Saadat Manto - My Name Is Radha

Although Trilochan was from the same village, he hadn’t spent much time there. After finishing his primary education in the village school, he had left for the city to study in high school and, afterwards, college, and kind of just stayed on there. He returned to the village on many occasions but he never heard of anyone called Kirpal Kaur at any point, perhaps because he was always in a big rush to return to the city.

His college days were long gone. Easily ten years separated the terrace at Advani Chambers from college. During that period, Trilochan’s life was filled with unusual experiences: Burma, Singapore, Hong Kong and, finally, Bombay, where he’d been living for the past four years.

Tonight was the first time he’d looked up at the sky and found the sight agreeable: countless little lamps glimmering in the grey canopy overhead and a light, cool refreshing breeze.

While thinking about Kirpal Kaur his thoughts drifted off to Mozel, the Jewish girl who rented a flat in Advani Chambers. Trilochan had fallen deeply in love with her—‘up to his knees’, as the Sikhs would say. He’d never experienced such crazy love before in all his thirty-five years.

He had bumped into Mozel on the very first day he moved into a second-floor flat in the building, which he’d acquired with the help of a Christian friend of his. His first impression was that she was a mad woman, dangerously mad. She wore her brown hair short and quite dishevelled, and a thick coat of lipstick that was dried up, cracking here and there on her lips, reminding him of a clot of blood. Her lips were not as thick as they appeared. It was the thick, reddish-brown lipstick that made them look beefy. A long tunic hung loosely on her body, its open collar exposing a generous expanse of her bulging breasts with their web of thin, blue veins. Her bare arms were covered with a layer of fine fuzz that gave the impression that she’d just emerged from a beauty parlour with wispy clippings of hair still sticking to her.

Trilochan’s flat was right across from hers with only a narrow corridor in between. Just as he approached his door, Mozel came barging out of hers. The noise of her wooden clogs stopped him. She gaped at him from under her unruly hair and tittered, which threw him off balance. He quickly pulled the key out of his pocket and turned towards his door, but just then one of her clogs slipped on the glossy cement floor and her whole body collided with him.

When he attempted to collect himself, he found her sprawled on top of him with her long loose tunic pushed all the way up and her bare, stout legs on either side of him. He tried to rise, but got even more entangled with her, as if he was a blanket covering her body.

Gasping, he apologized to her profusely. She straightened her dress and smiled. ‘These clogs — they’re atrocious,’ she said as she slipped her big toe and the one next to it into the clog and strode down the hallway.

Trilochan had thought it would be hard to befriend her, but within a short period she herself was drawn to him. She was a very headstrong woman, however, and didn’t show him much regard. She made him take her out to dinner, buy her drinks, take her to movies, and spent whole days with him splashing on the beach at Juhu, but when he tried to go further than just hugging and kissing, she told him to lay off so sternly that all of his fervent desires just crumbled.

He’d never been in love before. Whether in Lahore, Burma or Singapore, whenever he had needed a woman he just picked one up and paid for her services. Not even in his dreams had he ever imagined that he would fall ‘up to the knees’ in love with a wilful Jewish girl soon after arriving in Bombay. She treated him with the utmost indifference and lack of civility. If he invited her for a movie, she would immediately spring to her feet and get ready, but the minute they were seated, she would let her eyes wander. If she spotted an acquaintance, she would wave at him vigorously and, without excusing herself, get up and go sit with the other fellow.

It was no different in restaurants. He would order special dishes for her, but the instant she saw an old friend, she would get up abruptly, abandon her meal and go over to sit by his side, leaving Trilochan to fume by himself.

Her indifference really got to him at times. If he grumbled about it, she would stop seeing him for days, complaining now of a headache, now about her stomach, which Trilochan well knew was solid steel and impervious to any kind of ailment.

The next time they met she told him, ‘You’re a Sikh. How would you understand anything delicate!’

‘What’s delicate about your old lovers?’ Trilochan fired back in a rage.

Standing with arms akimbo and feet apart, she retorted, ‘Why do you keep taunting me? Yes, they are my lovers and I do love them dearly. If that bugs you, so be it. I couldn’t care less.’

‘Well then, how can we carry on like this?’ he said, attempting to reason with her.

She burst out laughing. ‘You really are a Sikh — no doubt about it! And an idiot to boot. Whoever said anything about carrying on with me? If that’s what you’re looking for, go back to your village and find some Sikhni to marry. If you want to hang out with me, this is how it will be.’

In the end Trilochan always capitulated. He couldn’t help it. Mozel had become his greatest weakness. He wanted to be around her at any cost. She often humiliated him, sometimes even in front of ill-bred ‘Kristan’ *boys, but he resolutely suffered all the belittlement because of his heart.

When belittled and humiliated thus, it is revenge that one seeks, but not so Trilochan. He had firmly closed his mind’s eye and plugged his ears. He not only liked her, he was, as he often described his obsession to his friends, ‘up to his knees’ in love. All he could do now was submerge the rest of him in the bog and be done with it.

He steadfastly endured this wretched state of affairs for two years. Finally one day, when Mozel seemed to be in a good mood, he gathered her in his arms and asked, ‘Mozel, don’t you love me?’

She pulled away from his tight embrace, sat down in a chair and started staring vacuously at the hem of her tunic. After some time she raised her large Jewish eyes, batted her thick eyelashes and said, ‘Me love a Sikh? No way.’

It was as if someone had shoved red-hot coals inside Trilochan’s turban. His entire body sizzled with rage. ‘Mozel, you always make fun of me,’ he blurted out. ‘But it’s my love that you deride.’

Mozel quickly got up from the chair, toyed with her short brown hair seductively and said, ‘If you shave off your beard and let down your hair, I promise many young men will come on to you. You’re quite handsome, really.’

Trilochan felt as if more burning coals had been shoved into his kes. He took a few steps towards Mozel, dragged her into his arms and pasted his moustachioed lips on her mouth.

She pushed him away. ‘Phew!’ she said. ‘Don’t bother! I already brushed my teeth this morning.’

‘Mozel!’ Trilochan screamed.

She withdrew a small mirror from her bag and started examining her lips where the thick layer of lipstick had cracked. ‘By God, you don’t know how to use your bristles properly. They’re perfect for brushing my navy-blue skirt; just a bit of petrol is needed along with them.’

Trilochan’s anger had risen to the point where it lost all its vehemence. He calmly sat down on the couch. Mozel sat beside him and started to unravel his beard, removing the hairpins one by one and holding them between her teeth.

He really was handsome. Before hair appeared on his face, people had often mistaken him for a beautiful young girl. But this shag of hair had obscured his fine features. And he was aware of it. Being a dutiful young man who held his religion in high regard, he loathed the idea of eliminating any of the things that were an outward expression of his faith.