Saadat Manto - Bombay Stories

At a short distance from the photos — I mean, just as you entered the room and in the corner on the left — there was a brightly coloured picture of Ganesha that she had probably ripped off a bolt of cloth and framed, and both fresh and withered flowers hung over its frame. In that incredibly oily niche, she kept a cup of lamp oil, and to its side was a small lamp, its flame standing erect like a flick of paint on a devotee’s forehead in the room’s torpid air. Burnt-out stumps of incense soiled the niche.

When she made the day’s first money, she would hold it out before her, touch it to the statue of Ganesha, and then touch it to her forehead before stuffing it in her bra. Her breasts were large, so there was no chance the money would fall out, but when Madho came on vacation from Pune, she had to hide some of it in the small hole beneath the foot of her bed that she had hollowed out just for this purpose. Her pimp, Ram Lal, had told her how to keep her money from Madho. When he heard that Madho came from Pune to sleep with her, he said, ‘How long have you been seeing this bastard? What a strange love affair! The asshole doesn’t spend anything but gets to sleep with you, and then he makes off with your money? There’s something wrong with this picture. You must really like this guy. I’ve been a pimp for seven years, and I know all you girls have weaknesses.’

Ram Lal pimped all over Bombay — for 120 whores whose rates went from ten to a hundred rupees. He told Saugandhi, ‘Bitch, don’t waste your money like that. He’ll strip your clothes right off your back, the motherfucker! Dig a little hole beneath the foot of your bed and hide all your money there. When he comes, say, “I swear, Madho, I haven’t seen one dick all day! Order me a cup of tea and a pack of Aflatoon biscuits from the tea boy downstairs. My stomach’s growling.” Okay? Things are rough right now, honey. The Congress Party, the fuckers, have banned alcohol, and business is very slow. But at least you find a way to get liquor. I swear to God, when I see your empty bottles and smell the wine, I really want to be reborn a whore.’

Saugandhi liked her breasts more than any of her other physical attributes. Her friend Jamuna encouraged her, ‘If you support those cannon balls with a bra, they’ll stay firm forever.’

Saugandhi laughed. She replied, ‘Jamuna, you think everyone’s just like you. For ten rupees, men do whatever they want with you, and so you think this must be true for everyone. If any man ever touches me there, just see what happens!’ Then she remembered something. ‘Oh, let me tell you what happened yesterday. Ram Lal brought over a Punjabi at two in the morning, and they decided on thirty rupees for the night. After Ram Lal left, I turned off the light, and this guy got so scared! Jamuna, are you listening? I swear, as soon as the lights went out, he started shaking up and down! He was scared of the dark! I asked, “Hey, what’re you waiting for? It’s about to turn three. Your time’s running out.” He said, “Turn it on, turn it on.” I asked, “What do you mean?” He said, “The electricity! The electricity!” I said, “What electricity?” He said, “The light! The light!” His shrill voice made me break out laughing. I said, “No way!” When I pinched his chubby thigh, he sprang to his feet and turned on the light. I quickly covered myself with the sheets and said, “Don’t you have any shame, asshole?” When he returned to the bed, I rushed over to turn off the light. This made him anxious again. I swear it was a fun night — sometimes dark, sometimes light, sometimes light, sometimes dark. As soon as he heard the morning’s first tram, he put on his clothes and left. The bastard must have won a bet or something. I mean, why else would he waste his money like that? Jamuna, you’re so clueless. I know a lot of tricks for guys like that!’

Saugandhi really did know a lot of useful tactics, which she shared with one or two girlfriends. Her general advice went as follows, ‘If he’s good but doesn’t talk much, then tease him a lot, try to irritate him, tickle him, play with him. If he has a beard, then run your fingers through it like a comb and twist a few hairs. If he has a big belly, pat it like a drum. Don’t give him the chance to do what he wants. He’ll leave happy and you’ll be saved. Guys that never say anything are dangerous. They’ll really hurt you if you let them!’

But Saugandhi wasn’t as clever as she thought, and she had very few regulars. She was extremely emotional, so at the crucial moment, every ruse she knew would slip from her mind. Her stomach had many stretch marks from the time she had given birth, and the first time she had seen those lines, they reminded her of the lines her mangy dog made in the ground, pawing out of frustration whenever a bitch passed, ignoring him as she worried over her puppy.

Saugandhi lived mostly in her mind, but a kind word always made her body tingle with pleasure, and although she told herself that sex was worthless, her body liked it very much! She dreamed of being overcome by fatigue, the type of fatigue that would beat her to sleep, the type of sleep that falls upon you after being ground down all day — how delightful it would be! That type of unconsciousness that wraps around you after being utterly wrung dry of your last ounce of energy — what pleasure! Sometimes she wasn’t sure if she existed, and sometimes she felt as though she was stuck in between, floating high in the sky with the wind encompassing her — the wind above her, below her, on the right, and on the left — nothing but the wind, suffocating and yet wonderful! As a child, when she played hide-and-seek, she would hide inside her mother’s big trunk, and while waiting to be caught, she would become afraid of suffocating and her heart would race. How much she had liked that sensation!

Saugandhi wanted to spend her entire life inside a trunk like that while people looked for her in vain, though occasionally she would let them find her so that she, too, could go in search for someone. Her life for the last five years was just like hide-and-seek: sometimes she went looking for someone, and sometimes a man came for her. That was how her life passed. She was happy because she had to be. Every night she shared her wide, teak bed with a different man, and she knew countless ways to keep her johns in their place. While she had resolved many times not to accept their vulgar demands and to treat them indifferently, she would always get caught up in the moment and give in. She couldn’t control her desire to be loved.

It seemed like every night some john would proclaim his love to her. Saugandhi knew they were lying, and yet her emotions would overwhelm her and she would imagine they really did. ‘Love’. What a beautiful word! She wanted to smear it all over her body and massage it into her pores. She wanted to abandon herself to love. If love were a jar, she would press herself through its opening and close the lid above her. When she really wanted to make love, it didn’t matter which man it was. She would take any man, sit him on her lap, pat his head, and sing a lullaby to put him to sleep.

She was so full of love that she could have loved any of her customers and moreover, could have kept this love alive forever. She had already sworn her love to the four men whose photos were hanging on the wall. She felt like a good person, but why weren’t men good? She could never understand this, so once while looking into the mirror, she spontaneously said to herself, ‘Saugandhi, time has not been kind to you!’

The time she had spent as a prostitute — the days and nights of the past five years — was all that mattered to her. She was not as happy as she had dreamed of being, and yet she was content. Anyway, it wasn’t as if she were planning to build a palace. Money wasn’t an issue. She usually charged ten rupees, from which Ram Lal took a two and a half rupee cut, and so she got seven and a half rupees a day, and that was enough. When Madho came from Pune to ‘poke’ her, as Ram Lal liked to put it, she handed over ten or fifteen rupees although she did this only because she had a crush on him. Ram Lal was right — there was something about Madho that Saugandhi liked.