Saadat Manto - Manto - Selected Stories

Why had Raj Kishore kissed his own hand instead of Neelam’s? Had he been taking revenge? Had he been trying to humiliate her? Questions arose in my mind, but no answer was forthcoming.

Four days later, when I paid my customary visit to Sham Lal’s in Nagpara, he complained bitterly, ‘Manto saab, you don’t give us any news of what goes on in your company! You either don’t want to tell us or else you don’t know? Do you know what Raj bhai did?’

He recounted his own version of the story: ‘There was a scene in The Beauty of the Forest , for which the director asked Raj bhai to kiss Ms Neelam on the mouth, but saab, can you imagine, Raj bhai on one hand, and that cheap slut on the other? Raj bhai said right away, “No, sir. This, I’m never going to do. I have a wife. Am I to return home and touch my lips to hers after I’ve kissed this debased woman?” That was enough, the director immediately changed the scene and said, “Alright, don’t kiss her mouth, just her hand will do.” But Raj saab was no amateur. When the time came, he clearly kissed his own hand, but in such a way that his audience felt he kissed this bitch’s hand.’

I didn’t mention any of this talk to Neelam; I felt that as she knew nothing of this entire episode, there was no point in needlessly upsetting her.

Malaria is common in Bombay. I don’t remember what month it was, or the date; I only remember that the fifth set of The Beauty of the Forest was up and it was raining hard when Neelam suddenly succumbed to a high fever. I didn’t have much work at the studio and so I sat for hours at her bedside, tending to her. The malaria had brought an unnatural yellow tone to her dark complexion. There was now a trace of helplessness in the bitter downturn of her eyes and mouth.

The quinine injections had reduced her power of hearing and she was forced to raise her frail voice when she spoke. Her own feeling was that it was me who had gone deaf.

One day, after her fever had subsided, she lay in bed, thanking Eedan Bai in a weakened voice for coming to see her, when there was the sound of a car horn downstairs. I looked; the noise sent a shudder through Neelam’s body.

After a while, the room’s heavy teak door opened and Raj Kishore appeared in a white kurta and close-fitting pyjamas. He entered the room with his dowdy wife at his side.

He greeted Eedan Bai as ‘sister Eedan’, shook my hand, and after introducing us all to his homely, tired-faced wife, sat down at Neelam’s bedside. For some time, he just sat there, smiling into the emptiness. Then he turned towards Neelam, and for the first time, I saw in his clear eyes a murky emotion.

I had barely registered my surprise when he began saying in a playful tone, ‘I’d been meaning to come and see you for many days, but my wretched car engine’s been giving trouble. It’s been lying in the workshop for the past ten days. It returned today and so I said [he gestured to his wife], “Come on Shanti, we’ll go this minute. Do the housework another time. And by pure chance, today is Raksha Bandhan, we’ll go and check up on sister Neelam as well as get her to tie my rakhi.” ’

With this, he took out a silk, tasselled rakhi from the pocket of his kurta. Neelam’s sallow face became still paler, and still more distressing.

Raj Kishore didn’t look in her direction. Addressing Eedan Bai, he said, ‘But not like this. This is a happy occasion; my sister can’t tie a rakhi on me in this state. Come on Shanti, get up. Help her put on some lipstick or something. Where is the makeup box?’

Neelam’s makeup case lay on the mantelpiece. Taking two long strides, Raj Kishore brought it over. Neelam was silent. Her thin lips were tightly compressed, as if holding back a scream.

Shanti rose like an obedient wife and began putting makeup on Neelam, who offered no resistance; Eedan Bai propped up the lifeless corpse. When Shanti started painting Neelam’s lips in a singularly artless fashion, she looked at me and smiled; a smile that was really a scream.

I thought, no! Any minute now, Neelam’s tightly compressed lips will suddenly open, and like a mountain stream in the rains, tearing through solid dams, running madly forward, her bottled up emotions will burst forth with torrential speed, uproot us all from where we stand, and sweep us away to Lord knows what unknown depth. But to my great surprise, she didn’t say a word. The yellow of her skin was concealed by the dust of rouge; and she remained as expressionless as a stone figurine. When at last she was made up, she said in a firm voice to Raj Kishore: ‘Come, give it to me. I’ll tie the rakhi now.’

A moment later, the silk, tasselled rakhi was on Raj Kishore’s wrist. Neelam’s hands, far from trembling, were tying its knot, with stony composure. As it was happening, I saw once again, in Raj Kishore’s clear eyes, that same clouded emotion, but it melted into the sound of his laughter. In accordance with custom, he took out some money from an envelope and handed it to Neelam, who thanked him and put it under her pillow.

When everyone had gone, and Neelam and I were alone, she looked at me with a discomfited gaze. Then she rested her head on the pillow and remained silent. Raj Kishore had forgotten his bag on her bed. Neelam saw it and kicked it to one side. I sat for about two hours by her bedside, reading the newspaper. When she’d said nothing for a while, I got up and left without a word.

Three days after this incident, I was in my tiny, nine rupees a month room in Nagpara, shaving and listening to my neighbour, Mrs Fernandez, swear in the next door room, when I heard someone come in. I turned to look; it was Neelam.

For a moment, I thought I was mistaken; it had to be somebody else. Her dark red lipstick was smudged, making it appear as if her lips were bleeding; not a strand of hair was in place. The flowers on her white sari looked windswept. Three or four of her blouse’s hooks were open and there were scratches visible on her dark breasts.

I was too shocked to see Neelam in this state to ask what had happened, or even how she’d found out where I lived.

I shut the door immediately and pulled up a chair to sit next to her. She said, ‘I came straight here.’

‘From where?’ I asked softly.

‘From my house. And I’ve come to say that all the bullshit is over.’

‘Which?’

‘I knew he’d come back to my place when there was no one there. And he did. To get his bag!’ As she said this, that same faint, secretive smile played on the mouth which the lipstick had so completely defaced. ‘He came to get his bag. I said, “Sure, go ahead, it’s lying in the other room.” There must have been something different about my tone because he looked a little frightened. I said, “Don’t be afraid.” But when we went into the other room, instead of giving him the bag, I sat down at the dressing table and did my makeup.’

Neelam fell silent. She picked up the glass of water on the broken table in front of us, and drank it in a few short gulps. Wiping her lips with the end of her sari, she resumed her story: ‘For an hour, I did my makeup. I piled on as much lipstick as I could. I daubed my cheeks with as much rouge as they could take. He stood in silence in one corner, watching me in the mirror as I transformed into a proper witch. Then I walked with firm steps towards the door and locked it.’

‘What happened then?’

I looked at Neelam for the answer to my question. She had completely changed. She had wiped her mouth with her sari, and her lips had lost all colour. The tone of her voice was subdued, like red hot iron that had been beaten down with a hammer and anvil. She didn’t look like one now, but I can imagine she must truly have looked like a witch with her full makeup on.