Saadat Manto - My Name Is Radha

I started, let out an elongated ‘Yes-s-s’, and fumbled for words. But Ghulam Ali didn’t give me a chance and began speaking himself instead: ‘This is my shop. I’ve been living in Bombay for two years. Business is good. I can easily save three, even four hundred rupees a month. What are you doing? I hear you’ve become a famous short story writer. Remember the time we ran off to Bombay together? But, yaar, that was a different Bombay. It was small. This one is huge. Or it seems so to me, anyway.’

Meanwhile, a customer walked in, looking for tennis shoes. Ghulam Ali told him, ‘No rubber stuff here. Please go to the shop next door.’

‘Why not?’ I asked Ghulam Ali as soon as the customer left. ‘I was looking for a pair of shoes with rubber soles myself.’

I’d asked the question only casually, but his face fell. ‘I just don’t like them,’ he said, softly.

‘What do you mean, “them”?’

‘Rubber — I mean things made of rubber.’ He tried to smile, but couldn’t. He let out a laugh instead, loud and dry. ‘Okay, I’ll tell you. It’s a silly thing, but somehow it’s had a significant impact on my life.’

Traces of deep reflection appeared on his face; his eyes, playful as ever, dimmed for a second and then lit up again. ‘That life — it was absolutely phoney! To tell you the truth, Saadat, I’ve completely forgotten the days when this thing about being a leader had gotten into my head. The past four, five years have been pure bliss. I can never thank God enough for all He’s given me. I have a wife, children. .’

‘Thanking God enough’ got him started about his business venture: the initial investment, the profit he’d made in a year’s time, the money he had in the bank now.

I interrupted him. ‘But what’s this “silly thing” that had a profound impact on your life?’

The glow once again disappeared from his face. ‘Ye-e-e-s,’ he said. ‘It had a profound impact. Thank God it no longer does. I guess I’ll have to tell you the whole thing.’

Meanwhile, the attendant returned. Ghulam Ali left him in charge of the store and ushered me into his room in the rear. Here, leisurely, he told me why he had developed such a dislike for rubber goods.

‘You know how I got started on my political career. And you also know what kind of character I had. We were pretty much alike. I mean, let’s be honest, our parents couldn’t brag about us being without blemish. I don’t know why I’m telling you this. Maybe you get my drift. I wasn’t endowed with a strong character. But I had this desire to do something. That’s what drove me to politics. I swear to God that I was not a fake. I could have laid down my life for the country. I still can. All the same, I feel — in fact, it’s a conclusion I’ve come to after much serious thought — that India’s politics and her leaders are all pretty green, as green as I used to be. A tidal wave rises, but I think it doesn’t rise on its own, it’s deliberately created. . Perhaps I haven’t been able to lay it all out for you clearly.’

His thoughts were terribly muddled. I gave him a cigarette. He lit it, took a few long drags and continued, ‘What do you think? Doesn’t every effort India has made to free herself look unnatural? Perhaps not the effort, maybe I should say the outcome of the effort. Why have we failed to achieve freedom? Are we a bunch of sissies? Of course we aren’t. We’re men. But the environment is such that our energies fall short of what’s needed to reach our goal.’

‘As if there is a barrier between us and freedom?’ I asked.

His eyes gleamed. ‘Absolutely. But not like a solid wall or an impenetrable rock. It’s like a membrane at the most, a cobweb, created by the way we conduct our politics and live our sham lives. Lives in which we deceive others, and ourselves even more.’

His thoughts were still in a jumble. He seemed to be trying to make an accounting of all his past experiences on the spot. He stubbed out the cigarette, looked at me and said, ‘A person should stay the way God made him. He does not need to shave his head, wear red ochre clothes, or cover his body with ash to perform good deeds, does he? You might say a person does all those things out of his own free will. That’s just it. This novelty, “out of his own free will”, is precisely what leads people astray, at least that’s what I think. Their lofty position makes them indifferent to natural human weaknesses. But they completely forget that it is not their character, thinking or beliefs that will endure in the minds of simple people — as a matter of fact, these disappear into thin air in no time at all. What does endure, rather, is the image of their shaven heads, red ochre garb and ash-smeared bodies.’ Ghulam Ali grew terribly excited. ‘The world has seen a whole host of reformers. Nobody remembers their teachings. But crosses, sacred threads, beards, bracelets and underarm hair survive. We’re more experienced than our ancestors a thousand years ago. I can’t understand why none of these contemporary reformers can see that he’s disfiguring humans beyond all hope of recognition. There are times when I feel like screaming: “For God’s sake, haven’t you deformed him enough already? At least take pity on him now and let him be! You want to make him a God, while the poor thing, he’s having a hard time just holding on to his humanity.”

‘Saadat, I swear to God this is how I feel. If it’s wrong and false, then I don’t know what is right and true. For two full years I’ve wrestled with my mind. I’ve argued with my heart, with my conscience, in fact with every pore of my body. In the end, I feel humans must remain humans. If a couple wants to curb their carnal passion, let them. But the entire human race? For God’s sake! What good will all that “curbing” accomplish?’

He stopped briefly to light another cigarette, letting the entire matchstick burn itself out, shook his head ever so slightly, and continued: ‘No, Saadat, you cannot know the incredible misery I’ve been through, in my body and in my soul. But it couldn’t be otherwise. Whoever attempts to go against nature is bound to come to grief. The day I made that vow in Jallianwala Bagh — you remember, don’t you, that Nigar and I would not bring any slave children into this world — I felt an electrifying surge of happiness. I felt that with that declaration my head had started to soar upward until it touched the sky. However, when I got out of jail the painful realization slowly took hold of me that I had curbed a vital part of my body and soul, that I had crushed the prettiest flower in my garden between my palms. At first the thought brought an exhilarating sense of pride: I had done what others could not. Slowly, when my reasoning became clear, the bitter truth began to sink in. I went to see Nigar. She had given up her job at the hospital and joined Babaji’s ashram. Her faded colour, her altered mental and physical condition — I thought I was mistaken, that my eyes were being deceived. Spending a year with her convinced me that her torment was the same as mine, although neither of us wanted to mention it to the other, feeling the noose of our vow tighten around us.

‘All that political excitement simmered down within a year. Khadi clothes and the tricolour flag no longer seemed so attractive. And even if the cry of “Inqilab Zindabad” did go up now and then, it had lost its previous resonance. Not a single tent could be seen anywhere in all of Jallianwala Bagh, except for a few pegs left in the ground here and there as reminders of a time gone by. The political fervour had pretty much run out of steam.

‘I spent most of my time at home, near my wife. .’ He stopped, the same wounded smile playing on his lips once again. I kept quiet so as not to interrupt his train of thought.