‘Where?’
‘That building across from us.’
‘You mean that one?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Should I come with you?’
‘Yes, but please walk behind me.’ They crossed the road. It was a rundown building with the plaster peeling off the walls and rubbish heaps littering the entrance.
They went through a courtyard and then through a dark corridor. It seemed that construction had been abandoned at some point before completion. The bricks in the walls were unplastered and there were piles of lime mixed with cement on the floor.
The man began to ascend a flight of dilapidated stairs. ‘Please wait here. I’ll be back in a minute,’ he said.
He looked up and saw a bright light at the end of the landing.
He waited for a couple of minutes and then began to climb the stairs. When he reached the landing, he heard the man who had brought him screaming, ‘Are you going to get up or not?’
A woman’s voice answered, ‘Just let me sleep.’
The man screamed again, ‘You heard me, are you getting up or not? Or you know what I’ll do to you.’
The woman’s voice again: ‘You can kill me but I won’t get up. For God’s sake, have mercy on me.’
The man changed his tone. ‘Darling, don’t be obstinate. How are we going to make a living if you don’t get up?’
‘Living be damned. I’ll starve to death, but for God’s sake, don’t drag me out of bed. I’m sleepy,’ answered the woman.
The man began to roar with anger, ‘So you’re not going to leave your bed, you bitch, you filthy bitch!’
The woman shouted back, ‘I won’t, I won’t, I won’t!’
The man changed his tone again. ‘Don’t shout like that. The whole world can hear you. Come on now, get up. We could make thirty, even forty rupees.’
The woman began to whimper, ‘I beg of you, don’t make me go. You know how many days and nights I have gone without sleep. Have pity on me, please.’
‘It won’t be long,’ the man said, ‘just a couple of hours and then you can sleep as long as you like. Look, don’t make me use other methods to persuade you.’
There was a brief silence. He crossed the landing on tiptoe and peeped into the room where the very bright light was coming from. It was not much of a room. There were a few empty cooking pots on the floor and a woman stretched out in the middle with the man he had come with crouching over her. He was pressing her legs and saying, ‘Be a good girl now. I promise you, we’ll be back in two hours and then you can sleep to your heart’s content.’
He saw the woman suddenly get up like a firecracker which has been shown a match. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘I’ll come.’
He was suddenly afraid and ran down the stairs. He wanted to put as much distance between this place and himself as he could, between himself and this city.
He thought of the woman who wanted to sleep. Who was she? Why was she being treated with such inhumanity?
And who was that man? Why was the room so unremittingly bright? Did they both live there? Why did they live there?
His eyes were still partly blinded by the dazzling light bulb in that terrible room upstairs. He couldn’t see very well. Couldn’t they have hung a softer light in the room? Why was it so nakedly, pitilessly bright?
There was a noise in the dark and a movement. All he could see were two silhouettes, one of them obviously that of the man whom he had followed to this awful place.
‘Take a look,’ he said.
‘I have,’ he replied.
‘Is she all right?’
‘She is all right.’
‘That will be forty rupees.’
‘All right.’
‘Can I have the money?’
He could no longer think clearly. He put his hand in his pocket, pulled out a fistful of bank notes and handed them over. ‘Count them,’ he said.
‘There’s fifty there.’
‘Keep it.’
‘Thank you.’
He had an urge to pick up a big stone and smash his head. ‘Please take her, but be nice to her and bring her back in a couple of hours.’
‘OK.’
He walked out of the building with the woman, and found a tonga waiting outside. He jumped quickly in the front. The woman took the back seat.
The tonga began to move. He asked him to stop in front of a ramshackle, empty hotel. They went in. He took his first look at the woman. Her eyes were red and swollen. She looked so tired that he was afraid she would fall to the floor in a heap.
‘Raise your head,’ he said to her.
‘What?’ She was startled.
‘Nothing, all I said was raise your head.’
She looked up. Her eyes were like empty holes topped up with ground chilli.
‘What is your name?’ he asked.
‘Never mind.’ Her tone was like acid.
‘Where are you from?’
‘What does it matter?’
‘Why are you so unfriendly?’
The woman was now wide awake. She stared at him with her bloodred eyes and said, ‘You finish your business because I have to go.’
‘Where?’
‘Where you picked me up from,’ she answered indifferently.
‘You are free to go.’
‘Why don’t you finish your business? Why are you trying to ridicule me?’
‘I’m not trying to ridicule you. I feel sorry for you,’ he said in a sympathetic voice.
‘I want no sympathizers. You do whatever you brought me here for and then let me go,’ she almost screamed.
He tried to put his hand on her shoulder, but she shook it off rudely.
‘Leave me alone. I haven’t slept for days. I’ve been awake ever since I came to that place.’
‘You can sleep here.’
‘I didn’t come here to sleep. This isn’t my home.’
‘Is that room your home?’
This seemed to infuriate her even more.
‘Cut out the rubbish. I have no home. You do your job or take me back. You can have your money returned by that’
‘All right, I’ll take you back,’ he said.
And he took her back to that big building and left her there. The next day, sitting in a desolate hotel in Qaiser Park, he told the story of that woman to a friend, who was greatly moved by it. Expressing sorrow, he asked, ‘Was she young?’
‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘The fact is that I didn’t really look at her. I only had this savage desire to pick up a rock and smash the head of the man who had brought me there.’
His friend said, ‘That would have been a most worthy deed.’
He did not stay with his friend for very long in that hotel. He felt greatly depressed by the events of the day before. They finished their tea and left.
He quietly walked to the tonga stand, his eyes searching for that procurer, who was nowhere to be found. It was now six o’clock and the big building was right across, just a few yards from him. He began to walk towards it and, once there, went in.
There were people walking in. Quite calmly, taking steps through the dark, he came to the stairway and noticed a light at the top. He looked up and began to climb very quietly. For a while, he stood at the landing. A bright light was coming out of the room, but there was no sound, not even a stir. He approached the wide open doors and, standing aside, peeped in. The first thing he saw was a bulb whose light dazzled his eyes. He abruptly moved aside and turned towards the dark to get the dazzle out of his eyes.
Then he advanced towards the doors but in a way that his eyes should not meet that blinding light. He looked in. On the bit of floor he could see, there was a woman lying on a mat. He looked at her carefully. She was asleep, her face covered with her dupatta.
Her bosom rose and fell with her rhythmic breathing. He moved deeper into the room and screamed but he quickly stifled it. Next to that woman, on the bare floor, lay a man, his head smashed into a pulp. A bloodied brick lay close by. He saw all this in one rapid sequence, then he leapt towards the stairs but lost his foothold and fell down. Without caring for his injuries, while trying to keep his sanity intact, he managed to get home with great difficulty. All night, he kept seeing terrifying dreams.
Translated by Khalid Hasan
I’m No Good For You!
A HEATED DISCUSSION about Chaudhry Ghulam Abba’s latest speech was in full swing in the Tea House. The atmosphere inside was cosy and as warm as the tea. We were in agreement about one thing: We should grab Kashmir no matter what and Dogra rule must end immediately.
They were all mujahideen, God’s valiant soldiers, who didn’t know the first thing about fighting but were ready to jump into the battlefield at any moment. The consensus was that if we launched a surprise attack, Kashmir would be in our hands in a blink.
Well, I was among those mujahideen. My problem, though, is that I’m a Kashmiri right down to the hilt, and no less a Kashmiri than Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, which makes it my greatest weakness. I just chimed along with the other mujahideen. It was decided that the minute war broke out we would join and fight at the very front.
Although Haneef showed great enthusiasm, I sensed that he was feeling rather melancholy, but I couldn’t figure out the reason for his downcast mood.
Everyone left after the tea, only Haneef and I stayed on. By now the Tea House had become nearly empty with only two boys chatting over their breakfast in a far corner.
I had met Haneef a while back. He was about ten years younger than me. He had finished his BA and was undecided whether to opt for an MA in English or in Urdu. Sometimes he got it into his head to stop his studies altogether and set out to travel.
I looked at him closely. He was picking up the used matchsticks from the ashtray and nervously breaking them into small bits. As I’ve already mentioned, he was feeling rather blue. It appeared to be a good opportunity to ask him about it. ‘Why are you feeling so glum?’
He lifted his head, tossed the broken pieces to one side, and replied, ‘Oh, no particular reason.’
I lit up. ‘What do you mean ‘no particular reason’? That’s no answer. There’s always a reason for everything. Perhaps you’re reminiscing about some old event.’
He nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘And that event has something to do with Kashmir?’
He started. ‘How did you know that?’
I smiled. ‘I’m a Sherlock Holmes. My good man, weren’t we just now talking about Kashmir? When you agreed that you were thinking, and thinking about some past event, I immediately guessed that this event must have to do with Kashmir. It’s got to be. So, did you fall in love there?’
‘Love…I don’t know…God knows what it was. Anyway, something did happen and the memory of it still haunts me.’
I was eager to hear his story. ‘If you don’t mind, tell me about that something.’
He asked me for a cigarette and lit it. ‘Manto Sahib,’ he said, ‘it isn’t an especially interesting incident. But if you promise to listen quietly without interrupting, I’ll tell you everything, down to the last detail, about what transpired three years ago. I’m not a storyteller, all the same I’ll try.’
I promised not to interrupt. Actually he wanted to narrate his story by going into the depths of his heart and mind.
After a pause he began, ‘Manto Sahib, it happened two years ago, when Partition wasn’t even in our imagination. It was summer time. I was feeling down, God knows why. I guess all unattached, single men feel gloomy in the summer. Anyway, one day I decided to go to Kashmir. I packed a few essentials and went to the lorry stand. I bought a ticket and boarded. When the lorry arrived at Kad, I changed my mind. What is there in Srinagar, I thought. I’ve already seen it many times. I’ll get out at the next stop, Batut. It’s a salubrious place. Tuberculosis patients frequently go there and leave cured. So I got off at Batut and stayed in a hotel, a rather bare-bones one, but all right. I was quite taken with Batut. I went climbing on the slopes every morning, ate a breakfast of toast and pure butter on my return from the hike, and then, lying down, read some book or other.
‘I was spending my days pleasurably in the salubrious environment of the place. I’d become friends with all the shopkeepers in the area around the hotel, especially Sardar Lahna Singh who was a tailor. I would spend hours at his shop. He was a fanatic for love stories. His sewing machines would keep whirring and he’d be absorbed in those stories.
‘He knew every last thing about Batut. Who was having an affair with whom, who’d had a tiff, which girls had just started to put on airs – you name it. His pocket was always full of such gossip.
‘In the evenings, the two of us went for a stroll on the downward slopes, all the way to the Banihal Pass, and then walked back up slowly. There was a cluster of mud dwellings to the right of the first bend in the road if you were coming from the hotel and headed towards the slopes. One day I asked Sardarji whether those quarters were meant to be lived in. I asked because they had caught my fancy. Yes, they were for living in, he told me. ‘A railway babu from Sargodha is staying there these days. His wife is ill.’
‘She must have tuberculosis,’ I concluded at once. God knows why I’m so scared of this disease. From that day on I never passed by those quarters without covering my nose and mouth with a kerchief. I don’t want to prolong the story. In short, eventually, I became friends with Kundan Lal, the railway babu. I soon realized he wasn’t at all concerned about his wife’s condition. He was simply going through the motions of being a caring husband. He visited her occasionally and lived in a separate dwelling, which he disinfected with phenyl three times a day. It was his wife’s younger sister Sumitri, hardly fourteen years old, who took care of her with unflinching devotion.
‘I first saw Sumitri by the Maggu stream. A big pile of dirty laundry lay by her side and she was perhaps washing a shalwar when I passed by. The sound of my footsteps startled her. She quickly joined her hands and said namaste to me. I returned her greeting and asked, ‘You know me?’ ‘Yes,’ she said in her shrill voice, ‘you’re Babuji’s friend.’ What stood before me, I felt, was not Sumitri, but suffering itself, moulded into her form. I felt like talking to her, to help her with her washing, to lessen her burdens just a little, but such informality seemed out of place at our very first meeting.
‘The second time I met her, again by the very same stream, she was rubbing soap into some clothes when I said namaste and sat down on top of a bed of fallen apples. She felt somewhat nervous, but her trepidation disappeared once we started talking. She became so friendly that she started telling me all about the affairs of her household.
‘It’d been five years since her elder sister got married to Babuji, she told me. During the first year of their marriage, Babuji treated her sister well, but when he was suspended from his job for allegedly taking bribes, he wanted to sell her jewellery and gamble with it, hoping it would double the amount. Her sister wouldn’t agree, so he started beating and abusing her. He would shut her up in a small dark room all day long without food for months. Finally, when she couldn’t take it anymore, she handed him the jewellery. He disappeared with it and didn’t show his face for six months, during which time she was reduced to starvation. Had she wanted to, she could have gone back to her parents. Her father was quite wealthy; he even loved her a lot. But she didn’t think it was proper to go back. She ended up contracting tuberculosis. When Kundan Lal finally reappeared six months later, he found his wife bedridden. He had been reinstated. When asked where he’d been all this time, he hedged and fudged.
‘Sumitri’s sister didn’t ask him about her jewellery. She was happy that God had heard her entreaties and sent her husband back to her. H
er health improved a little, but a month later her condition deteriorated sharply. It was only then that her parents somehow learned about her illness. They immediately came over and forced Kundan Lal to bring her to the mountain right away and said they would bear the expenses. Kundad Lal thought, why not, let’s have some recreation. He brought Sumitri along for his amusement and landed in Batut.
‘Once here, he took absolutely no notice of his wife. He stayed out the whole day playing cards. Sumitri prepared the special diet for her sister. Every month Kundan Lal wrote to his in-laws that the expenses were mounting, and every month they added extra to the amount they sent.
‘I don’t wish to let this story drag on. I was now seeing Sumitri practically every day. The area by the stream where she washed clothes was pleasantly cool, just like the water of the stream. The shade under the apple trees was heavenly, and I wished I could sit there all day long, picking up the lovely round apples and tossing them into the clear water. The reason for this rather crude lyricism that has crept into my account is that I’d fallen in love with Sumitri and somehow sensed that she had accepted it. So one day, overwhelmed by a sudden surge of emotion, I clasped her to my bosom and kissed her on the lips with my eyes closed. Birds were twittering on the branches of the apple trees and the stream was humming gently.
‘She was pretty, though a bit skinny. But if you thought deeply, you’d have felt that this is how she had to be. If she had been a bit fleshy, she wouldn’t have looked so delicate. She had the eyes of a gazelle, which nature had lined with a dark eye shadow. She was short but infinitely pleasing, and her long, thick, dark hair reached down to her waist. A virgin, blossoming youth. Manto sahib, I was lost in her love.
‘As she was expressing her love for me, I told her what had been sticking like a thorn in my heart for some time. ‘Look, Sumitri,’ I said, ‘I’m Muslim and you’re Hindu. What would be the end of this love? I’m not a libertine or rake that I could take advantage of you and be on my way. I want to make you my mate for life.’ She threw her arms around my neck and told me firmly, ‘Haneef, I’ll convert.’
The Dog of Tithwal Page 29
