Saadat Manto: My Name Is Radha

As I mentioned, Raj Kishore was a good- and healthy-looking young man. Well, had the matter ended there, I’d have had no cause to grumble. What was worse was that he was also overly conscious of his physique and good looks. And this I could scarcely stomach.

Being healthy is a good thing, but to inflict one’s health on others like a disease is something else again. Well, Raj Kishore suffered from this disease. He never lost an opportunity to flaunt his health and his well-proportioned and shapely limbs before those less healthy than he was.

Doubtless, I’m a frail and chronically ill man. One of my lungs can hardly pump enough oxygen into my body. But as God is my witness, I have never ever put my weakness on display, although I know that one can exploit one’s frailty as much as one’s strength. But I believe one should not do that.

To me, true beauty is the kind that you quietly admire in your heart, not broadcast with your tongue. I consider such beauty an affliction that hits you with the impact of a rock. All the beauties that a young man should have, Raj Kishore had them. But, regrettably, he also had the nasty habit of exhibiting them in the crudest fashion, such as by flexing his arm muscles while talking to you; or worse yet, praising them unabashedly himself. Or, in the midst of a discussion on some serious issue, such as swaraj, unbuttoning his khadi kurta and measuring the unusually wide span of his chest.

Ah, yes, khadi — it reminds me: Raj Kishore was a staunch Congressite. Maybe that’s why he wore khadi. But the thought that he didn’t love his country as much as he loved himself never ceased to peck at my heart.

The majority of people thought that my opinion of the man was grossly unjust. This was because, whether in or out of the studio, everyone admired him for his beauty, his thoughts, his simplicity, and his language with its perfect Rawalpindi accent, which I also loved.

Unlike most other actors, he didn’t keep to himself. You were sure to find him in any and all Congress rallies, as well as literary gatherings. Regardless of how busy his life was, he always found time to share in the joy and sorrow of his neighbours, even those with whom he had only a nodding acquaintance.

Every film producer regarded him highly on account of his celebrity and his spotless character. And not just them, even the public knew all too well that Raj Kishore’s life was free of scandal. It’s not easy to be part of the film world and remain squeaky clean. That Raj Kishore was a successful hero further jacked up his stature in everyone’s eyes.

I spent part of my evenings at Shamlal’s paan shop in Nagpara. Here, people often gossiped about actors and actresses, none of whom was free of some scandal or other. Not so with Raj Kishore. Whenever his name cropped up in a conversation, Shamlal asserted proudly, ‘Manto Sahib, Raj Bhai is the only actor who’s not easy on his zipper.’

I didn’t know why Shamlal had started calling him ‘Raj Bhai’, nor was I too surprised by it because every little thing Raj Bhai did soon became public knowledge as a veritable achievement. How much he made, how much he gave to his father every month, or donated to orphanages, or spent on himself — people knew these details as if they had been singed into their memories.

One day Shamlal told me that Raj Bhai was exceptionally nice to his stepmother. When times were hard and he had no source of income, both his father and his father’s new wife had put him through all manner of hardship. But remarkably, Raj Bhai never shirked from his duty and welcomed them all with open arms. Now his father and his stepmother sat majestically on their canopied bed and ruled the roost. And Raj Bhai went every morning to touch his stepmother’s feet and joined his hands before his father, ready to carry out immediately any order the old man might give him.

Please don’t mind if I say that every time I came across such overblown praise for the man, I couldn’t help but feel uneasy. I don’t know why. God forbid, I didn’t hate him, as I’ve said before. He had never given me cause to despise him. Then again, at a time when we munshi-folk counted for nothing, worthy neither of respect nor importance, Raj Bhai would talk to me for hours. So, while I can’t say why, the thought that all of this was only so much posturing, that his life was an absolute sham, never failed to flash in some dark corner of my mind. The problem was, no one shared my opinion. So while everyone else worshipped him like a god, I stewed in my own juice.

He was married, had four children, was a model husband, an exemplary father. Turn up whatever corner of his life you wish, you wouldn’t find anything even vaguely dubious or dark. That’s all fine, but this idea — it never failed to rattle my brain.

I swear, I cursed myself several times for harbouring doubts about the man. ‘You’re rotten. Why do you needlessly mistrust a man whom the whole world considers good, and about whom you yourself don’t have any complaint? What’s wrong if he never tires of looking at his well-proportioned body? You’d likely do the same if you had a body like his.’

Still, I could never bring myself to look at him with the eyes of others. This often drove me to argue with him during our conversations. If something he said didn’t sit right with me, I went all out against him. But after every such altercation, I would see only a smile on his lips and feel an indescribably bitter taste sloshing around in my throat, which pissed me off even more.

Without a doubt, his life wasn’t stained by any scandal. He had no relations, innocent or otherwise, with any woman except his wife. I also admit that he called every female actor his sister, and they, in turn, called him brother. But my heart always questioned my mind: Why establish this relationship in the first place? A sister — brother relationship is one thing, but calling a woman your sister, that too so demonstratively, like putting up a sign that says ‘Road Closed’ or ‘No Pissing Allowed’, is quite another.

If you’re not intending to establish a sexual relationship with a woman, why announce it in public? If even the thought of a woman besides your wife can’t enter your heart, why bother to advertise the fact? Since I couldn’t resolve this, and other similar issues, a strange perplexity gripped me.

Anyway—

The shooting of Ban ki Sundri was progressing. The studio was bustling with activity. A slew of extras, both men and women, showed up every day and we had a nice time indulging in light-hearted banter with them.

One day, the make-up master, whom we called Ustad, walked into the villain Niaz Muhammad’s room with the news that the new girl who had been signed up for the role of the vamp had arrived, so filming was expected to start very soon.

We were having a round of tea at the time. We warmed up at once, partly from the tea and partly from the news. The arrival of a new girl in the studio was always a pleasant event, so we all quickly exited the room to have a look at this new creature.

We finally saw her when Hurmuzji Framji came out of his office, took two paans out of drummer Isa’s silver box, stuffed them inside his humongous cheeks, and headed for the billiard room.

All I could see of her was her dark, brownish complexion as she quickly shook hands with the seth and rode away in the studio car. A bit later Niaz Muhammad told me that she had rather puffy lips. Perhaps he was only able to see her lips. Ustad, who hadn’t glimpsed even that much, remarked, shaking his head with an air of disapproval, ‘Onh, kandum!’ No good! The girl didn’t come to the studio for the next four or five days. On the fifth day — or was it the sixth? — as I was coming out of Gulab’s restaurant after taking my tea, I suddenly bumped into her.