Bombay Stories

by Saadat Hasan Manto

  I went back to my room, and after I gave him the money he left. When he returned that afternoon, for once he had something to say, ‘It’s over.’

  ‘What’s over?’

  ‘I broke up with Peerun today,’ he said, as though relieved. ‘I told her, “Since I met you, I haven’t worked at all. You’re bad luck.” And she said, “Then stop seeing me, and we’ll see if you get a job or not. I might be bad luck, but you’re a real slacker—no one’s lazier than you.” So now it’s over, and, God willing, I bet I’ll get a job tomorrow. Tomorrow morning if you give me four annas, I’ll go meet Seth Nanu Bhai and I’m sure he’ll give me a job as his assistant.’

  Seth Nanu Bhai was a film director, and he had already turned Brij Mohan away countless times since he thought Brij Mohan was lazy. But the next day when Brij Mohan returned, he shared with me the good news that Seth Nanu Bhai had very happily given him a job at 250 rupees a month. The contract was for a year, and it was all signed and sealed. He reached into his pocket and took out a hundred-rupee note and told me, ‘This is an advance. I really want to take the contract and money to Bandra and say to Peerun, “Hey, look here! I got a job.” But I’m scared that Nanu Bhai will fire me immediately. That’s happened to me many times. I get a job, go see Peerun, and everything’s wrecked. I get fired on one pretext or another. God knows why this girl is such bad luck. I’ve made up my mind not to see her for at least a year. I hardly have any clothes left. Over the next year I can get some made, and then I’ll go see her.’

  Six months passed. It seemed as though Brij Mohan’s work was going well. He had got some new clothes made and had bought a dozen handkerchiefs, and now he had everything that a bachelor needed. One day after he had left for the studio, a letter came for him. I forgot to give it to him that night, and it was only the next morning over breakfast when I remembered it. As soon as he got his hands on it, he cried out, ‘Ah, hell!’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘It’s Peerun—and just when everything was going well,’ he said, opening the envelope with his spoon. ‘It’s her, all right. I’ll never forget her handwriting.’

  ‘What does she want?’

  ‘Shit—she says that she wants to see me this Sunday, that she has something to tell me,’ he said and then put the envelope in his pocket. ‘Look here, Manto. Just wait and see if tomorrow I don’t get fired.’

  ‘Come off it—what’re you talking about?’

  ‘No, Manto, just you watch,’ he said, sure of himself. ‘Tomorrow’s Sunday. Seth Nanu Bhai will come up with some excuse and fire me before you know it.’

  ‘If you’re so sure, then don’t go.’

  ‘Impossible. If she wants me, I have to go.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, anyway, I’m kind of fed up with working. It’s been more than six months now.’ Then he smiled and left.

  The next morning after breakfast he left for Bandra. When he returned, he didn’t say anything, and so I asked him, ‘Did you meet your unlucky star?’

  ‘Yeah, I told her I’m sure to get fired soon.’ Then he got up from the cot. ‘Anyway, let’s go eat.’

  We ate at the Haji Hotel and didn’t talk at all about Peerun during the meal. Then that night before going to bed, he said, ‘We’ll just see what tomorrow brings.’

  I thought that nothing was bound to happen, but the next day Brij Mohan came back early. He laughed loudly when we met. ‘I’m jobless!’

  ‘Stop it,’ I said, thinking he was joking.

  ‘What had to be stopped has been stopped! What’s left for me to stop? Nanu Bhai’s up to his neck in it. He sold the studio, and all because of me!’ Then he laughed again.

  ‘This is quite a turn of events.’

  ‘Well, the obvious needs no explanation!’ Brij Mohan lit a cigarette, picked up a camera, and went out for a walk.

  Things turned bad for Brij Mohan. After he spent all the money he had saved, he began asking me again for eight annas for Sunday trips to Bandra. I still didn’t know what they talked about for those thirty or forty minutes. He was a great conversationalist, and yet what could he find to talk about with that girl—that girl who he was convinced brought him only bad luck? One day I asked him, ‘Brij, does Peerun love you?’

  ‘No, she loves someone else.’

  ‘Why does she want to see you?’

  ‘Because I’m clever. I can take her ugly face and think of a way to make it beautiful. I solve the crosswords for her and sometimes win her prizes. Manto, you don’t know girls like that, but I do. Whatever her lover lacks, I make up for it. That way she gets a complete man.’ He smiled. ‘It’s high fraud!’

  ‘So why do you see her?’ I asked, confused.

  Brij Mohan laughed and then wrinkled his brow. ‘I like it.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘The way she’s bad luck. I’ve been testing it—how she’s bad luck—and now I know it’s definitely true. Ever since I’ve known her, I’ve been fired from each and every job. Now I just want to find a way to beat this.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I want to quit before I’m fired,’ Brij Mohan said very seriously. ‘I mean, I want to fire my boss. I’ll say, “Sir, I know you’re about to fire me, and so I’m not going to let you go to the trouble. I’ll leave on my own. Anyway, it wasn’t really you firing me but my friend Peerun, whose nose is so big it punctures cameras like an arrow!” Brij Mohan smiled. ‘This is my little wish. We’ll see if it comes true or not.’

  ‘That’s an unusual desire.’

  ‘Everything about me is strange,’ he said. ‘Last Sunday I photographed Peerun’s lover. Just watch him submit it to some competition and win!’ He smiled again.

  One Sunday, Brij returned from Bandra and said, ‘Manto, it’s over.’

  ‘You mean you and Peerun?’

  ‘Yeah. My clothes are running out, and so I thought I’d better stop going. God willing, I’ll get a job in a couple days. I think I’ll go see Seth Nayaz Ali. He’s supposed to be making a film. I’ll go tomorrow, but could you find out where his office is?’

  I asked a friend what Ali’s new telephone number was and relayed this information to Brij Mohan. The next day he went there, and when he returned in the evening, he was smiling contentedly. ‘Hey, Manto,’ he said, then reached into his pocket to pull out a piece of typed paper. ‘A contract for one film—200 rupees a month. It’s not much, but Seth Nayaz Ali said he’ll give me a raise. Not bad, eh?’

  ‘When will you see Peerun?’

  Brij Mohan smiled. ‘When? I was wondering that too—when should I see her? But, Manto, remember how I told you that I have one little wish that I want to see through? I want to see that through. I think I shouldn’t act too rashly but earn a little money first. I got fifty rupees as an advance. Here, you take twenty-five.’

  I took the money and paid off an outstanding bill at a restaurant. Everything started going very well. I was making a hundred rupees a month, Brij Mohan was getting 200, and we were very comfortable. Then after five months, suddenly a letter arrived from Peerun.

  ‘Look, Manto, the Angel of Death!’

  In fact as soon as I saw the letter, I got scared. Brij Mohan was smiling while he opened the envelope, and he took out the letter and read it. It was very short.

  ‘What?’

  ‘She says she wants to see me on Sunday. There’s some very important business.’ Then Brij Mohan put the letter back in its envelope and shoved it into his pocket.

  ‘You’re going?’

  ‘I’ve no choice.’ Then he began to sing the film song, ‘Don’t forget, traveller, one day you’ll have to go.’

  But I told him, ‘Don’t go and see her. We’ve been living real well. You won’t remember, but I recall how I used to lend you eight annas every Sunday.’

  Brij Mohan smiled. ‘I remember everything, so it’s too bad that those days are coming back again.’

  On Sunday Brij left to see Peerun in Bandra. When he ca
me back, he said, ‘I told her that this will be the twelfth time that I’ve been fired because of her. Have mercy upon me!’

  ‘What did she say to that?’

  ‘Her words were, “You’re a silly idiot.” ’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘One hundred per cent!’ Then he laughed. ‘I’m going to tender my resignation tomorrow as soon as I get to the office. I already wrote it at Peerun’s.’

  He showed me the paperwork. The next day he rushed through breakfast and left quickly for work, and when he came back that evening, he had a long face. He said nothing to me, and so I was forced to ask, ‘What, Brij? What happened?’

  He shook his head without emotion. ‘Nothing, it’s all over.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I gave my resignation notice to Seth Nayaz Ali, but then he smiled and gave me an official letter stating that my salary had been increased from 200 to 300 rupees, effective from last month!’

  Brij Mohan lost interest in Peerun, and one day he told me, ‘As soon as her bad luck wore out, I got bored of her. My game evaporated! Now who’s going to screw things up for me?’

  RUDE

  WHEN I left Delhi to return to Bombay, I was upset because it meant parting with good friends and a job my wife approved of—stable, easy work that netted us 250 rupees on the first of each month. Nevertheless I was suddenly overcome by a desire to leave, and not even my wife’s crying and carrying on could dissuade me.

  I know hundreds of people in Bombay and seeing my friends again after many years brought me real joy, and yet my greatest joy turned out to be meeting Izzat Jahan.

  You must know Izzat Jahan—who hasn’t heard her name? If you are a Communist and live in Bombay, you must already have met her many times and know how she has spent years working for the Communist cause, and you probably also know that she just married some unknown man.

  This unknown man is a good friend of mine, as I know Nasir from our student days at Aligarh Muslim University when I used to call him Nasu. Illness and a lack of funds forced me to withdraw from school, but Nasir somehow managed to get a BA and land a factory job in Delhi. Years later while I was living in Bombay, Nasir came down for another factory job. During those days we got together often, but then I was forced to leave Bombay for various reasons, and that was when I got that job in Delhi, which turned out to be a regular disaster.

  Anyway, I said goodbye to Delhi after two years and moved back to Bombay, the home of many dear friends and of Izzat Jahan. I’m a Communist and have written hundreds of essays on Communism. I have also read Izzat Jahan’s essays in various newspapers, and they deeply impressed me. For God’s sake, please don’t think I was enamoured! I just wanted to meet her and talk to her—I had read about her activities, and as adolescent boys just fallen in love want to talk about their love affairs, I wanted to talk about my boundless love for Communism.

  I wanted to talk about the development of Communist philosophy from Hegel to Karl Marx and to discuss the viewpoints of Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin. I wanted to tell her my opinion of India’s Communist Movement and to hear hers too. I wanted to tell her stories of young men carrying Karl Marx’s books tucked beneath their arms with only one idea in mind—to impress others. I wanted to tell her about a friend who possessed every English-language book ever published about Communism but still didn’t know even its rudiments, a guy who dropped Karl Marx’s name just as frequently as people with a celebrity in the family find a way of mentioning them. I wanted to tell Izzat Jahan how my friend, despite his shenanigans, was so sincere that he couldn’t stand to hear one word said against the Communist cause.

  Then I would tell her about the young men and women who become Communist as a way to meet the opposite sex. I would tell her how half the boys who join the Movement are, simply put, horny, and how they stare at the girl initiates with eyes filled with centuries of unrequited desire. I would tell her how most of the girls are rebellious daughters of fat-cat industrialists who read some introductory books then become active members just in order to stave off boredom. And I would tell her how some of these girls become mired in debauchery when they lose all respect for social and moral norms and become the sex toys of our national ‘leaders’.

  To make a long story short, I thought it would be a great pleasure to discuss in detail India’s Communist Movement and its future implications. From reading her articles, I knew her incisive opinions and bold style, and I was sure we would agree on a lot.

  When I got to Bombay I had to stay at a friend’s apartment for a while while I looked for a place and furnished it. My wife was still in Delhi, and I told her I would call as soon as things were arranged.

  My friends are all bachelor film directors and have interesting opinions about women. They don’t want to get mixed up in a relationship with a girl on the set, and so when they feel the need, they contact any number of pimps who can supply them with what they want. My friends keep these girls for the night and send them on their way in the morning. They don’t get married because they think they could never make their wives happy. They say, ‘I’m a film director, you know. If the shooting’s during the day, I have to stay on the set all day. If the shooting’s at night, I have to stay out all night. If I work during the day, then I need to relax at night, and if I work at night, then I need to relax during the day. My wife would ask me to do things for her, but how could I when I’m all tired out? Every day a new girl is good. If I feel sleepy, I can tell her, “Get some sleep.” If I get tired of her, I can call a taxi, pay the fare, and send her on her way. As soon as a woman becomes your wife, she becomes a big burden. I’m very dutiful, so I don’t want that pressure. I don’t want to get married.’

  One day I accompanied my friend in his taxi while he was looking for a girl. A pimp friend of his brought out not one but two Dravidian girls. I was confused but my friend immediately said, ‘Don’t worry. What’s the difference between one or two?’

  The taxi turned back toward the apartment. After getting back, my film director friend, the two girls wearing kashta saris and I climbed the stairs to the third floor. I opened his apartment’s door and what did I see inside but Nasir sitting in front of my Urdu typewriter, inspecting it. Sitting right next to him was a woman wearing glasses, and when she turned to look in our direction, I recognized her. It was Izzat Jahan.

  My film director friend was nervous, but since the two girls had already entered the room it was useless to pretend.

  I introduced my friend to Nasir, Nasir introduced us to his wife, and then I sat down next to them. I wanted to say something more about Izzat Jahan to my friend and when I looked at him, I found him lighting a cigarette. ‘This is one of India’s greatest Communist women,’ I said. ‘You must have read her essays.’

  But my friend had no interest in Communism, and afterwards I learned he didn’t even know what the word meant. He gestured to the young women that they should go into the other room and then said, ‘Please excuse me. I’ll be back in a minute.’

  Izzat Jahan was staring at my friend’s two companions and inspecting their clothes, their comportment, in short everything about them. The girls went into the other room, and my friend brazenly excused himself and closed the door behind him.

  Izzat Jahan turned to me and said, ‘I’m very happy to meet you. Every day Nasir used to say, “Let’s go meet Manto, let’s go meet Manto.” But I was very busy then. And …’ Then something broke her train of thought and she started a new line of conversation. ‘You’re going to be living here, right? This house isn’t bad at all!’ She looked around the room and nodded.

  ‘Yes, it’s nice. There’s a breeze.’

  ‘It’s breezy and clean.’

  ‘If you open the middle door, you get a good breeze.’

  ‘Oh, yes, there was a little earlier.’

  We had been chatting for about half an hour about this and that, but I sensed that Izzat Jahan was distracted. She was probably trying to figure out why my friend hadn’t returned
as he had promised. Then suddenly she requested a glass of water.

  The apartment had two hallways, one in the front and one in the back. I didn’t think it was a good idea to disturb my friend, so I brought the water back by the long way. When I got back to the room, I saw that Nasir and Izzat Jahan were whispering to each other.

  Izzat Jahan took the glass. ‘You went to a lot of trouble.’

  ‘No, it was no trouble at all.’

  She drank the water, contracted her eyebrows behind her thick glasses, and in order to make conversation, she noted how the apartment had two hallways.

  We chatted again for a while, and when the conversation turned to Communism, both Izzat Jahan and I got excited. I set out to make my views on Communism known.

  ‘Communism says that all human institutions—religion, history, politics and so on—are rooted in economic conditions. In the present system, with the division between the rich and the poor, the instruments of production are all in the hands of the elite who then use these instruments for their benefit alone. When this order is overturned, according to you, the Communist Age will begin and the tools of production, which determine our economic conditions, will be in the hands of the common people.’

  ‘Yes,’ Izzat Jahan confirmed.

  ‘And then there will be a special executive body to represent the people’s power.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But it’s worth considering how even under Communism, power will be restricted to a select group. This group, in accordance with the Communist doctrine, will act for the good of all the people and will have nothing to do with personal interests and profiteering. But who can say beyond the shadow of a doubt that this group, which is supposed to be for the people, won’t turn into something capitalistic and seek to oppress others? Won’t they abuse their power? After ruling for a while, won’t these people begin to act out of personal motives?’

  Izzat Jahan smiled. ‘You sound like you’re Bakunin’s brother.’