Saadat Manto - Bombay Stories

Babu Gopi Nath came back after a month. When he went to Mahim, there was someone else living in his apartment. On Saindo and Sardar’s advice, Zinat had rented the upper floor of a bungalow in Bandra. When Babu Gopi Nath came to see me, I told him the address. He asked about Zinat, and I told him what I knew, except the part about how Saindo and Sardar were being pimps for her.

Babu Gopi Nath had brought 10,000 rupees. He had had a hard time scraping it together and had left Ghulam Ali and Ghaffar Sayyan back in Lahore.

The taxi was waiting on the street, and Babu Gopi Nath insisted I go with him.

We reached Bandra after about an hour. The taxi was climbing Pali Hill when Saindo appeared on the narrow road in front of us. ‘Saindo!’ Babu Gopi Nath shouted.

‘Ding-dong-dang!’ Saindo said when he saw Babu Gopi Nath.

‘Come on. Get in the taxi. Come with us,’ Babu Gopi Nath called out. But Saindo said, ‘Pull over. I need to talk to you alone.’

The taxi driver pulled over. Babu Gopi Nath got out, and Saindo took him ahead. They talked for quite a while. When they were done, Babu Gopi Nath returned to the taxi alone and instructed the driver, ‘Take us back.’

Babu Gopi Nath was happy. When we got close to Dadar, he said, ‘Manto Sahib, Zinu’s getting married!’

‘To whom?’ I asked in surprise.

‘A wealthy landlord from Hyderabad in Sindh. I pray to God they’ll be happy together. It’s good I got here in time. I’ll use the money to buy things for her dowry.’ Then he asked me, ‘What do you think about all of this?’

I didn’t have any opinion. I wondered who this Hyderabadi landlord was. I wondered if it was some trick staged by Saindo and Sardar. But later I learned it was true. There was, in fact, a wealthy Sindhi landlord who had met Zinat through a music teacher, himself from Hyderabad. This music teacher was trying without success to teach Zinat how to sing. One day he brought his patron, Ghulam Husain. (This was the Hyderabadi gentleman’s name.) Zinat treated him very well. Upon Ghulam Husain’s request, Zinat sang a couplet of Ghalib’s, ‘My beloved nitpicks. It’s hard to tell her the sorrows of my heart.’ Ghulam Husain fell intensely in love, and the music teacher told this to Zinat. Saindo and Sardar met them, and soon they had arranged the marriage.

Babu Gopi Nath was happy. He went to play the role of Saindo’s friend in the home of Zinat’s fiancé and met Ghulam Husain. After meeting him, Babu Gopi Nath was twice as happy as before.

‘Manto Sahib! He’s a handsome and very decent young man. Before leaving Lahore, I stopped at Data Ganj Bakhsh’s shrine and prayed, and my prayer was answered. I pray to God they’ll be happy.’

Babu Gopi Nath spared no expense in making the arrangements for Zinat’s wedding. He ordered 2,000 rupees worth of jewellery and the same amount of clothes. He also gave her 5,000 rupees in cash. Muhammad Shafiq Tusi, Muhammad Yasin, Saindo, the music teacher, Babu Gopi Nath, and I were all at the wedding. Saindo was the witness for the bride.

When the exchange of vows was over, Saindo whispered, ‘Ding-dong-dang!’

Ghulam Husain was wearing a blue serge suit. Everyone congratulated him, and he gladly accepted our best wishes. He was very handsome, and Babu Gopi Nath looked like a quail in front of him.

Babu Gopi Nath had also arranged a banquet and when everyone had eaten, he washed their hands. When I went up to him to get my hands washed, he said to me in a child-like manner, ‘Manto Sahib, please go inside for a moment and see how Zinu looks in her wedding clothes.’

I brushed aside the curtain and entered the room. Zinat was wearing a red shalwar kameez with gold brocade. Her red scarf also had a fancy border. She was wearing light make-up, and although I really dislike lipstick, it looked beautiful on her. She blushed and greeted me in a very endearing way. When I saw a bed in one corner covered with flowers, I couldn’t help but smile.

‘What kind of joke is this?’ I asked.

Zinat looked at me with a dove’s innocent expression. ‘You’re making fun of me, bhai jan!’ she said, and then tears welled in her eyes.

I still hadn’t understood my mistake when Babu Gopi Nath entered. He took out his handkerchief and with great affection wiped away Zinat’s tears. Then he spoke to me in an offended tone, ‘Manto Sahib, I took you to be a very understanding, decent man! You should’ve stopped to think before making fun of Zinat.’

Babu Gopi Nath’s faith in me was broken. Before I could apologize, he began stroking Zinat’s hair. With great affection he said, ‘I pray to God that you’ll be happy.’

He looked at me with eyes full of tears of sad reproach. Then he left.

IT was the beginning of the racing season in Pune when Aziz wrote from Peshawar: ‘I’m sending Janaki, an acquaintance of mine. Get her into a film company in Pune or Bombay. You know enough people. I hope it won’t be too difficult.’

It wasn’t a question of being difficult, but the problem was I had never done anything like that before. Usually the men who take girls to film companies are pimps or their like, men who plan to live off the girls if they can get a job. As you can imagine I worried a lot about this, but then I thought, ‘Aziz is an old friend. Who knows why he trusts me so much, but I don’t want to disappoint him.’ I was also reassured by the thought that the film world is always looking for young women. So what was there to fret about? Even without my help, Janaki would be able to get a job in some film company or other.

Four days later Janaki arrived, and after a long journey — from Peshawar to Bombay, and then from Bombay to Pune. As the train pulled up, I started to walk along the platform because she would have to pick me out of the crowd. I didn’t have to go far because a woman holding my photo descended from the second-class compartment. Her back was to me. Standing on tiptoes, she started looking through the crowd. I approached her.

‘You’re probably looking for me,’ I said.

She turned around.

‘Oh, you!’ She looked down at my photo and then in a very friendly manner said, ‘Saadat Sahib, the trip was so long! After getting off the Frontier Mail in Bombay, I had to wait for this train for so long, it nearly killed me.’

‘Where are your things?’

‘I’ll get them,’ she said and entered the compartment to bring out a suitcase and a bedroll. I called out for a coolie. As we were leaving the station she said to me, ‘I’ll stay in a hotel.’

I got her a room in a hotel just opposite the station. She needed time to wash up, change her clothes and rest, and so I gave her my address, told her to meet me at ten in the morning, then left.

At ten thirty the next morning she arrived in Parbhat Nagar where I was staying at a friend’s small but newly built apartment. She had got lost trying to find the place, and I had been up late writing the night before and so had slept in. I bathed and changed into a T-shirt and pyjama. I had just sat down with a cup of tea when she showed up.

The previous day, though weary from her trip, she had been bursting with life both on the platform and at the hotel, but when she appeared that morning at Apartment #11 in Parbhat Nagar, she looked anxious and worn out: she looked as though she had just donated ten to fifteen ounces of blood or had an abortion.

As I already said, my friend’s house was completely quiet. I was staying there to write a film script. There was no one else in the apartment except an idiotic servant, Majid, the type that makes a house only more desolate. I made a cup of tea and gave it to Janaki.

‘You must have eaten breakfast at the hotel before coming,’ I said. ‘But, anyway, please have some tea.’