Saadat Manto - Manto - Selected Stories

Nigar, in her bridal clothes, sat on one end of the stage with her head lowered. She looked beautiful in her khadi tricolour sari. Babaji gestured to her to come over and sat her down next to Ghulam Ali. At this, more passionate slogans rang out. Ghulam Ali’s face glowed more brightly than usual. I looked closely and saw that when he took the marriage documents from his friend and gave them to Babaji, his hands were trembling.

There was a maulvi on the stage as well. He read the Koranic verses that are usually read on these occasions. Babaji closed his eyes. Once the marriage rites were complete, Babaji blessed the couple in his distinct way. And when dried dates were showered on the stage, he jumped at them like a child, collecting a few to keep next to him.

A Hindu girlfriend of Nigar’s, smiling shyly, gave Ghulam Ali a little box and said something to him. Ghulam Ali opened the little box and marked Nigar’s forehead with a streak of sindoor. Jallianwala Bagh once again thundered with applause. Babaji rose to address this clamour. The crowd immediately fell silent.

The pleasant scent of raat ki rani and jasmine floated through the mild evening air. It was a beautiful evening. Babaji’s voice seemed sweeter still. After expressing his heartfelt joy at Ghulam Ali and Nigar’s marriage, he said, ‘These children will now serve their country and community with greater strength and purity. Because the true purpose of marriage is the pure friendship between a man and a woman. By being joined in friendship, Ghulam Ali and Nigar, together, can strive for freedom. In Europe, there are many such marriages whose objective is friendship and friendship alone. People such as these who remove lust from their lives are worthy of our respect.’

Babaji spoke at length about his convictions on marriage. His belief was that the real happiness of marriage could only be attained when the relations between a man and a woman were not physical. He didn’t set nearly the same store by the sexual relationship between a man and a woman as society did. Thousands ate to satisfy their palate, but that didn’t mean that doing so was a human obligation. Far fewer ate only to stay alive. But in reality, it was these few who knew the correct principles behind eating and drinking. Similarly, those who married so that they might know the higher sentiments of marriage, and realise its full purity, were the ones who would know the true joy of conjugal life.

Babaji explained the principles behind his convictions with a delicacy and subtlety that left the listener feeling that the doors to an entirely new world had opened for him. I myself found it very affecting. Ghulam Ali, who sat in front of me, seemed to drink in every word of his speech. When Babaji finished speaking, he said something to Nigar. After this, he rose and in a trembling voice announced: ‘Mine and Nigar’s marriage will be such an honourable marriage. Until the time when India attains its independence, mine and Nigar’s relationship will be no more than a friendship.’

The still air of Jallianwala Bagh broke with the thunder of applause. Shahzada Ghulam Ali became emotional. His fair Kashmiri face filled with colour. In a surge of feeling he turned to Nigar and addressed her in a loud voice: ‘Nigar! Are you willing to mother a slave child? Would that please you?’

Nigar, already unsettled, in part from becoming so recently married, and in part from hearing Babaji’s speech, became still more perturbed when she heard this bolt from the blue. She was only able to say, ‘Sorry? No, no, of course not.’

The crowd applauded again and Ghulam Ali became still more emotional. He was so overjoyed at having saved Nigar from the shame of mothering slave children that he strayed from the subject at hand and launched into a tirade on attaining independence. For more than an hour, he spoke in a voice filled with emotion. Then, all of a sudden, his gaze fell on Nigar, and for some reason, his charge drained out of him. Like a drunk man forking out note after note and finding his wallet suddenly empty, Ghulam Ali found his power of speech exhausted. It left him in some turmoil, but then he looked immediately at Babaji, and lowering his head in reverence, said, ‘Babaji, we both ask your blessings that we may remain steadfast in the oath we have taken tonight.’

The next day, at six in the morning, Ghulam Ali was arrested because in the speech he made after taking his oath, he had also threatened to overthrow the British government.

A few days after his arrest, Ghulam Ali was sentenced to eight months in prison and sent to Multan jail. He was Amritsar’s forty first dictator and perhaps its forty thousand and first political prisoner. Forty thousand, as far as I can remember, was what the newspapers were quoting as the number arrested in the movement. The general view was that independence was now just a few steps away. But it had been the foreign politicians who had allowed the milk of this movement to reach its boiling point. And when they found they couldn’t come to an agreement with the major Indian leaders, it turned quickly to cold lassi.

When the zealots were released from jail, they were forced to put the hardships of prison behind them, and set to work repairing their damaged businesses. Shahzada Ghulam Ali was released after only seven months. Though their former passion had fizzled out, people still gathered at Amritsar station to welcome him back. There were three or four dinners and meetings in his honour. I was present at all of them, but these gatherings were totally insipid. A strange fatigue prevailed, as if a man in the middle of a long distance run had suddenly been told, ‘Stop, this race has to be run again.’ And now, after catching their breath a while, it was as if the runners were reluctantly making their way back to the starting line.

Many years passed. That joyless fatigue didn’t leave India. In my own world, many big and small revolutions occurred: my facial hair grew; I was admitted to college; I failed the FA examinations twice; my father died; I wandered about in search of employment. I was employed as a translator in a third rate newspaper. When I tired of this, I thought again of education. I was admitted to Aligarh University, but became a TB patient within only three months and went off to wander the Kashmiri countryside. Returning, I made for Bombay. Here, I saw three Hindu — Muslim riots in two years. When my nerves played up again, I went to Delhi. Compared to Bombay, I found everything there slowpaced. If there was movement here, it felt somehow effete. I felt Bombay was better. What did it matter that my next door neighbour didn’t even find the time to ask me my name? Besides, all kinds of sicknesses grew in places where people have too much time on their hands. And so after two cold years spent in Delhi, I went back to ever-moving Bombay.

It had been some eight years since I had left home. I had had no news of friends or acquaintances, knew nothing of what state Amritsar’s streets and alleys were in. I had written no letters, kept up no correspondence. Truth be told, in those eight years, I had become somewhat uncaring of my future and so, didn’t dwell too long on the past. What was the point of accounting for what had been spent eight years before? After all, in life the pennies that are important are the ones you want to spend today or that might gain in value tomorrow.

I speak now of a time six years ago, when neither from life’s rupees nor from silver ones, which carry the stamp of the emperor, had a penny been spent. But I couldn’t have been too broke though because I was on my way at the time to Fort to buy myself an expensive pair of shoes. On one side of the Army and Navy store on Harbani Road, there was a shop whose display windows had attracted me for a while. My memory is weak and so I spent a considerable amount of time looking for the shop.