Saadat Manto - My Name Is Radha

This was all that was needed to send the Chaudhry to the height of his irritation. ‘So bring some ice and cool my head!’

‘This too is my responsibility now.’ Karim Dad laughed tapping Miran Bakhsh on the shoulder, and then got up and walked out of the chaupal.

Just as he was stepping inside the deorhi of his house, he saw Bakhtu coming out. A toothless smile appeared on her lips when she saw Karim Dad.

‘Congratulations, Kaimay. You’ve got a boy, the very image of the moon. Now think about a nice name for him.’

‘Name?’ Karim Dad thought for a moment. ‘Yazeed. . that’ll do, yes, Yazeed.’

Bakhtu the midwife was stunned, her face dropped, while an overjoyed Karim Dad barged into the house shouting jubilantly. Jaina was lying on the charpoy, looking paler than before, with a cotton-ball of a little baby boy beside her, sucking away at his thumb. Karim Dad looked at the baby with a mix of affection and pride. He tweaked the baby’s cheek playfully with his finger and muttered, ‘Oh my Yazeed!’

A shocked scream escaped from Jaina’s lips, ‘Yazeed?’

Looking closely at his son’s face and its features, Karim Dad affirmed, ‘Yes, Yazeed. That’s his name.’

Jaina’s voice suddenly dropped to a whisper, ‘What are you saying, Kaimay — Yazeed?’

He smiled. ‘So what’s wrong with it? It’s just a name.’

‘But whose name. . Think!’ was all she could say.

Karim Dad replied in a grave tone of voice, ‘It isn’t necessary that he should turn out to be the same Yazeed, the one who cut off the water; this one will make it flow again.’

After executing a slew of bedbugs, I was looking through some old papers when, suddenly, Saeed Bhaijan’s photo popped out. An empty frame was lying on the table so I inserted the photo in it and then sat down in a chair and began waiting for the dhobi — my Sunday ritual.

I usually ran out of my stock of clean laundry by Saturday evening. I shouldn’t say ‘stock’ because in those destitute days I barely had enough clothes to maintain the pretence of respectability for six or seven days.

Negotiations for my marriage were under way and this had necessitated that I make many trips to Mahim over the past several Sundays. My dhobi was a decent fellow; whether he got paid or not, he regularly delivered my freshly washed clothes on Sunday at exactly ten o’clock. Still, I was afraid that one day he might get tired of not being paid and sell my clothes in the bazaar where stolen merchandise is traded. I might then be forced to participate in my marriage negotiations without anything on my body, which, obviously, would be highly unseemly.

My kholi was reeking of the stench of dead bedbugs, but just as I was looking for a way to ventilate the room, the dhobi showed up.

He greeted me with ‘Sab, salaam’, opened the bundle of fresh laundry, took out my few items of clothing and deposited them on the table. As he was doing so his eyes fell on Saeed Bhaijan’s photo. He seemed surprised and, upon taking a closer look, let out a startled ‘Huh?’

‘What’s the matter, dhobi?’ I asked.

‘This is Saaeed Shaleem Balishtar,’ he replied, his eyes still riveted on the photo.

‘Why — you know him?’

‘Yes.’ He nodded vigorously. ‘Two brothers. Their bungalow there. . in Colaba. Saaeed Shaleem Balishtar. Washed their clothes.’

This must have been two years ago, I concluded. Before they left for the Fiji islands, my elder brothers Saeed Hasan and Muhammad Hasan had practised law for about a year in Bombay. I said to him, ‘You mean two years ago?’

He again nodded vigorously. ‘When Saaeed Shaleem Balishtar leaving, he gave me pagri, dhoti, kurta, all new. Both very good. One had beard. . very big.’ He indicated the length of the beard with his hand and, pointing at Saeed Bhaijan’s photo, continued, ‘This one younger. Had three bawa log , boy and girl. . played with me lot. He had big bungalow. . very big. . in Colaba.’

‘Dhobi, they’re my brothers,’ I told him.

He made a strange sound, as if he was perplexed, ‘Huh? Saaeed Shaleem Balishtar?’

Attempting to allay his confusion I explained, ‘This is Saeed Hasan Bhaijan’s photo. The one with the beard is Muhammad Hasan — our eldest brother.’

The dhobi gawked at me and then looked around my kholi, taking notice of the filth in the dingy little room that had only a table, a chair and a cot made of gunnysack meshing that was full of bedbugs, and no electric light. He was having difficulty believing that I was Saaeed Shaleem Balishtar’s youngest brother. But when I related certain things about Saeed Bhaijan he shook his head and said, ‘Saaeed Shaleem Balishtar lived in bungalow; you live in kholi.’

‘This is how the world is,’ I said philosophically. ‘Not all fingers of the hand are alike.’

‘Yes, Sab, you speak truth.’ With that he picked up his bundle and made to leave. I remembered about paying my account. I had only eight annas in my pocket, hardly enough even for the fare to and from Mahim for my marriage negotiations. I asked him to hold on, just so he would know my intentions were good, and said, ‘Dhobi, you’re keeping the account? God knows how many washes I owe you for.’

He adjusted the fold of his dhoti around his crotch area and said, ‘Sab, don’t keep account. Washed Saaeed Shaleem Balishtar clothes for whole year. Took whatever he gave. Don’t know what account is.’

He left and I started to get ready for Mahim.

The negotiations were successful. I got married. My situation also improved so I moved from my nine-rupees-a-month kholi on Sekend Pir Khan Street to a flat on Clare Road at thirty-five rupees per month and started paying the dhobi regularly.

He was happy that my situation was now relatively better so he said to my wife, ‘Begum Sab, Sab’s brother Saaeed Shaleem Balishtar big man. Lived there, in Colaba. When left, gave me pagri, dhoti, kurta. Your sab become big man one day.’

I had already told my wife about the photo incident and the magnanimity with which the dhobi had treated me in my impoverished days. He took whatever I gave him whenever I gave it and never complained or made a fuss. But the dhobi’s indifference to keeping an account of the wash soon began to get on my wife’s nerves. ‘Look,’ I said to her, ‘he’s been washing my clothes for four years now; he’s never kept an account.’

‘Why would he, indeed, when this way he can charge double, even quadruple.’

‘How?’

‘You don’t know,’ she said, ‘they take advantage of the ones who don’t have wives to watch over them.’

Almost every month she squabbled with the dhobi about not keeping an account, and each time he answered with his characteristic simplicity, ‘Begum Sab, don’t know how keep account. Don’t lie to you. Saaeed Shaleem Balishtar, your sab’s brother, worked for him whole year. His Begum Sab say, “Dhobi, you get this much,” I say, “Fine.”’

One month a total of two hundred and fifty items of clothing were given to him to wash. Just to test his honesty my wife said to him, ‘Dhobi, you washed sixty pieces this month.’

‘Fine. Begum Sab, know you won’t lie to me.’

My wife paid him for sixty pieces. He thanked her with a salaam, touching the money to his forehead. As he was leaving, she stopped him, ‘Wait, dhobi, it was not sixty, but two hundred and fifty items. Here, take the rest of your money. I was just joking.’

His only answer was ‘Begum Sab, you won’t lie to me.’ He touched the additional money to his forehead, said salaam, and went on his way.

I moved to Delhi two years after my marriage, lived there for a year and a half and then decided to return to Bombay where I found accommodation in Mahim. We went through four dhobis in three months. They were dishonest and cantankerous. A veritable argument broke out after each load of washing. Either it fell short of the number of items or the quality of the washing was atrocious. We started to miss our old dhobi. We had nearly given up hope of finding a good dhobi when one day our old dhobi showed up out of the blue. ‘I saw Sab in bus one day and said myself, “How can that be? Sab moved Delhi.” I inquired in Byekhalla. *Press-wallah told look for you here in Mahim. Sab’s friend live nearby. I asked him and here I am.’