Saadat Manto - My Name Is Radha

One day, as he was bathing, a Muslim lunatic shouted ‘Pakistan Zindabad!’ so loudly that he slipped, fell to the floor and was knocked out.

There were some inmates who weren’t really mad. Most of them were murderers. Their relatives had had them committed after bribing the officers so that they would be spared the hangman’s noose. They did seem to have some inkling of why Hindustan was partitioned and what this Pakistan was, but even they didn’t understand the matter clearly enough. Newspapers weren’t much help and the watchmen were idiots and completely illiterate; nothing definite could be gleaned from conversations with them. All they knew was that there was this man Muhammad Ali Jinnah whom everyone called Quaid-e Azam. He had made a separate country for Muslims called Pakistan. But they knew nothing about where it was located. So these inmates, whose minds hadn’t fused entirely, were continually in a fix about whether they were in Pakistan or Hindustan. If they were in Hindustan, then where was Pakistan?

One inmate got so mixed up about this business of Pakistan — Hindustan, Hindustan — Pakistan that he became even crazier. One day, while sweeping the floor, he suddenly climbed a tree, perched on a limb, and for the next two hours held forth non-stop on the delicate matter of Pakistan and Hindustan. When the guards tried to coax him down, he climbed even higher. When he was threatened, he told them in no uncertain terms, ‘I don’t want to live in Hindustan and I don’t want to live in Pakistan; I’ll live here in this tree.’

Finally, when the bout of madness subsided, he decided to come down, whereupon he started hugging his Hindu and Sikh friends deliriously, crying all the while because he was overcome by the thought that they would leave him here and go to Hindustan.

A Muslim radio engineer with a Master of Science degree always kept himself aloof from other inmates and walked quietly on a particular path of the asylum’s garden all day long. Suddenly, one day, he took off all his clothes, gave them to an officer and started frolicking in the garden stark naked.

A plump Muslim lunatic from Chiniot, once a very active worker for the Muslim League, used to bathe fifteen or sixteen times a day. He abruptly gave up bathing altogether. His name was Muhammad Ali, and one day he announced from his cubicle that he was Muhammad Ali Jinnah. A Sikh followed suit and declared himself Master Tara Singh. This nearly led to a bloodbath, but designating both men as highly dangerous and confining them to separate quarters averted the crisis.

A young Lahori Hindu lawyer who had lost his mind after failing in love was terribly hurt upon hearing that Amritsar had now been moved to Hindustan. His beloved was a native of that city. Although she had snubbed him, even in his madness her memory was fresh in his mind. He constantly hurled obscenities at the Hindu and Muslim leaders who had conspired to eviscerate Hindustan, making him a Pakistani and his beloved a Hindustani. When talk of the exchange began, many of the other lunatics tried to bolster his sagging spirits. They told him not to lose heart; he would be packed off to the Hindustan where his love lived. But he didn’t want to abandon Lahore. He was afraid he wouldn’t be able to set up a successful law practice in Amritsar.

There were two Anglo-Indian inmates in the European ward. They literally went into shock hearing that the English had freed India and gone back home. For hours they secretly discussed the grave matter of their status in the asylum now that the English had left. Would the European ward be kept or liquidated? Would they get a ‘real breakfast’? Or would they be obliged to force the bloody Indian chapatti down their gullets in place of the double-roti?

A Sikh inmate had arrived in the asylum fifteen years ago. He could be heard uttering strange gibberish all the time: ‘ Upar de gurgur de aiynks de be-dhyaana de mung de daal aaf de laaltain .’ Day or night, he never slept. The watchmen could vouch for the fact that he hadn’t slept even a wink in fifteen years. Whenever he heard talk in the asylum of the coming exchange, he always listened to it intently. If someone asked him his opinion, he would answer with complete seriousness: ‘ Upar de gurgur de aiynks de be-dhyaana de mung de daal aaf de Pakistan government .’

Later, though, he changed aaf de Pakistan government to aaf de Toba Tek Singh government , and started asking the other loonies where Toba Tek Singh, the place he came from, was. But no one knew whether Toba Tek Singh was in Pakistan or Hindustan. And if someone tried to explain, he inevitably got confused, thinking that Sialkot, which used to be in Hindustan, was now said to be in Pakistan. Who knew, perhaps Lahore, currently in Pakistan, would shift to Hindustan tomorrow, or maybe all of Hindustan would become Pakistan. And who could say with any surety that both Hindustan and Pakistan would not disappear altogether.

Over time this lunatic’s kes had become so scraggly that it almost seemed to have disappeared. He hardly ever bathed, so the hair of his beard and head had become matted and stuck together, giving his features a frighteningly grotesque look. However, he was a harmless man. During his fifteen years in the asylum he had never had a brawl with anyone. The old staff knew that he had owned quite a bit of land in Toba Tek Singh. He had been a prosperous landowner until one day, suddenly, he went berserk. His relatives brought him to the asylum in heavy chains and had him admitted. They came to visit him once a month, inquired after him and then went back. Their visits continued for a long time, but stopped when the Pakistan — Hindustan garbar started.

His name was Bishan Singh, but everyone called him Toba Tek Singh. Although he had no awareness of the day or month or how many years had passed, somehow he always knew the day his relatives were expected. He would tell the officer that his ‘visit’ was coming that day. He would take a long bath, scrub his body vigorously with soap, oil and comb his hair, have his clothes, which he hardly ever wore, brought out and slip into them, and meet his visitors thus, looking all prim and proper. If they asked him something, he remained quiet or mumbled his incomprehensible ‘ Upar de gurgur de aiynks de be-dhyaana de mung de daal aaf de laaltain ’ now and then.

He had a daughter who, growing a little at a time, had become a young woman in fifteen years. Bishan Singh never recognized her. As a little girl, she would cry when she saw her father, and now, as a young woman, tears still welled up in her eyes at the sight of him.

When this confusing business of Pakistan and Hindustan began, he started asking his fellow lunatics where Toba Tek Singh was located. His curiosity grew by the day when he didn’t get a satisfactory answer. Now the ‘visits’ had also stopped. Where before he would instinctively know when his relatives were coming to see him, now that inner voice no longer intimated such a visit to him.

He fervently wished those people who talked with him with such kindness and warmth and who brought him gifts of fruits, sweets and clothes would visit him. If he were to ask them, they would surely have told him whether Toba Tek Singh was located in Pakistan or Hindustan because he thought they themselves came from Toba Tek Singh.

One lunatic called himself ‘God’. One day Bishan Singh asked him about Toba Tek Singh: Was it in Pakistan or Hindustan? As usual, ‘God’ burst out laughing and said, ‘Neither in Pakistan nor Hindustan because we haven’t yet given the orders.’

Bishan Singh begged ‘God’ many times to give the order so the dilemma could be laid to rest, but he said he was too damn busy because he had many other orders to give first. So one day, fed up with ‘God’s’ dilly-dallying, Bishan Singh let him have a piece of his mind: ‘ Upar de gurgur de aiynks de be-dhyaana de mung de daal aaf Wahe Guruji da Khalsah and Wahe Guruji ki fateh — jo bole so nihal, sat siri akaal!’ Perhaps he meant to say: You’re the Muslims’ God, had you been the God of the Sikhs you would surely have heard my plea.