Saadat Manto - Bombay Stories

I met her nowhere else but in Pune. Let me tell you how it happened.

I am extremely lazy. There are a lot of things I would really like to see, but I never get past talking about them. I might go on about how I’m going to climb Kanchenjunga or some other impressive peak in the Himalayas, and while that’s theoretically possible, it’s also likely that if by some miracle I manage to get to the top, I’d be too lazy to come back down.

You can see how lazy I am by the fact that I had been living in Bombay for God knows how many years (wait — why don’t I count? I moved to Bombay with my wife and then our boy died four years ago — why don’t we say I was in Bombay for eight years) and yet I never once saw Victoria Gardens or went to any museum. I wouldn’t have thought of going even to Pune if I hadn’t got into an argument with the owner of the film company I was working for. Then I thought it would be good to get away for a while, and Pune was the best choice as it was close and I had friends there.

I had to get to Parbhat Nagar where one of my old film buddies lived. Outside the station we had already hired a tonga when I learned it was rather far away. Slow-moving things usually irritate me, but I had gone to Pune to unwind and so decided not to let the prospect of a long ride bother me. Unfortunately the tonga was just absurd — even more so than a horse-cart in Aligarh — and we were in constant danger of falling off. The horse was in front, the passengers in the back, and after we had rambled through one or two dust-covered bazaars, I felt sick. I asked my wife what we should do, considering the circumstances. She mentioned the heat, and how the other tongas she had seen were no different, and how it would clearly be more difficult if we got off and walked. I agreed; the sun was really hot.

We must have gone about an eighth of a mile when another broken-down tonga passed. I glanced at it, and then suddenly someone yelled out, ‘Hey, Manto, you ass!’

I was startled. It was Chaddah and a haggard white woman sitting thigh to thigh. My first reaction was one of great disappointment. What was Chaddah thinking? Why was he sitting next to such a trashy old hag? I couldn’t guess her exact age, but her gaudy layers of powder and rouge couldn’t cover up her wrinkles. All in all, it was a depressing sight.

I hadn’t seen Chaddah in a while. He was a close friend. I usually would have shouted some insult in return, but seeing that woman made me hesitate.

I stopped the tonga, and Chaddah also told his driver to stop. Then he turned to the woman and said in English, ‘Mummy, just a minute.’ He jumped from the tonga and with his hand raised in my direction yelled, ‘You — how did you get here?’ Then he abruptly grabbed the hand of my shy wife and said, ‘Bhabhi jan, great job! You finally plucked this precious rose and brought him here!’

‘So where are you off to?’ I asked.

‘I’m going somewhere on work,’ he said pretentiously. ‘Why don’t you go straight …’ Then he turned to my driver and said, ‘Look here, take this gentleman to my house. Don’t charge him anything.’ He turned again to me and in his bossy manner said, ‘Go on now. There’ll be a servant there. The rest you’ll have to manage on your own.’

He turned and jumped back into his tonga where he addressed the old woman beside him as ‘Mummy’. Hearing him call her that comforted me a little, and my earlier heavy-heartedness lightened considerably.

His tonga set off down the road. I didn’t say anything to my driver, but he started up and then after about a half mile, stopped near a building that looked like an old government resthouse. He got down. ‘Let’s go, Sahib.’

‘Where?’

‘This is Chaddah Sahib’s house.’

‘Oh’, I said and then looked questioningly at my wife. Her disapproving glance told me what she thought about his house, and in truth, she didn’t want to be anywhere in Pune — she was sure that under the excuse of needing to relax I would drink myself into oblivion with my drinking buddies. I got down from the tonga, picked up my small briefcase and instructed my wife to follow. She caught on that I was in no mood to be contradicted and so silently obeyed.

It was an ordinary house. It seemed that some military people had quickly built the small bungalow, used it for a little while and then left it for good. The plasterwork was poor and crumbling in places. Inside it looked like a bachelor lived there, perhaps a film star working for a company that paid him every third month and then only in instalments.

I knew my wife was sure to feel uncomfortable in that drab setting, but I imagined that once Chaddah came, we would all go to Parbhat Nagar to my old film buddy’s, and then my wife, poor thing, could spend two or three days there with his wife and children.

Chaddah’s servant didn’t make it any better. He was useless. When we got there, all the doors were open and he wasn’t anywhere to be seen. When he showed up, he didn’t pay any attention to us but treated us as though we had been sitting there for years and were content to sit there until eternity. He walked right by. At first I wondered whether he might be some aspiring actor living with Chaddah, but when I asked him about the servant, I found out that this fine gentleman was none other than the man in question.

Both my wife and I were thirsty, and when I asked for some water he set off in search of glasses. Quite a while later he came back to pull a broken mug from underneath the wardrobe and then mumbled, ‘Last night Sahib ordered a dozen glasses, but who knows where they are now.’

I pointed at the broken mug he was holding and asked, ‘So are you going to get some oil or not?’

‘To get some oil’ is a special Bombay idiom, and even though my wife didn’t understand it she laughed anyway. The servant was puzzled. He said, ‘No, Sahib. I … I … was thinking where a glass might be.’

My wife told him to forget the water, and he put the broken mug beneath the wardrobe as if that were its rightful place, and were he to put it anywhere else, the order of the whole house would be overturned. Then he turned up his nose and left.

I was sitting on a bed, probably Chaddah’s. On the other side of the room were two easy chairs, and my wife was sitting in one and fidgeting. We sat in silence. Then Chaddah arrived, but he didn’t behave as though he had guests. As soon as he came into the room, he said to me, ‘Wait is wait … it couldn’t be helped.’ Then with his sorry apology over, he continued, ‘So you’ve come, old boy. Let’s go to the studio for a bit. If I take you, it’ll be easy for me to get an advance. This evening …’ His glance fell on my wife and he stopped. Then he laughed, ‘Bhabhi jan, I hope you haven’t turned him into a maulvi yet!’ He laughed even louder. ‘Let all the maulvis go to hell! Let’s go, Manto! Let’s let bhabi jan sit for a while. We’ll be right back.’

My wife had been angry, but now she was seething. I went out with Chaddah, as I knew that she would fall asleep after fuming for a while.

The studio was nearby and once there, Chaddah badgered his boss into giving him 200 rupees. We returned in just under an hour to find my wife asleep in the easy chair, and since we didn’t want to bother her, we went into another room that functioned like a storage room — things broken to the point of uselessness were lying about in heaps, and everything was covered in dust, a virtue insomuch as it gave the room a bohemian feel.

Chaddah left abruptly to look for his servant. When he found him, he gave him a hundred-rupee note and said, ‘Prince of China! Get two bottles of the cheapest rum — I mean XXX rum — and a half dozen glasses.’ (Later I learned Chaddah called his servant not only the ‘Prince of China’ but also the prince of whatever country came to mind.) The Prince of China took the money, and snapping the note in his fingers he disappeared.