She lived alone. It could not have even remotely occurred to him that Kanta, the girl whom he had always seen properly dressed, would open the door and stand there in front of him in her birthday suit. She was naked because that skimpy towel could hardly cover anything. But what had she really felt when she had let him in? As for himself, he had the strange feeling that the inside of a banana had suddenly dropped down in front of him leaving the peel in his hands. Her words kept ringing in his ears. ‘When you said it was Khushia, I said to myself that there was no harm in letting you in. After all, I said to myself, it is Khushia, our own Khushia.’
‘The bitch was smiling,’ he kept murmuring. It was a smile as naked as she was. He could not help thinking of her body, which was like smoothly polished wood. He suddenly remembered this woman from his childhood who used to say to him, ‘Khushia, my son, go get me a bucket of water.’ And when he returned with it, she would say from behind a makeshift curtain, ‘Come, place it next to me. I cannot see because I have soaped my face.’ He would lift the curtain from a corner and place the bucket next to her. He would see a naked woman with her entire body soaped, but it would mean nothing. He was only a child then and women did not hide themselves from children when they were naked.
But now he was a man, a twenty-eight-year-old man. How could a woman, even an old woman, bare herself in front of him? What did Kanta think he was? Was he not equipped with everything that a young man is supposed to be equipped with? While it was true that her bare body had startled him, he had looked at her stealthily. He could not help noticing that, despite the daily use to which her body was subjected, everything was where it should be, and in good shape too. She charged ten rupees for a throw and that was not much considering what she had on offer. The other day, the bank clerk who had gone back because she would not bring down the price by two rupees was surely an ass. He recalled experiencing a strange tautening of the body. He wanted to stretch out his arms and release the tension until his bones began to rattle. Why had this wheat-coloured girl from Mangalore not seen him as a male? Instead, she had let him gaze at her nakedness because to her he was Khushia, just Khushia.
He got up, spat on the road and jumped into the tram that he always took to get home.
Once there, he took a bath, put on fresh clothes, stepped into the neighbourhood barber shop, looked at himself in the mirror, combed his hair and, on second thought, sat down for a shave, his second that day. The barber said to him, ‘Brother Khushia, have you forgotten? I shaved you only this morning.’ Khushia ran his hand over his face and replied, ‘Your razor was not sharp enough.’
After the shave, he rubbed his face with a bit of talcum powder and crossed the road to a taxi stand. ‘Chi chi,’ he said – the standard Bombay call for hailing a taxi. The driver opened the door for him, ‘Where sahib?’ he asked. Khushia was pleased at being called sahib. ‘I will let you know. Go towards Pasera House first via Lemington Road, understand,’ he replied in a friendly voice. The driver switched on his meter and took off. At the end of Lemington Road, Khushia asked him to turn left.
The taxi turned left and before the driver could change gears, Khushia had told him to stop. He then stepped out, walked across to a paan shop, exchanged a few words with a man who was standing there and after helping himself to a paan came back with the fellow he had talked to. They both got into the taxi. ‘Go straight,’ Khushia told the driver. The taxi drove for quite a while with Khushia doing the navigation. They went through brightly lit bazaars and, in the end, turned into an ill-lit street where some people had already settled in for the night on makeshift beds. Some were getting their heads massaged and looked contented. Khushia paid no attention to them. ‘Stop here,’ he told the driver as they went past a wooden hut. In a low voice, Khushia told the man he had picked up from the paan shop that he would wait for him in the car. The man got out without a word and went into the hut.
Khushia reclined into the seat and put one leg on top of the other. Then he pulled out a bidi from his pocket and lit it, but he took only a couple of drags before chucking it out of the window. He was restless. His heart was beating fast and for a moment he thought the driver had not killed the engine in order to increase the fare. ‘How much extra do you think you will make by idling that engine?’ he asked sharply.
The driver turned, ‘Seth, the engine is not idling. It is switched off.’
As he realized his mistake, Khushia felt even more restless. He now began to bite his lips. Then he put on the black, boatshaped cap that lay tucked under his arm. He shook the driver by his shoulder. ‘Look, a girl will soon come and get into the car. The moment she does so, drive off. And don’t think anything odd is happening. Everything is perfectly all right.’
The door of the hut opened and two people walked out, the man Khushia had picked up and Kanta, who was wearing a bright-coloured sari.
Khushia sank further into his seat. It was quite dark in the car. The man opened the car door and gently pushed Kanta in. Then he banged the door shut. ‘Khushia! You!’ Kanta screamed. ‘Yes, I, but you have already been paid, haven’t you!’ Then he told the driver to get moving.
The engine coughed and came to life. The car lurched forward and if Kanta said something it could not be heard. The man who had brought Kanta could be seen standing on the road, looking somewhat bewildered. The taxi soon disappeared into the night.
No one ever saw Khushia at his customary hangout again.
Translated by Khalid Hasan
Babu Gopi Nath
I THINK IT was in 1940 that I first met Babu Gopi Nath. I was the editor of a weekly magazine in Bombay. One day, while I was busy writing something, Abdul Rahim Sando burst into my office, followed by a short, nondescript man. Greeting me in his typical style, Sando introduced his friend. ‘Manto Sahib, meet Babu Gopi Nath.’
I rose and shook hands with him. Sando was in his element. ‘Babu Gopi Nath, you are shaking hands with India’s number one writer.’ He had a talent for coining words which, though not to be found in any dictionary, somehow always managed to express his meaning. ‘When he writes,’ Sando continued, ‘it is dharan takhta. A master of establishing kuntinutely among people and things. So Manto Sahib, what was the joke you unleashed the other day? “Miss Khurshid has bought a car. Verily, God is the great carmaker.” Well, Babu Gopi Nath, if that’s not the “anti” of pantipo, then what is, I ask you!’
Abdul Rahim Sando was an original. Most of the words he used in ordinary conversation were strictly of his own authorship. After this introduction, he looked at Babu Gopi Nath, who appeared to be impressed. ‘This is Babu Gopi Nath, from Lahore, but now of Bombay, accompanied by a pigeonette from Kashmir.’
Babu Gopi Nath smiled.
Abdul Rahim Sando continued, ‘If you are looking for the world’s number one innocent, this is your man. Everyone cheats him out of his money by saying nice things to him. Look at me. All I do is talk and he rewards me with two packets of Polson’s smuggled butter every day. Manto sahib, he is a genuine antifloojustice fellow, if ever there was one. We are expecting you at Babu Gopi Nath’s flat this evening.’
Babu Gopi Nath, whose mind seemed to be elsewhere, now joined the conversation. ‘Manto sahib, I insist that you come.’ Then he looked at Sando. ‘Sando, is Manto sahib…well, fond of…you know what?’
Abdul Rahim Sando laughed. ‘Of course, he is fond of that and of many other things as well. Is it all settled then? May I add that I have also started drinking because it can now be done free of cost.’
Sando wrote out the address and at six o’clock I presented myself at the flat. It was nice and clean. Three rooms, good furniture, all in order. Besides Sando and Babu Gopi Nath, there were four others – two men and two women – to whom I was presently introduced by Sando.
There was Ghaffar Sain, a typical Punjabi villager in a loose tehmad, wearing a huge necklace of beads and coloured stones. ‘He is Babu Gopi Nath
’s legal adviser, you know what I mean?’ Sando said. ‘In Punjab, every lunatic is a man of God. Our friend here is either already a man of God or about to be admitted to that divine order. He has accompanied Babu Gopi Nath from Lahore, because he had run out of suckers in that city. Here, he drinks Scotch whisky, smokes Craven A cigarettes and prays for the good of Babu Gopi Nath’s soul.’
Ghaffar Sain heard this colourful description in silence, a smile playing on his lips.
The other man was called Ghulam Ali, tall and athletic with a pockmarked face. About him Sando provided the following information: ‘He is my shagird, my true apprentice. A famous singing girl of Lahore fell in love with him. She brought all manner of kuntiniutees in play to ensnare him, but the only response she received from Ghulam Ali was: “Women are not my cup of tea.” Ran into Babu Gopi Nath at a Lahore shrine and has never left his side since. He receives a tin of Craven A cigarettes daily and all the food he can eat.’
Ghulam Ali smiled good-naturedly.
I looked at the women. One of them was young, fair and round-faced, the Kashmiri pigeonette Sando had mentioned. She had short hair, which first appeared to be cropped, but was not. Her eyes were large and bright and her expression suggested that she was raw and inexperienced. Sando introduced her.
‘Zeenat Begum, called Zeno, a love-name given by Babu sahib. This apple, plucked from Kashmir, was brought to Lahore by one of the city’s most formidable madams. Babu Gopi Nath’s private intelligence sources relayed the news of this arrival to him and, overnight, he decamped with her. There was litigation and for about two months the city police had a ball, thanks to Babu Gopi Nath’s generosity. Naturally, Babu Gopi Nath won the suit. And so here she is. Dharan takhta.’
The other woman, who was quietly smoking, was dark and red-eyed. Babu Gopi Nath looked at her. ‘Sando, and this one?’ Sando slapped her thigh and declaimed, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is mutton tippoti, fulful booti, Mrs Abdul Rahim Sando, alias Sardar Begum. Fell in love with me in 1936 and, inside of two years, I was done for – dharan takhta. I had to run away from Lahore. However, Babu Gopi Nath sent for her the other day to keep me out of harm’s way. Her daily rations consist of one tin of Craven A cigarettes and two rupees eight annas every evening for her morphine shot. She may be dark, but, by God, she is a tit-for-tat lady.’
‘What rubbish you talk,’ Sardar said. She sounded like the hardened professional woman she was.
Having finished with the introductions, Sando began a lecture highlighting my greatness. ‘Cut it out, Sando,’ I said. ‘Let’s talk of something else.’
Sando shouted, ‘Boy, whisky and soda. Babu Gopi Nath, out with the cash.’
Babu Gopi Nath reached in his pocket, pulled out a thick bundle of money, peeled off a bill and gave it to Sando. Sando stared at it reverently, raised his eyes to heaven and said, ‘Dear God of the universe, bring unto me the day when I put my hand in my pocket and fish out a thick wad of money like this. Meanwhile, I am asking Ghulam Ali to run to the store and return post-haste with two bottles of Johnny Walker Still-GoingStrong.’
The whisky arrived and we began to drink, with Sando continuing to monopolize the conversation. He downed his glass in one go. ‘Dharan takhta,’ he shouted, ‘Manto sahib, this is what I call honest-to-goodness whisky, inscribing “Long Live Revolution” as it blazes its way through the gullet into the stomach. Long live Babu Gopi Nath.’
Babu Gopi Nath did not say much, occasionally nodding to express agreement with Sando’s opinions. I had a feeling that the man had no views of his own. His superstitious nature was evident from the presence of Ghaffar Sain, his legal adviser, in Sando’s words. What it really meant was that Babu Gopi Nath was a born devotee of real and fake holy men. I learnt during the conversation that most of his time in Lahore was spent in the company of fakirs, mendicants, sadhus and the like.
‘What are you thinking?’ I asked him.
‘Nothing, nothing at all.’ Then he smiled, glanced at Zeenat amorously. ‘Just thinking about these beautiful creatures. What else do people like us think about?’
Sando explained, ‘Manto sahib, Babu Gopi Nath is a great man. There is hardly a singing girl or a courtesan worth the name in Lahore he has not had a kuntinutely with.’
‘Manto sahib, one no longer has the fire of youth in one’s loins,’ Babu Gopi Nath said modestly.
Then followed a long discussion about the leading families of courtesans and singing girls of Lahore. Family trees were traced, genealogy analysed, not to speak of how much Babu Gopi Nath had paid for the ritual deflowering of which woman in what year. These exchanges remained confined to Sando, Sardar, Ghulam Ali and Ghaffar Sain. The jargon of Lahore’s kothas was freely employed, not all of it comprehensible to me, though the general drift of the conversation was clear.
Zeenat never said a word. Off and on, she smiled. It was quite clear that she was not interested in these things. She drank a rather diluted glass of whisky, and I noticed that she smoked without appearing to enjoy it. Strangely enough, she smoked the most. I could find no visible indication that she was in love with Babu Gopi Nath, but it was obvious that he was with her. However, one could sense a tension between the two, despite their physical closeness.
At about eight o’clock, Sardar left to get her morphine shot. Ghaffar Sain, three drinks ahead, lay on the floor, rosary in hand. Ghulam Ali was sent out to get some food. Sando had got tired of talking. Babu Gopi Nath, now quite tipsy, looked at Zeenat longingly and said, ‘Manto sahib, what do you think of my Zeenat?’
I did not know how to answer that, so I said, ‘She is nice.’ Babu Gopi Nath was pleased. ‘Manto sahib, she is a lovely girl and so simple. She has no interest in ornaments and things like that. Many times I have offered to buy her a house of her own and you know what her answer has been? “What will I do with a house? Who do I have in the world?” ’
He asked suddenly, ‘What does a motor car cost, Manto sahib?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘I don’t believe it, Manto sahib, I’m sure you know. You must help me buy Zeno a car. I’ve come to the conclusion that one must have a car in Bombay.’
Zeenat’s face was devoid of expression.
Babu Gopi Nath was quite drunk now and getting more sentimental by the minute. ‘Manto sahib, you are a man of learning. I am nothing but an ass. Please let me know if I can be of some service to you. It was only by accident that Sando brought up your name yesterday. I immediately sent for a taxi and asked him to take me to meet you. If I have shown you any discourtesy, you must forgive me. I am nothing but a sinner, a man full of faults. Should I get you some more whisky?’
‘No, we’ve all had much too much to drink,’ I said.
He became even more sentimental. ‘You must drink some more, Manto sahib!’ He produced his bundle of money, but before he could peel some off, I thrust it back into his pocket. ‘You gave a hundred rupees to Ghulam Ali earlier, didn’t you?’ I asked.
The fact was that I had begun to feel sorry for Babu Gopi Nath. He was surrounded by so many leeches and he was such a simpleton. Babu Gopi Nath smiled. ‘Manto sahib, whatever is left of those hundred rupees will slip through Ghulam Ali’s pocket.’
The words were hardly out of his mouth, when Ghulam Ali entered the room with the doleful announcement that some scoundrel had picked his pocket on the street. Babu Gopi Nath looked at me, smiled, and gave another hundred rupees to Ghulam Ali. ‘Get some food quickly.’
After five or six meetings, I got to know a great deal more about Babu Gopi Nath’s personality. First of all, my initial view that he was a fool and a sucker had turned out to be wrong. He was perfectly aware of the fact that Sando, Ghulam Ali and Sardar, his inseparable companions, were all selfish opportunists. He let them ride roughshod over him, accepted their curses and scorn, but never got angry.
Once he said to me, ‘Manto sahib, in my entire life, I
have never rejected advice. Whenever someone offers it to me, I accept it with gratitude. Perhaps they consider me a fool, but I value their wisdom. Look at it like this. They have the wisdom to see that I am the sort of man who can be made a fool of. The fact is that I have spent most of my life in the company of fakirs, holy men, courtesans and singing girls. I love them. I just couldn’t do without them. I have decided that when my money runs out, I would like to settle down at a shrine. There are only two places where my heart finds peace: prostitutes’ kothas and saints’ shrines. It’s only a matter of time before I shall be unable to afford the former, because my money is running out, but there are thousands of saints’ shrines in India. I will go to one.’
‘Why do you like kothas and shrines?’ I asked.
‘Because both establishments are an illusion. What better refuge can there be for someone who wants to deceive himself?’
‘You are fond of singing girls. Do you understand music?’ I asked.
‘Not at all. It doesn’t matter in the least. I can spend an entire evening listening to the most flat-voiced woman in the world and still feel happy. It is the little things which go with these evenings that I love. She sings, I flash a hundred-rupee bill in front of her. She moves languorously towards me and, instead of letting her take it from my hand, I stick it in my sock. She bends and gently pulls it out. It’s the sort of nonsense that people like us enjoy. Everybody knows, of course, that in a kotha parents prostitute their daughters and in shrines men prostitute their God.’
I learnt that Babu Gopi Nath was the son of a miserly moneylender and had inherited ten lakh rupees, which he had been frittering away ever since. He had come to Bombay with fifty thousand rupees, and though those were inexpensive times his daily outgoings were heavy.
The Dog of Tithwal Page 27
