Saadat Manto - My Name Is Radha

One day, Bakhtu the midwife came for Jaina’s daily check-up and brought along the news that the Indians were about to stop the river. Jaina couldn’t understand. She asked, ‘About to stop the river. . which river?’

‘The one that waters our fields.’

Jaina thought for a while and then said with a smile, ‘Mausi, have you gone mad? Who can stop rivers? They aren’t just any old street drain.’

Rubbing Jaina’s belly gently, Bakhtu replied, ‘Bibi, I don’t know. I’m just telling you what I heard. This information has even appeared in newspapers.’

‘What information?’ Jaina was still finding it hard to believe.

Feeling Jaina’s stomach with her wrinkled hand, the old woman said, ‘The same. . about stopping the river.’ Then she pulled Jaina’s shirt down over her stomach and said with the confidence of a seasoned obstetrician, ‘God willing, you’ll have your baby in exactly ten days.’

When Karim Dad came home, the first thing Jaina asked him about was this rumour about the river. At first he tried to evade the question, but when she persisted, he said casually, ‘Yes, I’ve heard something like that.’

‘Like what?’

‘Just that the Hindustan-wallahs will divert the waters of our rivers.’

‘Why?’

‘To ruin our crops,’ Karim Dad replied.

The answer convinced Jaina that rivers could be stopped from flowing. With a feeling of utter despondency she merely said, ‘How cruel they are.’

This time around, Karim Dad took some time to smile. ‘But tell me, did Mausi Bakhtu visit you today?’

‘She did,’ Jaina replied half-heartedly.

‘What did she say?’

‘That the baby will be born exactly ten days from today.’

‘Zindabad!’ Karim Dad cried out boisterously.

Jaina was furious. She muttered, ‘You’re making merry, while only God knows what calamity awaits us.’

Karim Dad got up and left for the chaupal . *Here, practically all the men of the village were crowding around Chaudhry Natthu asking him about this news of cutting off the water to their river. One man was roundly swearing at Pandit Nehru, another was cursing Indians without letting up, a third was persistently denying that the waters of a river could be diverted. There were also some in whose opinion what lay ahead was punishment for their own sins, best averted by collective prayer in the mosque.

Karim Dad sat quietly in a corner listening to their exchange. Chaudhry Natthu was the most effusive among those swearing at the Indians. Karim Dad was shifting so often in his seat that it gave the impression this sort of conversation was making him very nervous. The men were all saying with one voice that cutting off the water was a very nasty act indeed, the height of meanness, downright vile, a most horrid oppression, a sin, the very same conduct as Yazeed’s.

Karim Dad cleared his throat a few times as if preparing to say something. When another volley of the coarsest obscenities rose to the Chaudhry’s mouth, he yelled, ‘Chaudhry, don’t call anyone bad names!’

The swear word for doing something to the lower anatomy of the Indians’ mother caught in the Chaudhry’s throat. He turned around and directed a mighty strange look towards Karim Dad, who, meanwhile, had busied himself arranging his turban on his head. ‘Huh. . what did you say?’

In a soft but firm voice Karim Dad responded, ‘Just that you shouldn’t swear at anyone.’

The word that was caught in the Chaudhry’s throat now shot out of his mouth with incredible force. He asked sharply, ‘ Anyone? Who the hell are they to you?’

Now the Chaudhry addressed the folks gathered in the chaupal. ‘You heard him, didn’t you? He says don’t rebuke anyone. Ask him: Who are they to him?’

With tremendous poise and self-control Karim Dad replied, ‘Who are they to me? Well, they are my enemies.’

Something resembling raucous laughter rose from the Chaudhry’s throat so loudly that the bristles of his moustache flew to either side of his lips from the force. ‘You heard him. They’re his enemies. So we should love them. Right, boy?’

And Karim Dad, in the manner of a deferential boy, answered, ‘No, Chaudhry, I’m not asking you to love them. I only ask that they shouldn’t be called bad names.’

Karim Dad’s bosom buddy Miran Bakhsh, who was sitting right next to him, asked, ‘Why?’

‘What’s the point of it, yaar? They want to make your fields barren and you think that all you need in order to get even with them is a few insults. That isn’t smart, is it? Insults are the recourse of people who have run out of answers.’

‘And you, do you have an answer?’ asked Miran Bakhsh.

‘Whether I have one or not is not the issue,’ Karim Dad said after a pause. ‘This matter concerns tens of thousands, indeed hundreds of thousands. A single person’s answer can’t stand as the answer for everyone. Such matters require a lot of deep thought and deliberation. . to devise a solid plan of action. They cannot divert the course of the water in one day. It’ll take them years. And, pray tell, is your strategy simply to hurl obscenities at them for a few minutes and let out all your rage?’ He put his hand on Miran Bakhsh’s shoulder and added with genuine affection, ‘All I know, yaar, is that, somehow, even calling Hindustan mean, despicable, vile and tyrannical is wrong.’

‘Listen to this!’ Chaudhry Natthu blurted out instead of Miran Bakhsh.

However, Karim Dad continued his conversation with Miran Bakhsh. ‘It’s foolishness to expect mercy from the enemy. Once the battle has begun, lamenting that the enemy is using large-bore rifles while we have small-bore, that our bombs are fairly small and theirs are much larger. . Tell me, honestly, is that any kind of complaint? Whether it’s a small knife or a large knife, both can be used to kill. Am I wrong?’

It was the Chaudhry, again, who started thinking, but got discombobulated in a second. ‘But the issue. .’ he said with irritation, ‘the issue is that they’re stopping the water. They want to starve us to death.’

Karim Dad removed his hand from Miran Bakhsh’s shoulder and spoke directly to the Chaudhry. ‘Chaudhry, when you’ve designated someone as your enemy, why complain that he wants to kill you by means of hunger and thirst? Did you think he would send you great big pots of sumptuous pilafs and pitchers of ice-cooled fruit juice from across the border, rather than laying waste to your lush fields and crops? Did you think he would plant gardens for your enjoyment?’

The Chaudhry lost his cool. ‘Damn you, what nonsense is this?’

Miran Bakhsh, too, asked Karim Dad softly, ‘Yes, yaar, what nonsense is this?’

‘It isn’t nonsense, Miran Bakhsha,’ Karim Dad attempted to reason with his friend. ‘Just think a little: In a battle what wouldn’t one opponent do to defeat the other. When a wrestler, all set for the bout, descends into the arena, he has every right to use whatever manoeuvres he sees fit. .’

‘Makes sense,’ Miran Bakhsh agreed, shaking his shaven head.

Karim Dad smiled. ‘Well then, stopping the river also makes sense. For us it’s an atrocity, but for them it’s entirely admissible.’

‘You call it admissible?’ the Chaudhry butted in. ‘When your tongue is hanging out from thirst, we’ll see whether such an atrocity is still admissible. When your kids are begging for a single morsel of food, will you still call it admissible?’

Karim Dad ran his tongue over his parched lips and replied, ‘Yes, Chaudhry, even then. Why do you only remember that he’s our enemy and conveniently forget that we’re just as much his enemy? If we had it in our power, we would cut his food and water supply too. Now that the enemy is able and about to do that, we’ll certainly have to think of a way to counter his move. And futile name-calling won’t do that. The enemy won’t send rivers of milk flowing your way, Chaudhry Natthu! If he could, he would poison every drop of your water. You call it plain inequity, plain bestiality because you don’t like this way of killing. Isn’t it a bit odd that even before the war has begun you’re setting up conditions, as if it is a marriage contract and you have the freedom to set down your conditions? To tell the enemy, “Don’t kill me by starvation and thirst, but, by all means, kill me with a gun that is of such and such bore.” This, in fact, is the real nonsense . Think about it with a cool head.’