Saadat Manto - My Name Is Radha

Now let me tell you about Tikka Ram. He met me twenty days later and asked, ‘Where’s Rukma?’ I told him I had no idea. ‘No, you damn well know,’ he insisted with a veiled threat in his voice. I said, ‘Brother, I swear by the Qur’an, I know nothing about her.’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘you’re lying. You’ve killed her. I’m going to file a report with the police. I’ll tell them that first you dispatched Girdhari, then Rukma.’ He left. I broke into a sweat from sheer terror. I thought long and hard about what to do, but couldn’t think of anything except that I should get rid of him. You tell me, what else could I have done? So I took a kitchen knife and sharpened it in absolute secrecy. Then I went out looking for Tikka Ram. By chance I found him near the urinal at the corner of the street. He had just put his empty boxes of oranges down outside and gone in. I darted in after him. He was just untying his dhoti when I yelled, ‘Tikka Ram!’ The moment he turned around, I plunged the knife into his stomach. He tried with both hands to keep his guts from spilling out but doubled over and crumpled to the ground. I should have made my escape immediately, but look at the foolhardy thing I did. I started to check for his pulse to make sure he was dead. All I’d heard was that everyone has this vein, but whether it was on the left or right of the thumb I didn’t know. I was taking a long time figuring it out and that was my undoing. A constable entered unbuttoning his trousers. He grabbed me. Well, Sahib, this is the whole story, pure and simple, without a grain of falsehood. Recite the kalima: La ilaha . .!

Our first encounter took place exactly two years ago today at Apollo Bunder. It was evening. In the distance, the last remnants of the sun had disappeared behind the waves, which resembled the folds of a thick, coarse fabric when looked at from the benches on the beach. I was sitting on the other side of the Gate of India on a bench next to where a man was getting a head massage. I was looking at the ocean, stretched out as far as the eye could see. At the furthermost point, where the sky and the sea came together, huge waves rose gradually, as if the sides of a dark-coloured carpet were being folded up.

The beach lights were all on, their reflection over the water spreading thick, quivering lines on it. Below me, along the stone wall, masts and rolled-up sails swayed gently. The sound of the waves and the voices of the sightseers permeated the atmosphere like a hum. Now and then the horn of an approaching or receding car split the air like an intrusive ‘hunh!’ in the middle of the telling of an absorbing tale.

Such a pleasant atmosphere calls for a smoke. I pulled out a packet of cigarettes but couldn’t find any matches. God knows where I had left them. I was about to put the packet back in my pocket when I heard someone nearby say, ‘Here are some matches.’

I turned around and saw a young man standing behind the bench. Bombay residents are normally pale, but this man looked frighteningly so. I thanked him. ‘That’s very kind of you.’

He handed me the matches. I thanked him again and said, ‘Please sit down.’

‘Please light your cigarette,’ he said, ‘I have to go.’

He seemed to be lying; it was obvious from his tone that he was neither in a hurry nor was there any particular place where he needed to be. True, you might ask how one can tell such things from a tone. But the truth is that was precisely how I felt at the time. So I said once more, ‘What’s the hurry. Have a seat,’ and offered him a cigarette. ‘Have one.’

He looked at the packet and said, ‘Thanks, but I only smoke my own brand.’

I could have sworn that he was lying again. And again it was his tone that betrayed him. This piqued my interest and I resolved firmly that I would make him sit down beside me and smoke one of my cigarettes. I believed this wouldn’t be too difficult because in just two sentences he had made it plain to me that he was deluding himself. He, in fact, wanted to sit down and smoke but, at the same time, he felt he should do neither. This dichotomy between yes and no was clear to me in his tone. Believe me, his very existence seemed to be suspended between being and non-being.

His face, as I’ve already mentioned, looked incredibly pale. Apart from that, the outlines of his nose, eyes and mouth were so faint that it seemed as if someone had drawn a portrait and then given it a wash. As I looked at him, his lips would swell at times but then fade away like a spark buried under layers of ash. It was the same with his other features: eyes like two puddles of muddy water with sparse lashes drooping over them; black hair that had a hue resembling burnt paper and appeared dry and brittle like straw. You could make out the contours of his nose more easily, but from a distance it looked pretty flat, because, as I mentioned earlier, his features were not very distinct.

He was of average height, neither tall nor short. However, when he stood a certain way, relaxing his spine, there was a marked difference in his height. Likewise, when he would suddenly stand erect, he appeared to be much taller than his true size.

His clothes were shabby, though not grimy. His jacket sleeves were frayed at the cuffs from constant wear and tear; you could see the threads unravelling. His collar was unbuttoned and his shirt looked as though it would not survive even one more washing. Yet, despite such clothing, he was trying hard to present himself as a respectable man. I say ‘trying’ because when I had looked at him, a wave of anxiety seemed to wash over his entire being, leaving me to wonder if he wasn’t really trying to keep himself hidden from my eyes.

I got up, lit a cigarette, and offered the packet to him. ‘Help yourself!’ The way I said it and the quickness with which I lit the match and held it out to him somehow made him forget everything. Taking a cigarette, he stuck it in his mouth and started to smoke. But then he immediately realized his mistake. He promptly removed the cigarette from his mouth, pretending to cough. ‘Cavenders don’t agree with me,’ he said. ‘They have such strong tobacco that it irritates my throat right away.’

I asked, ‘So what brand do you smoke?’

He stammered, ‘I. . I actually smoke very little because Dr Arolkar has advised me not to. Otherwise I buy 555, which is pretty mild.’

The doctor he mentioned was famous throughout Bombay; he charged a fee of ten rupees per visit. The 555 brand he mentioned, as you may well know, is very expensive. He’d now lied twice in one breath, which I found difficult to digest. Still, I kept quiet, even though I would have liked nothing better than to pull off his mask, expose his lies, and shame him into apologizing to me. However, when I looked at him I realized that whatever he said became a part of him. I didn’t see the kind of blush that usually sweeps across the face of a liar. Instead, I sensed that he truly believed whatever he said. His lies were spoken with complete sincerity. He lied with such conviction that he didn’t experience the slightest bit of guilt. Anyway, let’s drop this. Recounting all these details will require reams of paper and I would never get around to the story itself.

After a little polite conversation that seemed to put him at ease, I offered him another cigarette and mentioned how exquisite the ocean looked. Being a storywriter, I was able to talk to him about the ocean, about Apollo Bunder and all the visitors there in such an engaging way that even after six cigarettes his throat failed to become the least bit irritated. He asked me my name. When I replied he stood up and said, ‘Oh you. . you’re. . Mr. . I’ve read many of your stories. . I didn’t know it was you. I’m very pleased to have met you. Really very pleased.’