Saadat Manto - Bombay Stories

‘I mean what kind of men are they? I’ve heard that most men in films are bad.’ There was a tone of serious inquiry in her voice.

‘You’re right. But why does the film industry need good men?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘There are two types of people in the world — those who understand pain from their own suffering and those who see the suffering of others and guess what pain is. What do you think — which one truly understands the essence of pain?’

She thought for a moment and then answered, ‘Those that suffer themselves.’

‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘Those who know from personal experience are good at acting. Only someone who has experienced heartbreak can portray this feeling well. A woman who spreads her prayer mat five times a day, or a woman who thinks she doesn’t need love, when she tries to portray love in front of a camera, how can she be anything but a disaster?’

Janaki thought for a moment. ‘You mean that before getting into films a woman should know everything?’

‘That’s not necessary. She can learn after she gets into acting.’

She didn’t think seriously about my statement but returned to her original question. ‘What kind of men are Sayeed Sahib and Narayan Sahib?’

‘Do you want details?’

‘What do you mean by details?’

‘I mean which of them will be better for you?’

This upset Janaki. ‘What are you saying?’

‘Just what you want to hear.’

‘Never mind,’ she said and then smiled. ‘I won’t ask anything else.’

I smiled too. ‘When you ask, I’ll recommend Narayan.’

‘Why?’

‘Because he’s a better person than Sayeed.’

I still think so. Sayeed is a poet, a very heartless poet. If he catches a chicken, he won’t slaughter it but will wring its neck. Once he’s done with that, he’ll pluck out its feathers and make soup. Once he’s drunk the soup and gnawed on the bones, he will retire to a corner to write a poem about the chicken’s death, crying profusely as he writes.

He drinks, but he never gets drunk. This irritates me as it defeats the very purpose of drinking. He gets up slowly in the morning, and his servant brings him a cup of tea. If there’s any rum left over from the night before, he pours it into the tea and drinks the mixture in slow gulps, as though he has no sense of taste.

When he gets a sore, he lets it fester until pus forms. There’s the risk of developing a serious condition, but he will never look after it and will never go to a doctor. If you tell him to go, he responds, ‘Sometimes disease becomes a part of your body. If it’s not bothering me, why do I need to treat it?’ Then he looks over his wound as if it were an impressive couplet.

He will never be able to act because he lacks sensitivity. I saw him in a film that was very popular because of the heroine’s songs, and there was a scene in which he had to hold his beloved’s hand and declare his love. I swear he took her hand as if he were grabbing a dog by the paw! I’ve told him on many occasions, ‘Stop dreaming about being an actor. You’re a good poet. Go home and write some poems.’ But he’s obsessed with acting.

I like Narayan a lot. He made up a list of principles for working in a studio, and I like them a lot too.

1) An actor should never marry during his acting career. If he marries, he should stop acting and open up a yoghurt business. If he’s famous, he’ll do well.

2) If an actress addresses you as ‘bhayya’ or ‘bhai sahib’, immediately ask her in a whisper, ‘What’s your bra size?’

3) If you fall in love with an actress, don’t waste time dilly-dallying. Go meet her in private and recite the line, ‘I, too, have a tongue in my mouth.’ If she doesn’t believe you, then stick the whole thing out.

4) If you fall in love with an actress, don’t take so much as a single paisa from her. That money’s meant for her husband or her brothers.

5) Remember, if you want to have a child with an actress, hold off until after independence!

6) Remember that an actor has an afterlife too. From time to time, instead of preening before a mirror, get a little dirty. I mean, do some charity work.

7) Out of all the people at the studio, give your highest respect to the Pathan guard. Greet him when you get to the studio in the morning. Something good will come of this, if not in this world then in the next, where there are no film studios.

8) Never get addicted to liquor and actresses. It’s quite likely that Congress will suddenly outlaw them both.

9) A shopkeeper can be a Hindu shopkeeper or a Muslim one, but an actor can never be a Hindu actor or a Muslim one.

10) Don’t lie.

These are ‘Narayan’s Ten Commandments’ that he keeps in a notebook. They reveal his character. People say he doesn’t obey them all. Maybe. But he abides by most of them. This is a fact.

Without Janaki’s asking, I managed to get across what I thought about Sayeed and Narayan. In the end, I told her directly, ‘If you go into acting, you’ll need a man’s help. I think Narayan will prove to be a good friend.’

She listened to my advice and then left for Bombay. The next day she came back very happy because Narayan had got her hired at his studio for a year on a salary of 500 rupees a month. How did she get this job? We talked about this for quite a while. When she finished, I asked her, ‘You met both Sayeed and Narayan. Which one did you like more?’

Janaki smiled mischievously. She looked at me tentatively and said, ‘Sayeed Sahib!’ Then she became pensive. ‘Saadat Sahib, why did you go to such lengths to praise Narayan?’

‘Why?’

‘He’s so sleazy. In the evening, he sat down outside to drink with Sayeed Sahib. I called him ‘bhayya’, and then he leaned over and asked me my bra size! God knows how furious that made me! What a despicable man!’ There was sweat on Janaki’s forehead.

I laughed loudly.

‘Why’re you laughing?’ she asked sharply.

‘At his foolishness.’ Then I stopped laughing.

After complaining for a while about Narayan, Janaki began going over her worries about Aziz. She hadn’t received a letter from him for several days, and all sorts of fears tormented her. She hoped he hadn’t got a cough again. He rode his bicycle so recklessly that she hoped he hadn’t had an accident. She worried about whether he would come to Pune, as he had promised her when she left Peshawar, ‘I’ll show up when you’re least expecting me.’ After she had expressed all of her misgivings, she calmed down. Then she began to praise him, ‘He cares a lot about his kids. Every morning he makes sure they exercise, then he bathes them and takes them to school. His wife is really lazy, and so he has to deal with the relatives. Once I got typhoid and for twenty days straight he took care of me just like a nurse would.’ And so on and so on.

Then she thanked me in the nicest possible words and set off for Bombay, where the door to a new and glittering world had opened for her.

In Pune I finished my film script in about two months. I collected my pay and left for Bombay where I needed to sign another contract.

I arrived in Andheri at the bungalow that Sayeed and Narayan were sharing, at about five in the morning. When I entered the verandah, I found the front door locked. I thought, ‘They must be sleeping. I don’t want to disturb them.’ There was another door in the back usually left unlocked for the servant, and so I went around and entered there. Inside there were two beds. Sayeed was sharing one with a woman, her face hidden beneath their quilt.

I was very sleepy. Without taking off my clothes, I lay down on the second bed. There was a blanket at its foot that I spread over my legs, and I was just about to fall asleep when an arm adorned with bangles emerged from behind Sayeed and reached towards the chair next to the bed.