Saadat Manto - My Name Is Radha

All of a sudden Saugandhi broke into peals of laughter. It was so sharp and pointed that Madho couldn’t help feeling needles poking deep into his flesh. He got up from the bed and walked over to Saugandhi. ‘Whose picture is making you laugh like this?’

She pointed at the first photograph on the left. ‘His, the city’s sanitary inspector. Just look at his stupid face. He says a rani fell in love with him. A rani — huh! Not with a face like that!’

As she said it she pulled the frame off the wall with such force that even the nail came out and with it a fair chunk of the plaster.

Madho had still not quite gotten over his initial surprise when Saugandhi threw the frame out of the window. It fell down two floors and crashed noisily on to the pavement. ‘When the sweeper woman Rani comes to collect the trash in the morning,’ Saugandhi said through the splintering echo of the glass, ‘she’ll pick up my raja too.’

Once again, a burst of the same sharp, pointed laughter began to spew from her lips, as though she was sharpening a knife blade on it.

Madho smiled. And then he laughed too, ‘Hee-hee-hee. .’ but with considerable difficulty.

Saugandhi plucked the second frame off the wall and flung that out of the window as well. ‘What’s this saala doing here? No ugly faces are allowed! Isn’t that right, Madho?’

Once again Madho smiled, and then snickered, but with no less difficulty than the time before.

With one hand Saugandhi grabbed the frame that held the photo of some guy flaunting a turban. She stretched out her other hand towards Madho’s frame while he stood there cringing, as if her hand was coming towards him instead. In a split second, the frame with his photo was off the wall and in her hand, nail and all.

Saugandhi let out a booming laugh, exclaimed ‘huh’, and tossed both frames out of the window. When they crashed on the pavement two floors below, Madho felt as though something had exploded into pieces inside him. With tremendous difficulty he laughed and said only, ‘You did well; I didn’t like it either.’

‘Oh, you didn’t like it either?’ she said, edging closer to him. ‘But what I would like to know is this: Is there anything about you that someone could like? Your big fat nose, like a pakora? This hairy forehead? These puffy nostrils? These twisted ears? Your awful breath? Your filthy body? You didn’t like your photo? How could you, since it hid all your faults? Can’t be helped, for such are the times: If you conceal your faults, you’re damned.’

Madho stepped backwards, until he was flat against the wall. Then, injecting some firmness into his voice, he blurted, ‘Looks as though you’re back to turning tricks. I’m telling you for the last time. .’

Saugandhi interrupted him and finished the rest in his own style: ‘If you ever go back to turning tricks, it will be over between us, and if I ever catch you with another man here, I’ll drag you by your hair and throw you out. . And yes, I’ll send you this month’s expenses by postal money order as soon as I get back. Now, what’s the rent for this kholi?’

Madho’s head began to spin.

Saugandhi kept going: ‘I’ll tell you. . fifteen rupees a month for the kholi and ten a night for the use of my body, of which, as you already know, my pimp takes away one quarter. As for the remaining seven and a half, I had promised to give what I have no power to give, and you had come to take what you can’t take. What was there between us? Nothing! Nothing at all, except these ten rupees. So we decided to do something else — something that would make us need each other. Until now it was ten rupees that jingled between us, now it’s fifty. You can hear their jingle, and so can I. . What have you done to your hair, anyway?’

With a quick movement of her finger, Saugandhi flipped the cap off Madho’s head. He was pissed off. ‘Saugandhi!’ he said sternly.

But she yanked Madho’s handkerchief out of his pocket, sniffed it, and tossed it on the floor. ‘This filthy rag. . how awfully smelly it is. Throw it out! Come on. .’

‘Saugandhi!’ Madho yelled.

‘Saugandhi ke bachche !’ she yelled back, even more sharply. ‘Why have you come here in the first place? Why? Does your mother who’ll dish out fifty rupees to you live here? Or are you some strapping young man who’s stolen my heart? You pig, you wretch. Look at you, ordering me around! Am I under your thumb or something? Moocher, what do you think you are? A thief, a pickpocket — what? Why have you come here at this hour? Should I call the police? Whether you have a court case against you in Puna or not, I’ll definitely drag you into one here!’

Intimidated, Madho could only mumble, ‘Saugandhi, what’s come over you?’

‘Who are you to ask, you stinking bastard? Get out of here, or else. .’

Her screams made her mangy dog, sleeping with his head resting on her weather-beaten chappals, wake up with a start. He got on his feet, raised his snout and began barking, eliciting a bout of hysterical laughter from Saugandhi. Madho was petrified.

When he bent over and reached for his cap, Saugandhi thundered, ‘Don’t you dare touch that. . Leave it there and get out. As soon as you’re back in Puna, I’ll send it to you by postal money order .’

With another cackle, she plopped down into the wickerwork chair. With his ferocious barks, her mangy dog sent Madho scurrying out of the room and down the stairs. When the dog returned, wagging his stumpy tail, and sat at her feet flapping his ears, Saugandhi was startled. She felt a terrifying stillness around her, a stillness she had never experienced before. A strange emptiness engulfed everything, and she couldn’t help thinking of a train standing all alone in its metal shed after disgorging every last one of its passengers. This feeling of emptiness which had suddenly arisen weighed heavily on her. She made repeated attempts to fill the void but failed. She was trying to stuff her brain with countless thoughts all at once, but it was like a sieve. As fast as she filled it, everything filtered out.

She sat in the chair for the longest time. When she couldn’t find anything to distract her mind with even after a long and desperate search, she picked up her mangy dog, put him down beside her in the spacious teakwood bed, and went to sleep.

Just as the racing season was getting under way in Puna, Aziz wrote from Peshawar: ‘I’m sending Janki, an acquaintance of mine. Do find her work in some film company in Puna or Bombay. You’re well connected in the film world. Hope it won’t be too much of a bother for you.’

The timing wasn’t the problem; the problem was that I had never done anything of the kind before. Usually the men who took women to film companies were ones who sought to live off their earnings. So, obviously, the proposition made me quite uneasy. Then I thought, I really shouldn’t disappoint him. He and I had known each other for a long time and he was sending her with such confidence in me. Besides, the thought that the doors of any film company would be open for a young woman reassured me to some degree. Why fret, she would find a job in some film company or other without my help anyway.

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.’