Saadat Manto - My Name Is Radha

The woman, whose very features and bearing screamed that she was used to being in control, said, ‘Well then, let’s go to the kitchen and get the fire going. You’ve got a big cooking pot, haven’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Sardar affirmed, nodding her big head.

‘Go and wash it. I’ll be along shortly.’ She got up from the bed and started watching the gramophone.

‘I’m afraid there won’t be any meat,’ Sardar apologized.

‘Don’t worry, it’ll be there,’ the woman said, placing the stylus on the record. ‘You just do as you’re told. Make sure the fire is blazing hot.’

Sardar withdrew. The well-dressed woman now addressed Navab with a pleasant smile, ‘Navab, we’ve brought you a pair of gold bracelets.’

She dug into her vanity bag and produced the bracelets wrapped in a thin, red paper. They looked quite heavy and gorgeous.

Navab was staring at Haibat Khan who sat next to her, sunk in deep silence. She glanced at the bracelets and asked him in a very soft but frightened voice, ‘Khan, who is she?’

‘Who am I?’ said the woman, toying with the bracelets. ‘I’m Haibat’s sister.’ She looked at him and he cringed at her answer. Then she again spoke to Navab, ‘My name is Halakat.’

Navab was at a loss to understand. She was mortally afraid of the woman’s eyes, which, though definitely beautiful, were dangerously widened. They seemed to be raining down plumes of fire.

The woman moved forward, grabbed Navab’s wrists and put the bracelets on them. Suddenly she stopped, let go of the girl, and ordered the man, ‘You make yourself scarce, Haibat Khan. I want to doll her up before presenting her to you.’

Haibat Khan was in a daze. When he didn’t get up, the woman spoke sharply, ‘You heard me, didn’t you? Now go out!’

He left with his eyes fixed on Navab. He was feeling terribly agitated. He didn’t know where to go or what to do.

On his way to the veranda, he passed by the makeshift kitchen with a gunnysack curtain and saw that Sardar already had the fire going. He walked out to the dirt road beyond the reeds without speaking to her. His condition was like that of a half-crazy person. Even the slightest sound made him jump.

A lorry was coming along in the distance. The urge to stop it, hop aboard and disappear gripped him. But when it drew near, it swirled up an atrocious cloud of dust that enveloped him completely. He tried to call out, but couldn’t because of all the dust choking his throat.

When the dust settled he felt as though he was half dead. He wanted to go back to the house behind the reeds, the house where he had spent many days and nights of indescribable bliss by the side of that coltish girl, but he couldn’t. His feet refused to budge.

Standing on the side of the dirt road for a long time, he wondered what was going on. His affair with the woman who had accompanied him here went back a long time. Her husband had been a close friend of his and he had first visited her to commiserate with her at her husband’s death. As luck would have it, this turned into an affair. Barely two days after his friend’s death he returned to her house. She ordered him inside as if he was her servant and offered herself to him.

Haibat Khan was a rank amateur where women were concerned. That Shahina had expressed her feelings for him, never mind her terribly commanding manner, was no small thing for him. No doubt she was extremely wealthy, but it was not her wealth — partly her own and partly her late husband’s — that he cared about. His only interest in her was that she was the first woman in his life. If he had allowed himself to be cowed by her overbearing manner, it was because he was a complete novice.

Standing by the dirt road, he kept thinking for a long time. Finally, he couldn’t hold back and walked over to the house. There, in the makeshift kitchen, he saw Sardar frying some meat. He continued towards the room with the palang but found the door closed. He rapped softly on it.

Some moments later the door opened. The first thing he saw was blood all over the floor. He trembled. Next he saw Shahina leaning against the door. ‘There,’ she said to him, ‘I’ve dolled her up for you!’

With difficulty Haibat Khan moistened his parched throat with saliva and asked, ‘Where is she?’

‘Some of her is on the bed, but the best parts are in the kitchen.’

Haibat Khan didn’t quite understand. All the same, terror engulfed him. He couldn’t get a word out, and remained rooted to the spot by the door. It wasn’t just the gore; he also spotted small pieces of flesh on the floor and. . and a sharp kitchen knife. It looked as if someone was lying on the bed, covered in a blood-soaked sheet.

Shahina smiled and said, ‘Shall I lift the sheet and show her to you. . your bedecked and adorned Navab — why, I made her up myself. But first, you should eat. You must be starving. Sardar is making a delicious meat dish. I carved the meat myself.’

Haibat Khan began to shake. ‘Shahina!’ he screamed. ‘What have you done?’

She smiled. ‘Darling, this is not the first time. My husband, may God bless him with Paradise, was as unfaithful as you are. I butchered him and threw pieces of his flesh for the crows and buzzards to feast on. I love you, so, instead of you, I have. .’

Without completing the sentence, she pulled the sheet off the heap on the bed. Haibat Khan choked on his scream and fell unconscious.

When he came to, Shahina was at the steering wheel and they were driving through an unfamiliar terrain.

It was a day during the rainy season — a day just like today. Outside the window, the leaves of the peepul tree stood drenched in the rain. A young woman from the hills, a ghatan , was lying curled up against Randheer on the spring mattress of the teak bed, which had now been moved away from the window a bit.

Beyond the window, the rain-washed leaves quivered like earrings in the milky darkness of the night, very much like the shivers the girl clinging to him sent coursing through his body.

Randheer had been reading an English-language newspaper the whole day and had been through not just every news item but practically all the ads as well. Towards evening he stepped out on to the balcony to amuse himself a bit and spotted the girl under a tamarind tree, shielding herself from the downpour. She probably worked in the neighbouring rope factory. He cleared his throat and coughed a couple of times to draw her attention and, after a while, he motioned to her to come up.

He’d been feeling quite despondent for the past several days. With the war going on, nearly all the Christian girls in Bombay, who could be had at a bargain price, had enlisted with the Auxiliary Force. Some had moved to the Fort area and set up dancing schools, which only gora soldiers were allowed to enter. Randheer was feeling quite miserable. One reason was that the Christian girls were no longer readily available. Another was the colour of his skin — although enviably suave and well mannered, educated, in good health and quite a bit more handsome than most young men, he was barred from practically all the brothels of the Fort area. After all, he was not a gora.

Before the war came along he had physical relationships with umpteen Christian girls around the Nagpara and Taj Hotel areas. He was far more adept in matters of the flesh than any of the Christian boys with whom those girls conducted fleeting affairs just to appear chic until eventually settling down with some fool or other.

He had called the ghatan over to get even with Hazel who had recently acquired this air of mannered haughtiness. Hazel lived in the flat below his. Every morning, outfitted in her army uniform, her khaki cap set at a rakish angle over her short-trimmed hair, she marched out of her place with such a swagger as if she expected everyone to roll themselves out as a carpet for her to walk on.