Saadat Manto - Bombay Stories

Biting her lips anxiously, she picked up the cup and began to drink. Her right leg was shaking violently, and her lips quivered. I could tell there was something she wanted to say, but she hesitated. I thought maybe during the night someone had harassed her. So I asked, ‘You didn’t have any problems at the hotel, did you?’

‘What? Oh, no.’

I didn’t press her to say any more. Then after we finished our tea, I thought I should say something. ‘How’s Aziz Sahib?’

She didn’t answer. She set the cup down on a stool, got up, and hurriedly said, ‘Manto Sahib, do you know any good doctors?’

‘Not in Pune.’

‘Aaggggh!’ she screamed in frustration.

‘Why? Are you sick?’

‘Yes.’

She sat down in a chair.

‘What’s the problem?’

When she smiled, her sharp lips became thinner. She opened her mouth. Again she wanted to say something but couldn’t find the courage. She got up, picked up my pack of cigarettes, took one out and lit it.

‘Please forgive me, but I just can’t quit.’

I learned later that she didn’t just smoke but smoked with a vengeance. She held the cigarette in her fingers like a man and took a deep drag. In fact, she inhaled so deeply that her daily habit was the same as a normal person’s smoking seventy-five cigarettes.

‘Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?’

Annoyed, she pounded her foot on the floor like a young girl.

‘Hai, Allah! How can I tell you?’ she asked. Then she smiled. Her teeth were extraordinarily clean and shiny. She sat down, and trying to avoid my gaze, she said, ‘The problem is that I’m fifteen or twenty days late and I’m scared that …’

Until then I hadn’t understood, but when she stopped so abruptly I thought I finally knew what was going on.

‘This happens often,’ I said.

She took another deep drag and blew out the smoke in a thick rush.

‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m talking about something else. I’m afraid I’m pregnant.’

‘Ah!’ I exclaimed.

She took a final drag and then stubbed out the cigarette in the saucer. ‘If I am, it’ll be a big problem,’ she went on. ‘This happened once in Peshawar, but Aziz Sahib brought some medicine from a doctor friend, and then everything was okay.’

‘You don’t like kids?’

She smiled. ‘Sure, I like them. But who wants to go through the trouble of raising them?’

‘You know it’s a crime to have an abortion.’

She became pensive. In a voice full of sadness, she said, ‘Aziz Sahib said this too, but, Saadat Sahib, my question is, how is it a crime? It’s a personal matter, and the people who make the laws know an abortion is very painful. Is it really a serious crime?’

I couldn’t help laughing. ‘You’re a strange woman, Janaki.’

Janaki also laughed. ‘Aziz Sahib says so too.’

As she laughed, tears came to her eyes. I have noticed that when sincere people laugh, they always cry. She opened her bag, took out a handkerchief, and wiped away her tears. Then in an innocent manner, she asked, ‘Saadat Sahib, tell me, is what I’m saying interesting?’

‘Very.’

‘That’s a lie.’

‘Why?’

She lit another cigarette.

‘Well, maybe it’s interesting. I only know that I’m kind of silly. I eat too much. I talk too much. I laugh too much. You can see, can’t you, how big my stomach’s become from eating too much? Aziz Sahib always used to say, “Janaki, don’t eat so much!” But I never listened. Saadat Sahib, the thing is whenever I eat less, it always feels like something’s missing!’

Then she laughed again, and I did too. Her laughter was very strange. It sounded like the jingling of a dancer’s ankle bells.

She was just about to say something more about abortions when my friend came in. I introduced him to Janaki and told him how she wanted to get into acting, and then my friend took her to his studio because he was almost sure that the director he was working with would give her some special role in his new film.

I did as much as I could to find work for Janaki at the studios in Pune. At one place she had a voice test. At another, a screen test. One film company dressed her up in all different sorts of clothes, and yet nothing came from any of this. Janaki was already worried about her period being late, and she became even more stressed after suffering through these auditions for four or five days and with no result. In addition, the twenty green quinine pills she took each day to abort her baby made her listless. Then she was also worried about how Aziz Sahib was faring in Peshawar. She had sent him a telegram as soon as she had arrived in Pune and since then, every day without fail, had written a letter to him in which she urged him to take care of his health and to take his medicine on time.

I didn’t know what was wrong with Aziz Sahib, and all Janaki told me was that he loved her so much that he would immediately do whatever she asked. Although he often quarrelled with his wife over his medicine, he never made a fuss with Janaki.

At first I thought Janaki was just putting on a show about worrying for Aziz Sahib, but her candid talk gradually convinced me she really cared about him. Moreover, there was proof because she would always cry after reading his letters.

Her efforts to get into film companies resulted in nothing, but one day Janaki’s mood improved when she learned that her guess had been wrong — she was late, but she wasn’t pregnant.

Janaki had been in Pune for twenty days. She was writing Aziz one letter after another, and he was writing her long love letters in return. Then Aziz wrote to me, saying that if Janaki couldn’t get in anywhere in Pune, I should try the many studios in Bombay. This made sense, but it was difficult for me to get away because I was busy writing the script. I called a friend of mine, Sayeed, who was playing the hero in some film. As it happened, he wasn’t in the studio just then, but Narayan was there. When he overheard I was calling from Pune, he took the phone and shouted in English, ‘Hello, Manto! Narayan speaking from this end!’ Then he slipped into Urdu, ‘What do you want? Sayeed isn’t here right now. He’s at home separating his stuff from Razia’s.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘They had a fight. Razia’s started seeing another guy.’

‘But what’s there to sort out?’

‘Man, Sayeed is really awful,’ Narayan said. ‘He’s taking back all the clothes he ever bought for her. Anyway, enough of that. What’s going on?’

‘Actually, the thing is one of my good friends in Peshawar has sent a girl who wants to get into acting.’

Janaki was standing next to me. I realized I hadn’t explained things quite right. I was about to correct myself when Narayan shouted, ‘A woman? From Peshawar? Hey, send her quick! I’m a Qasuri Pathan too!’

‘Don’t be silly, Narayan. Listen, tomorrow I’m sending her on the Deccan Queen. Either you or Sayeed will have to go to the station to pick her up. Tomorrow, on the Deccan Queen. Don’t forget.’

‘But how will I recognize her?’

‘She’ll recognize you. But listen — try to get her into some studio or other.’

The conversation lasted only three minutes. I hung up and said to Janaki, ‘You’re going to Bombay tomorrow on the Deccan Queen. I’ll show you photos of Sayeed and Narayan. They’re tall and handsome young men, and so you’ll have no problem spotting them.’

I showed Janaki a bunch of photos of Sayeed and Narayan, and she stared at them for a long time. I noticed that she looked at Sayeed’s photos with greater attention.

She put the album aside, and trying to avoid my eyes, she asked, ‘What kind of men are they?’

‘What do you mean?’