as she stepped into the room where I sat in my pyjamas and undershirt, she looked terribly haggard and in bad shape.

  She had been bubbling with life on the platform; not so when she came to see me in Flat No. 11, Prabhat Nagar. It seemed as though she’d either just donated a pint of blood or had an abortion.

  As I mentioned, I was staying at my friend’s to finish my script. There was no one else in the flat, except for an idiotic servant. The house was quite desolate, and Majeed was the kind of servant whose presence only heightened the sense of desolation.

  I poured out some tea in a cup and offered it to Janki. ‘You must have had your breakfast at the hotel,’ I said. ‘All the same, have some tea.’

  She bit her lips nervously, picked up the teacup and started sipping from it, all the while shaking her right leg. Her quivering lips gave the impression that she wanted to say something to me but was feeling hesitant for some reason. Maybe some traveller at the hotel had tried to get fresh with her, I thought.

  ‘You didn’t have any problems at the hotel, did you?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh no. None.’

  Her brief answer left nothing to go on so I kept quiet. But after we had finished tea, I thought I should say something. ‘How is Aziz Sahib?’

  She returned the cup to the teapoy without answering and quickly got up. ‘Manto Sahib, do you know a good doctor?’ she said hurriedly.

  ‘Not in Puna, I don’t.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘Why, are you sick or something?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  She sat back down in a chair.

  ‘What’s the problem?’

  Her full lips, which contracted automatically, or perhaps wittingly, when she smiled, opened. She tried to say something but couldn’t. She got up again, picked up my cigarette tin, took one out and lit it, and said, ‘Please forgive me, I smoke.’

  Only later did I discover that she didn’t just smoke; she smoked with a zest and gusto usually seen only in men. She held the cigarette between her fingers like they did, took deep long drags like they did, and blew the smoke out of some seventy-five cigarettes in a day.

  ‘Why don’t you say what’s wrong?’

  Annoyed, she stomped her foot petulantly, like a young girl.

  ‘Hai Allah! How can I tell you . . .’ She smiled, the arch of her curved lips revealing a line of exceptionally clean and sparkling white teeth. She sat down again and, making every effort not to let her tremulous eyes look straight into mine, said, ‘It’s like this: I’m late by fifteen days and I’m afraid that . . .’

  At first, I didn’t get her drift. But when she stopped abruptly, I had a vague feeling that I knew what she was alluding to.

  ‘Well, such a thing often happens.’

  She took a deep drag, blew out the smoke forcefully like men, and said, ‘No. This time it feels different. I’m afraid I am pregnant.’

  ‘Oh!’

  She took a final drag of the cigarette and crushed it in the saucer. ‘And if that’s what’s happened, I’ve got a big problem. Something like this happened in Peshawar once. But fortunately Aziz Sahib got me such potent medicine from a hakim friend of his that it aborted in no time at all.’

  ‘Don’t you like kids?’ I asked.

  She smiled. ‘I do . . . but the hassle of raising them.’

  ‘You do know that killing unborn babies is a crime, don’t you?’

  She quickly sobered up . . . and then said in a tone full of amazement, ‘Aziz Sahib said the same thing. But really, Saadat Sahib, why is it a crime? After all, it’s a personal matter. Besides, those who make laws, they must know how painful an abortion can be. Crime, huh!’

  I couldn’t help laughing. ‘You really are a strange woman, Janki.’

  She also laughed. ‘Aziz Sahib says so too.’

  In the midst of her laughter tears appeared in her eyes. I’ve noticed that when sincere people laugh, their eyes invariably well up. She took out a handkerchief from her bag, wiped her tears, and asked with a child’s innocence, ‘Tell me, Saadat Sahib, do you find what I say interesting?’

  ‘Very,’ I said.

  ‘That’s a lie!’

  ‘And what’s your proof?’

  She lit up again. ‘Oh, maybe it is so. All I know is that I’m a little dumb-headed. I eat a lot, chatter a lot, laugh a lot. You can see for yourself how badly my stomach has puffed up from eating too much. Aziz Sahib keeps admonishing me not to overeat, but I never listen. The thing is, Saadat Sahib, if I eat less, I feel as if there’s something I wanted to tell someone but forgot.’

  She started to laugh again. I joined her. It was strange, this laugh of hers. It sounded like the tinkling of ankle bells.

  Just as she was about to resume talking about abortions, the friend with whom I was staying returned. I introduced Janki and said that she wanted to work in films. My friend took her to his studio. He was confident that the director for whom he worked as a secretary would select her for a particular role in his new film.

  I tried to find work for her in all the film studios in Puna and pulled whatever strings I could. She was voice-tested in one place, camera-tested in another, and in a third they assessed her in different outfits, but nothing worked out. She was already quite upset about missing her period, and the week she had to spend in vain in the cheerless, depressing atmosphere of different film studios made things even worse. On top of that, the twenty green quinine pills she was popping every day to abort were making her even more sluggish. How Aziz Sahib was faring in her absence back in Peshawar was yet another cause of her constant worries. She had fired off a wire immediately after arriving in Puna and a letter a day thereafter, urging in each that he not neglect his health and take his medicine regularly.

  What illness Aziz Sahib suffered from, I don’t know; nonetheless, I did gather from Janki that he loved her and immediately did whatever she asked him to do. Many times his wife quarrelled with him about being lax in taking his medicine, but when Janki made the same request, he didn’t so much as make a peep.

  At first I thought her concern for Aziz Sahib was just for show. Slowly, though, her unpretentious talk convinced me that she really did care for him a lot. Whenever he wrote to her, tears would gather in her eyes while she read his letter.

  Our repeated trips to film compan
ies produced no result. And then one day she became overjoyed to learn that her fears were unfounded. Surely she had missed her period, but pregnant she was not.

  Twenty days had passed since her arrival in Puna. During this time she had continued sending Aziz letter after letter. He also wrote pretty lengthy love letters to her. In one he suggested that if no job was forthcoming in Puna, I should try in Bombay. It was teeming with studios. It was a reasonable suggestion. However, as I was far too busy writing the script at the moment, it was difficult for me to accompany her there, so I phoned my friend Saeed who was playing the part of the hero in a film. By chance, he wasn’t at the studio, but Narain was. When Narain found out that I was on the phone, he took the call, shouting loudly, ‘Hello, Manto . . . Narain speaking. Tell me, what do you want? Saeed isn’t here. He’s sitting at home . . . settling accounts with Razia.’

  ‘Whatever do you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘They had a fight. Razia is carrying on with someone else.’

  ‘But settling accounts with Razia . . . what accounts?’

  ‘Yaar, this Saeed, he’s terribly mean. He’s asking her to return all the clothes he ever bought for her.’

  ‘Look, a friend of mine from Peshawar has sent a woman here. She’s eager to work in films.’

  Janki was standing close by. I realized I hadn’t explained myself properly, and was about to correct myself when Narain’s loud voice crashed against my ears. ‘Woman, wow! From Peshawar? Wow again! Khu, send her, send her double quick. I too am a Pathan . . . a Pathan from Qusur.’

  ‘Don’t talk nonsense. Listen, I’m sending her to Bombay tomorrow, aboard the Deccan Queen. You or Saeed should pick her up at the station. Deccan Queen, remember.’

  ‘But how will we recognize her?’ I heard him ask.

  ‘She’ll recognize you. But do try to find work for her.’

  ‘You’re going to Bombay tomorrow on the Deccan Queen,’ I told Janki. ‘I’ll show you Saeed’s and Narain’s photos. Both of them are tall, stout and handsome. You’ll have no problem spotting them.’

  I took out the album and showed her their pictures. She looked at both for a long time, though I noticed she looked at Saeed’s more closely. She put the album aside and, making a faltering attempt to look straight into my eyes, asked, ‘What kind of men are they?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean what kind of men are they? . . . Most men in films tend to be quite nasty, I’ve heard.’

  I detected a trace of probing in her grave tone.

  ‘That, of course, is true. Why would anyone want good men working in films?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘There are two types of people in this world: those who grasp the extent of their pain from their own suffering, and those who grasp it by looking at the suffering of others. Tell me, which of the two do you think truly feels the real pain of suffering and its agony?’

  After some reflection she answered, ‘Why, those who have suffered themselves.’

  ‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘Those who’ve been through real suffering can portray it best in films. Only a man who has floundered in love knows what heartbreak is. A woman who spreads out the rug and prays five times a day, who thinks love is as unlawful as eating the flesh of a pig, how can she profess love to a man in front of a camera?’

  She reflected again for a bit. ‘So you mean a woman should know about everything before entering films?’

  ‘Not necessarily. She can also learn after she’s begun.’

  Janki paid no heed to all this and repeated her earlier question, ‘So what kind of men are Saeed Sahib and Narain Sahib?’

  ‘You want me to describe them in detail?’

  ‘What do you mean by “in detail”?’

  ‘Basically just which one will be better for you.’

  She didn’t like what I said.

  ‘What kind of talk is that?’

  ‘The kind you wanted.’

  ‘Drop it.’ She smiled. ‘I won’t ask you about anything any more.’

  ‘But if you were to, I would recommend Narain.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he’s a much better person than Saeed.’

  I think so even now. Saeed is a poet, a terribly heartless poet. He won’t slaughter a chicken with a knife; he’ll wring its neck, pluck its feathers and then make broth out of it. He’ll drink the broth, chew on the bones, then sit in a corner comfortably and write a poem about the chicken’s demise, with tears in his eyes.

  When he drinks, he never really gets drunk. This is something that annoys me a lot. It kills the very purpose of drinking. In the morning, he takes all the time in the world to wake up. The servant serves him tea in bed. If Saeed finds some rum on the bedside table left over from the previous night, he’ll dump it into his tea and drink the mixture one mouthful at a time, as if he has absolutely no sense of taste.

  If a sore appears on his body and begins to fester, he pays no attention to it, none at all, not even if puss starts to ooze out and the sore threatens to morph into a dangerous abscess. He won’t deign to visit the doctor. If you try to say something, his only answer will be, ‘Maladies often become a permanent part of the body. When this wound doesn’t trouble me, why bother treating it?’ Meanwhile, he’ll look at the wound as if he’s chanced upon a beautiful line of poetry.

  He’ll never understand film acting because he’s nearly bereft of all delicate feelings. I saw him once in a film that became quite popular because of the songs sung by the heroine. At one point in the story he was scripted to hold her hand and profess his love to her. I swear, he grabbed her hand as if he was grabbing a dog’s foot. How often have I told him, ‘Put the thought of acting out of your mind. You’re a darn good poet. Stay home and write poems.’ But will he listen? He’s obsessed with being an actor no matter what.

  Narain now, I like him a lot. I also find the rules he’s devised for working in a studio quite appealing.

  One should never marry during his acting career. If he must marry, he should give up acting right away and open a dairy shop instead. If he’s been a good actor, he’ll make good money.

  The minute an actress addresses you as ‘bhai’ or ‘bhaiya’, immediately whisper in her ear, ‘What size is your bra?’

  If you’ve gone gaga over an actress, don’t waste your time pussyfooting around. Meet her in private and tell her flat out, ‘I too have a tongue in my mouth.’ If she doesn’t believe it, stick out your whole tongue at her.

  Should you be so lucky as to bag an actress, don’t ever take even a penny from her earnings, even though that is kosher for her husband and brothers.

  Make absolutely sure no child of yours is born to her, but she’s free to bear your child after swaraj.

  Remember, even an actor has to face Judgement Day. So don’t even try to pretty up your record with a comb and razor; instead, use some crude method for it, such as doing a good deed every now and then.

  Pay the greatest regard to the Pathan watchman at the studio. Greet him first thing in the morning when you come in. You’ll reap a reward if you do, in the next world if not in this, for there aren’t going to be any film companies in that other world.

  Never become addicted to liquor and actresses. Who knows, the Congress may put a ban on both of them one day!

  A Muslim or a Hindu can be a businessman, but an actor cannot be a Hindu actor or a Muslim actor.

  Don’t lie.

  He has inscribed all of these under ‘Narain’s Ten Commandments’ in his diary. They give a good idea of what kind of man he is. People say he doesn’t abide by them himself, but that’s not true.

  Although Janki hadn’t asked, I shared with her my thoughts about the two men. I told her plainly that if she made it into the film world, she would need the support of one man or the other. And Narain, in my view, would prove to be a good friend.

  She heard me out and left for Bombay. When she returned the next day she was overjoyed. Apparently, Narain had signed her u
p with his studio for a whole year at a monthly salary of five hundred rupees. We talked for quite a while about how she got the job. After listening to her, I asked, ‘You met both Saeed and Narain, right? Who liked you more?’

  The hint of a smile appeared on her lips. Again with her hesitant eyes she looked at me and said, ‘Saeed Sahib,’ and then suddenly she became serious. ‘Saadat Sahib, why did you praise Narain to high heaven?’

  ‘Why? What happened?’

  ‘He’s so awful! In the evening when they both sat down to drink, I happened to address Narain as ‘bhaiya’ and he quickly bent over and whispered into my ear, “What size is your bra?” Bhagwan knows this burned me up, from my head right down to my very toes. What kind of lewd man is he?’

  Her forehead started to perspire. I let out a resounding laugh.

  ‘Why are you laughing?’ she screamed.

  ‘Oh, at his silliness,’ I said and stopped laughing.

  After fulminating against Narain for a while, she started talking about Aziz in a tone full of concern. For days now there hadn’t been a letter from him. All kinds of misgivings were crowding her brain: Has he caught a head cold again? Some bike accident? He rides so recklessly. Maybe he’s on his way to Puna because, when he was sending her off, he’d told her that he would sneak up to see her one of these days.

  Reciting her concerns calmed her frayed nerves a little and she launched into praises of Aziz. He takes good care of his kids at home. He puts them through an exercise routine every morning, bathes them, and takes them to school. His wife is so gauche, so lacking in social graces that he has to show proper courtesies to relatives himself. When Janki came down with typhoid once, he looked after her continually for twenty days like a dutiful nurse. And so on and so forth.

  The next day, after thanking me in appropriately warm words, she left for Bombay where the gates of a bright new life had been flung open to embrace her.

  It took me another two months to finish my film script. I collected my payment and proceeded to Bombay where I was to receive another contract. At about five in the morning, I arrived in Andheri where Saeed and Narain were sharing a bungalow that was not much to speak of. I walked on to the veranda and found the front door locked. ‘Perhaps they’re sleeping,’ I thought. ‘Best not to bother them.’ There was a back door which was often left open for the servants. I entered through it. The kitchen and adjacent dining room were, as usual, terribly untidy and grimy. The room across from them was reserved for guests. I opened the door and went in. There were two beds. Saeed and someone were sleeping together in one of them, covered with a quilt.