Manto and Chughtai

by Muhammed Umar Memon

  When everyone else slept they would take out the booty stealthily and gaze at it in the pleasurable darkness of the room. They felt shy to take a close look at it in each other’s presence. So one day Attan took it out when alone, but Safiya immediately landed on the spot and pounced on her like an eagle. It was a breach of trust!

  ‘Shall we go and hand it over to Aapaji?’

  ‘Yes, let’s. Anwar Bhai . . .’ And both were choked with emotion.

  They began to lose trust in one another. They feared leaving each other alone and guarded each other like snakes. If Attan attempted to go somewhere Safiya would immediately start putting on her shoes to accompany her.

  That love and attachment was gone. Now when Attan’s shins throbbed Safiya turned away her face, pretended to be asleep and did not tie her dupatta around the spot. And when Safiya had shooting pain in her waist, Attan did not fetch the hot-water bottle. Rather she prayed that the pain be so severe that she would be unconscious and not come back to life again. Let people mourn and lament her death, cover her body in a red brocade dupatta and take her to her grave. Meanwhile, she would take out that silk web from the last shelf of the almirah and . . . But that was a vain hope. Safiya got fatter by the day, and her cheekbones acquired a light crimson glow. And Attan’s shoes began to pinch her. Afraid, they trembled at each other’s growing strength. Both wanted to show that they did not care much for those silk snares and that those flimsy clothes were not at all like nooses around their necks.

  The saying goes, when God bestows His gifts He does so on a silver platter. Kubra’s dowry clothes were being stitched and Khala Abbasi called Aapa Bi to cut the dress material for a jumper.

  ‘Who’s going with me?’ she asked looking at Attan and Safiya. They pretended not to hear. Attan was stitching the flares on Bi’s pyjama like a docile girl. The feckless Safiya was pulling out stitches with scissors.

  ‘Safiya, you come along. You’re fiddling with the scissors. Come.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘To Abbasi Khala’s. Where else? Hurry up.’

  ‘And Bajju . . .?’ She dilated her eyes in apprehension.

  ‘Bajju’s working,’ Bi growled. Attan went on stitching with bowed head. She did not even break the thread for fear of attracting attention. Safiya gave her a murderous look. But it was in vain.

  Attan’s hands began to shake. Her heart began to strike against her ribs.

  ‘Hey girl, put two stitches on this string.’ Mullani Ma handed over an object that looked like a check drawstring juggler’s bag.

  Though Attan’s heart was pounding like a railway engine in full steam, she got up nonchalantly as if she was in no haste!

  ‘Here you are, daughter . . . This button . . .’ Taya Abba landed there, his sandals creaking like the wheels of a bullock cart.

  ‘Daughter, wash the paan leaves and put them in the box . . . Sprinkle water on them.’ Today Bi’s taking a keen interest in stitching. And Taya Abba—may God afflict him with colic pain that sends him to his grave.

  If Attan had to endure the tension a minute longer her veins would have burst or she would have been struck by paralysis. With trembling hands she lifted the silk skein as one lifts a nestling, and then she moved ahead gingerly as though she were a new bride proceeding towards the bridal chamber on the wedding night, taking care that her anklets and sandals did not make any noise. That day she realized how ugly she was. She stood silent in the twilight glow of the room biting her lips . . . As she pulled up the bolt, the window made such a noise that she began to cough vigorously to muffle that noise. Then as she moved ahead the tiny silk strings began to play with her fingers. She felt as though a current of cool water flowed over her body, caressing every vein. She clasped the strings in her hands and then let go. They fell sideways as when a snake sloughs off its skin. The next moment she felt she was totally free—free from her surroundings—covered in flowers moist with cool dewdrops. She felt she was flying upwards—higher and higher—like feathery, soft-hued butterflies. Her breathing became heavy . . . Through the screen of tears she saw the pink flower swing swaying gently . . . Pleasurable sensations made her fingers tingle . . . Fine needles began to prick her all over.

  ‘Creak . . . creak . . . bang!’ The loose bolt came off.

  Aapa stood right there, and Safiya’s mischievous eyes were gleaming. Attan’s arms fell. . . her shoulders went limp . . . and her head went down, lower and lower. And finally she covered her face inside the smelly, hideous vest.

  THE MOLE

  ‘Choudhry . . . O Choudhry . . . Listen to me . . .’

  Ganeshchand Choudhry was silent.

  ‘Sh . . . sh . . .’

  ‘Why are you chirping like a cricket?’

  ‘I’m tired.’

  ‘Sit quietly, or else . . .’

  ‘I can’t sit any more! Look, my back has become stiff as a board. Hai Ram!’

  ‘Chh, chh . . .’

  ‘I feel such a chill . . .’

  Choudhry didn’t say a word.

  ‘Here . . . right here in the buttocks, ants are biting me.’

  ‘Look here, Rani, it’s not yet ten minutes, and you’re already tired.’

  ‘So? Am I made of clay? Wah . . .’ Rani pouted her thick lips and slid off the white marble stool she was sitting on.

  ‘Witch! Sit still, I’m telling you. Bastard!’ Choudhry tossed the palette on the stool and shook her hard by the shoulders.

  ‘Well, then . . . Here you are!’ She lay down on the floor. Choudhry was beside himself with rage. He felt like whiplashing her delicate, dark cheeks, but he knew that would only make her wilder and provide her with a chance to yell and cry. And the portrait for which he was taking so much pain would remain incomplete.

  ‘Look, sit quietly for a little while and then . . . ’ said Choudhry in a conciliatory tone.

  ‘I’m dead tired.’ She rolled over on the floor.

  ‘Dead tired! And, didn’t you get tired when you wandered about collecting cow dung throughout the day? Bitch!’ Choudhry was again angry.

  ‘Who collected cow dung? You? What a mean fellow you are to taunt me like a cantankerous mother-in-law!’ She began to sulk, and Choudhry knew that another precious day was lost.

  ‘All right, here’s the watch. Sit quietly just for half an hour.’

  ‘Oh no, not half an hour. Only six minutes,’ she said as she climbed on the stool.

  The fact was, she could count only up to six or seven. Choudhry knew very well that he could keep her sitting for half an hour while she thought it was just six minutes. Rani straightened her waist, adjusted the heavy, floral pitcher on her shoulder and sat down. No one could say for how long.

  ‘Is it all right now?’

  ‘Yes.’ Choudhry quickly bent over the canvas.

  ‘Look at me . . .’

  ‘Yes, yes, it’s all right.’

  ‘Look at me . . .’

  ‘Yes, yes, it’s all right.’

  His brush moved in silence for a while, and colours merged into one another rapidly. However, hardly a minute had gone by when she lost her patience and heaved a deep sigh.

  ‘Ahh . . . That’s all, Choudhry. Your six minutes are over.’

  ‘Hunh . . . hunh.’ His glance moved back and forth from the half-formed patches on the canvas to her.

  ‘It’s so chilly. Can I wear the shawl?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ohh . . . ahh . . . It’s so cold.’ She started whining like a dog.

  ‘Shut up,’ growled Choudhry.

  ‘My waist, oh my stiff waist, Choudhryji.’ She was in a roguish mood that day. ‘Shawl . . . shawl . . . Where’s my shawl?’

  ‘Shut up,’ growled Choudhry again.

  ‘Hunh! Don’t you hear me say how tired I am! I’ll throw away the pitcher . . .’

  Choudhry quickly turned to look at her. He had borrowed the pitcher from the museum for his painting. If she broke it, he would smash her skull.

  ‘What can I do
if I feel tired? And there are lice crawling in my hair.’ She rested the floral pitcher on the floor and began fiddling with the luxuriant crop of hair on her head.

  Choudhry spread his legs apart, his eyes glowered, and extreme anger made the muscles in his face twitch. His grizzled beard began to flutter like the white sails of a boat caught in a wild storm. Beads of perspiration appeared on his smooth, bald pate.

  ‘My lower back hurts.’ But Choudhry’s demeanour scared her, and she took position again. Then suddenly she burst into tears.

  ‘Oho . . . ho . . . brrr . . .’ she blubbered. ‘Oho . . . ho . . . no one cares if I die . . . brrr . . .’

  Choudhry glared at her. Whenever she started crying, the muscles in his cheeks twitched, the bridge of his nose went askew, and the brush in his hand danced like firecrackers. The colours in his palette flowed into one another, making a puddle. He didn’t know what to do. This agonizing state would persist until the thorn pricking his brain was dislodged. Right now, Rani’s gestures seemed to pierce him like a spear, and not a thorn, through his soul.

  No one could escape the impact of Choudhry’s histrionics. Rani was no exception. She sucked in her stomach once again, made a whining sound with her lips and sat down.

  For a few moments the world continued to revolve on its axis, and Choudhry’s brush made quick strokes. The palette now looked ugly and untidy. Then—

  ‘Choudhry,’ Rani cooed softly. Choudhry felt a strange sensation in his armpit. The world’s axis swayed just a bit. No one knows whether the world sways on its axis. But to be sure, something did happen.

  ‘Choudhry, have you seen this?’

  Choudhry’s shoulders quivered. The beads of perspiration on his smooth skull grew larger. Rani spoke again.

  ‘Look at this—this black mole just below my neck. Over here, a little below, on the left.’ She held the floral pitcher with one hand as she peered down her cleavage, parting her lips wide.

  ‘Did you see it? And . . . So you’re looking, Choudhry.’ She pretended to be coy. ‘Oh, I feel so embarrassed.’

  ‘Sit still,’ Choudhry growled.

  ‘Hunh! What airs! Does any decent man peer at another’s mole, especially when it is in such a bad spot!’ She grinned shamelessly. ‘Yes, in a bad spot, and now you’ve seen it, haven’t you?’

  ‘I haven’t seen any mole, nor do I want to,’ Choudhry’s exasperation mounted.

  ‘Hunh! Liar! You’re looking at it from the corner of your eye. And . . .’ She continued to snicker immodestly.

  ‘Rani!’

  Rani merely turned her nose up at him. Defeated, he slumped on the wooden box near the canvas.

  ‘Do you know how old I am?’

  ‘Hai Ram! How old?’ Resting the pitcher, she leaned towards him.

  ‘I’m old enough to be your father, nay, grandfather. And you? Tell me how old are you? . . . Hardly fifteen. And you’ve become an expert in obscene talk!’ Choudhry was not old enough to be her father, let alone her grandfather. He had said that just to shut her up.

  ‘Hunh! You’re the one who talks obscene. Peering down at my mole! And it’s in such a bad spot, too.’ She began to grope for it with her hands.

  ‘You’re such a little girl . . . ’

  ‘A little girl! Who says I’m a little girl? Had I been so, then . . . ’

  ‘Then? Then what?’

  ‘Ratna says that whoever has a mole on the breast is . . .’

  ‘Ratna? How does Ratna know where you have moles?’

  ‘I showed it to him,’ she began to stroke the mole.

  ‘You did? You . . . you showed the mole to Ratna?’

  Choudhry’s blood began to boil again. There was a twitching in his armpits, and the muscles in his cheeks quivered. Then his brush began to make frantic strokes and colours mingled with one another.

  ‘Ah . . . well . . . wah! What could I do if he saw it?’

  ‘How . . . how could he see the mole when you, you . . .’ Choudhry’s teeth clattered like a door loose on its hinges.

  ‘I was bathing when he . . .’ She held the pitcher and climbed on the stool again.

  ‘You were bathing, and he landed there . . . bastard!’

  ‘Yes, I was bathing in the pond. I was scared to go alone, so I took him along lest someone came there without warning. Yes, I was bathing. I also washed my blouse.’

  ‘You took him along because you were scared that someone would come there?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said with naivety.

  ‘Rani!’ Choudhry edged forward.

  ‘I told him to turn his face the other way, but . . .’

  ‘But?’

  ‘He was sitting far off. Then I said, “Ratna, I have a mole, but in a very bad spot.” As he didn’t show any interest, I said to him, “Well, don’t look if you don’t want to. I don’t care.” Right, Choudhry?’

  ‘Then how could you say that he saw it?’

  ‘That’s true. I was going to drown—the water was this deep, you know,’ she said, placing a finger a little below the mole.

  ‘Whore!’ Choudhry threw away the brush and was going to pick up the stick lying nearby.

  ‘Hai Ram! But . . . but listen, Choudhry. Would you rather that I had drowned?’

  ‘Bitch, don’t you know how to swim? You’ve been bathing in the pond all your life. Why didn’t you drown then?’

  ‘Oho! I wasn’t going to drown really. I . . . I was just going to show him the mole.’

  ‘So you faked the whole thing so that you could show him the mole?’ Choudhry flung the thin stick in the air. He was smiling now.

  ‘Hai Ram! Let me at least wear the dhoti, Choudhryji.’

  She leapt monkey-like and landed on the steps. ‘If you hit me, I’ll go out on the road. That will embarrass me, and I’ll tell people that Choudhry, Choudhry . . .’

  The man stopped dead in his tracks. ‘What will you tell them?’

  ‘I’ll tell them, “Choudhry says that my mole . . . h’m . . . h’m.”’

  ‘Whore!’ Choudhry sprang up like a mad fox. Rani knew that the arrow had hit its mark.

  ‘I’ll tell everyone, Choudhry. Did you hear? Come on, hit me if you dare. Why are you staring at me like that? . . . I’m so young. Just a little girl . . . You’re very naughty.’ She edged towards the door slowly.

  Choudhry sat there dumbfounded. For a moment, he felt like setting fire to the painting and beating Rani to a pulp. But then he was reminded of the exhibition where he aspired to receive an award of five thousand rupees.

  His head was in a swirl. He had painted thousands of pictures in his career—pictures of blooming roses, of undulating verdure, of dancing, leaping cataracts. He had even successfully represented sighs and fragrance in colour. And women from far-off countries had had the honour of posing for him—both in the nude as well as dressed up. But this restless, illiterate chit of a girl he had picked up from the filth in the gutters to serve as a model for his masterpiece was completely unmanageable. The most disturbing fact was that despite all known permutations and combinations, he could not make the tint that would replicate the exact shade of her skin. He mixed sandalwood colour with black and then added a little blue, but the tint of her skin was a mixture of alabaster, sandal, blue and a touch of ochre. It wasn’t just that. If her complexion looked oyster one day, the next day he could see early morning vermilion bursting from it . . . And then suddenly it would acquire the tint of lilac clouds at dawn, while at other times he could see the blue of a serpent’s poison shining through.

  Her eyes, too, changed colour constantly. On the first day, he confidently prepared a tar-black tint. But suddenly he saw red lines around her pupils, and then the space around them seemed to fill up with the blue of clouds. He lost all patience and a lot of paint was wasted. But his exasperation crossed all limits when, in a few moments, the tar-black pupils began to turn green and dance like two emeralds. The space around the pupils turned milky-white and the red lines became redder. Hell! He c
lasped his head in desperation. That was, however, not the end of his troubles.

  ‘Mosquitoes are biting me,’ she whimpered like a child.

  Choudhry had resolved that he would remain calm that day whatever the provocation.

  ‘They are biting me like hell—these mosquitoes.’

  Choudhry was mute.

  ‘Ohh . . . how hard they bite—these mosquitoes.’

  Choudhry sprang to his feet. Rani had blurted out an obscene invective that left Choudhry aghast. How could she utter this, being a girl? He was not familiar with such words, and the ones he knew were rather mild. He had never pondered this issue, but he felt that even the police inspector would not mouth such obscenities. At the most, he would use a few terms as metaphors just as a matter of necessity.

  ‘Where did you learn such odious swear words?’

  ‘Which one? You mean this?’ She repeated the obscenity with calm relish.

  ‘Rani!’ He howled.

  ‘I heard it from Chunnan when he cursed mosquitoes. There are swarms of mosquitoes in his shack.’ She tried to skirt the issue.

  ‘In Chunnan’s shack? You were there in his shack?’

  ‘Yes. He took me there to give me some gurdhani.’

  ‘So, you ate the gurdhani?’

  ‘Oh no! There was no gurdhani there. He lied. But now he fetches it for me.’

  ‘So, Chunnan brings you gurdhani now?’

  ‘Yes. Kheel too.’ She was now stroking the patterns on the pitcher.

  ‘Kheel too!’ Choudhry knew that his shock was unwarranted. Rani was just crazy about gurdhani. Why Chunnan’s shack, she would be prepared to snatch it from the jaws of a dog in the gutter to swallow some!

  ‘I’ve given you money, but you’re still taking gurdhani from Chunnan?’

  ‘Hunh! I don’t beg him. He brings it to me and asks me to go to his shack. I don’t like him at all—he has such a big moustache, it makes me sneeze. Phun . . . phun! . . .’ She sniffled as though someone had thrust a wick up her nose.