Saadat Manto - Bombay Stories

A little while later, Mummy returned. One by one she told Gharib Nawaz, Vankatre, and Ranjit Kumar not to worry. Chaddah was listening with opened eyes, and when he saw Mummy, he didn’t react with surprise and yet he did seem confused. But when he realized why Mummy was there, he took her hand, squeezed it and said, ‘Mummy, you are great!’

Mummy sat next to him on the bed. She truly embodied affection — she rubbed her hand over Chaddah’s hot forehead and said, ‘My boy, my poor boy.’

Chaddah’s eyes welled with tears but he tried to hold them back. ‘No’, he said. ‘Your boy is a first-class scoundrel. Get your dead husband’s pistol and shoot him in the chest!’

Mummy lightly slapped Chaddah’s cheek. ‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ she said. Then like an attentive nurse she got up and said, ‘Boys, Chaddah’s sick and I have to take him to a hospital, okay?’

Everyone understood. Gharib Nawaz went and got a taxi, and we lifted Chaddah and put him in. He kept protesting that this fever wasn’t bad enough to warrant taking him to the hospital, but Mummy said that in any event, the hospital would be more comfortable.

Chaddah was admitted to the hospital, and Mummy drew me aside and said that he was very sick with the plague. When I heard this, I nearly fainted. Mummy herself was very worried, but she hoped that this setback would pass and Chaddah would soon get healthy.

Treatment continued for some time. It was a private hospital, and the doctors gave Chaddah a lot of attention. But even then many complications arose: his skin began to crack in places and his fever mounted, and finally the doctors suggested we take him to Bombay. But Mummy didn’t agree and she took Chaddah back to her house.

I couldn’t stay in Pune. I returned to Bombay and called from time to time to ask about his health. I thought he would die, but I learned that his health was slowly improving. Then I had to go to Lahore in connection with a trial, and when I returned fifteen days later, my wife handed me a letter from Chaddah in which he wrote, ‘The great Mummy saved her wayward son from the jaws of death!’

There was an ocean of emotions in those few words. Unusually for me, I got very sentimental while recounting to my wife how Mummy had cared for Chaddah. My wife was moved too, ‘Women like that are usually very caring.’

I wrote to Chaddah two or three times but received no answer. Afterwards I learned that Mummy had sent him to one of her girlfriends’ house in Lonavala, thinking that a change of scenery would do him some good. Chaddah spent a month there but got bored and came back.

I happened to be in Pune on the day of his return. He was weak from fighting off the plague, but otherwise he was his usual rowdy self and he talked about his sickness just as someone would mention a minor bicycle accident — now that it was over, he thought it pointless to talk about it in detail.

Small changes had come about at Sayeedah Cottage. The brothers, Aqil and Shakil, had left when they decided that Sayeedah Cottage’s atmosphere was not conducive for establishing their own film company. In their place came Sen, a Bengali music director, along with a runaway from Lahore named Ram Singh who had got just before Chaddah went to Lonavala and had won permission to stay. Everyone in Sayeedah Cottage ended up using the boy for their work, since he was very courteous and obliging. The boy set his stuff up in Sen’s room where there was extra space.

Then Ranjit Kumar was cast as the hero in a new film and the film company promised that if the film did well, he would be given the chance to direct. Chaddah somehow secured 1,500 rupees of his two years’ unpaid salary and all of that in one lump sum. He told Ranjit Kumar, ‘You know, if you want to get some money, pray for the plague. It’s better than being an actor or director!’

Gharib Nawaz had recently come back from Hyderabad, and so Sayeedah Cottage was enjoying some good times. I noticed expensive shirts and pants drying on the clothesline outside the garage and how Shirin’s little boy had new toys.

I had to stay in Pune for fifteen days. Harish was busy trying to win the love of the heroine of a film he was shooting, but he was scared because the heroine was Punjabi and her husband sported a big moustache and bulging muscles. Chaddah encouraged him, ‘Don’t worry about that bastard. Macho Punjabi guys are horrible lovers. Listen, for just a hundred rupees a word, I’ll teach you ten or twenty hardcore Punjabi swear words that’ll come in handy.’

At Chaddah’s rate (basically a bottle of liquor for each swear word), Harish memorized six Punjabi insults, complete with a Punjabi accent, but he hadn’t yet had an opportunity to test their effectiveness.

Mummy was throwing her usual parties with Polly, Dolly, Kitty, Elma, Thelma and everyone else. Vankatre instructed Thelma in Kathakali, Tandau, and Dhani, shouting ‘one, two, three …’ to count out the measures, and Thelma was trying her best to learn. Gharib Nawaz was lending money right and left, and Ranjit Kumar (a film star at last) continued to escort girls outside to enjoy the breeze. And just like old times, Chaddah’s raunchy limericks made everyone erupt in laughter. Only one person was absent — Phyllis, the one for whose hair colour Chaddah had spent so much time trying to find the proper simile. But Chaddah didn’t look for her. Nevertheless when Chaddah’s and Mummy’s glances met, sometimes he would lower his gaze, and it seemed that he still felt bad about that one night’s craziness. After his fourth shot, he would shout at himself, ‘Chaddah, you’re such a pig!’ Then Mummy would give a sweet little smile that seemed to say, ‘Don’t be silly.’

And as usual, Vankatre and Chaddah would quarrel. Vankatre would get drunk and start to praise his father and beautiful wife, but Chaddah would cut him off as if with an enormous battle axe. Vankatre, the poor soul, would stop talking and fold his high school diploma and put it in his pocket.

Mummy was still everyone’s ‘Mummy’ and she put together the parties with her usual affection. Her make-up remained the same ugly fare and her clothes were still tasteless and flashy; her wrinkles still showed from beneath layers of powder and rouge but now it all looked sacred: her shadow had protected Chaddah, and the plague’s insects hadn’t dared touch her. When Vankatre’s beautiful wife had a miscarriage, Mummy intervened to save her life. When Thelma, because of her interest in learning Indian dance, fell into the clutches of a Marwari Kathak dancer who passed on to her a sexually transmitted disease, Mummy scolded her ferociously and was ready to abandon her for good. But seeing her tears, Mummy’s heart melted. She told her boys what had happened and asked them to get Thelma treated. When Kitty got 500 rupees for solving a crossword, Mummy forced her to give half of it to poor Gharib Nawaz because suddenly he didn’t have any money. She told Kitty, ‘Give it to him now, you’ll be able to get it back later if you want.’ During my fifteen days in Pune, she often asked me about my wife, expressing concern that we hadn’t had another child after our first son’s death. She didn’t talk to Ranjit Kumar with much interest, and it seemed as though she didn’t like his love for showing off. (In fact, she had said as much to me on several occasions.) She hated the music director, Sen, and always complained when Chaddah brought him along, ‘Don’t bring that awful man here.’ When Chaddah asked why, she would reply, ‘He seems insincere. I don’t like him.’ Then Chaddah would laugh.

I always had a good time at Mummy’s parties. Everyone drank, got drunk, and flirted. Things were full of sensual possibility and yet they never got out of hand because everybody knew where things stood.