Bombay stories ( PDFDrive ).pdf

FIRST VINTAGE INTERNATIONAL EDITION, MARCH 2014 Translation copyright © 2012 by Matt Reeck All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House LLC, New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, Penguin Random House companies. These stories by Saadat Hasan Manto first published in the Urdu language. This translation originally published in India by Random House India, in 2012. Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage International and colophon are trademarks of Random House LLC. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress. Vintage Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-0-8041-7060-4 eBook ISBN: 978-0-8041-7061-1 www.vintagebooks.com Cover design by Isabel Urbina Peña Cover photograph © Bruno Barbey/Magnum Photos v3.1 CONTENTS Cover Title Page Copyright Khushiya Ten Rupees Barren The Insult Smell Babu Gopi Nath Janaki Peerun Rude Hamid’s Baby Mummy Siraj Mozelle Mammad Bhai Translator’s Note Glossary Bibliography Acknowledgements About the Author KHUSHIYA KHUSHIYA was thinking. He bought some black tobacco paan and sat down in his favourite place near the paan seller’s stall. The raised stone platform there became his domain at eight thirty every night when the auto supply shop closed, clearing away its clutter of tyres and miscellaneous parts. He was slowly chewing his paan and thinking. The paan mixed with his saliva to form a thick juice that oozed between his teeth and squirted throughout his mouth. He felt as though his teeth were grinding up his thoughts, which the paan juice then dissolved, and maybe this was why he was reluctant to spit. Khushiya was swishing the paan juice around inside his mouth and thinking about what had happened to him just half an hour ago. He had gone to the fifth alley in Khetwadi where Kanta, the new girl from Mangalore, lived in the corner. Khushiya had heard she was moving and so had gone to find out if this was true. He knocked on Kanta’s door, and a woman’s voice called out from inside, ‘Who is it?’ ‘It’s me, Khushiya!’ A few minutes later the door was pushed open from inside, and Khushiya entered. When Kanta closed the door behind him Khushiya turned to look, and yet he wasn’t prepared for what he saw. Kanta was completely naked; I mean she had a towel wrapped around her but it wasn’t hiding much—everything that she had to hide was on full display. ‘So, what brings you here, Khushiya?’ Kanta asked. ‘I was just about to wash up. Sit down, sit down. You should’ve told the tea boy to bring up some tea. After all—you know, right?—that worthless Rama ran away.’ Khushiya was dumbfounded—he had never been so unexpectedly confronted with a naked woman. He was so flustered he couldn’t figure out what to say, and he wanted to avert his eyes from the naked spectacle in front of him. He rushed for words, ‘Go, go on and wash up.’ Then he regained his composure. ‘But why did you open the door when you were naked? You should’ve told me. I would’ve come back. But go, go wash up.’ Kanta smiled. ‘When you said it was you, I thought, what’s the big deal? It’s only my Khushiya, I’ll let him in …’ Sitting on the platform, Khushiya could still see Kanta’s smile. He could sense her naked body standing in front of him, and he felt as though it was melting right into his soul. She had a beautiful body. It was the first time Khushiya realized that a whore, too, could be attractive. This surprised him, but he was even more amazed to see that Kanta was not at all ashamed of her nakedness. Why was that? Kanta had already answered this. She had said, ‘When you said it was you, I thought, what’s the big deal? It’s only my Khushiya, I’ll let him in.’ What’s the big deal? Khushiya was Kanta’s pimp. From that point of view, she was his, but that was no reason to be stark naked in front of him. That was something special. Khushiya tried to imagine what Kanta must have meant. In his mind’s eye, he was still looking at Kanta’s naked body. It was as tight as hide stretched taut across a drumhead. He had looked her up and down, and yet she hadn’t cared at all. Still in shock, he had let his eyes rove over her sexy body, but she didn’t so much as bat an eyelash. She stood there as though bereft of any feeling, like a wanton stone statue! Come on now—there was a man standing in front of her, a man who like all men are always undressing women, and after that imagining God knows what else! But she hadn’t minded a bit, and her expression had betrayed no shame. She should have been a little ashamed! She should have blushed a little! Granted she was a whore, but even whores don’t behave like that. He had been a pimp for ten years and had learned all his prostitutes’ secrets. He knew that the girl living at the end of Pydhoni shared her place with a young man she pretended was her brother, and that she had a broken record player on which she played for him the song ‘Why, You Fool, Are You Always Falling in Love’ from her Untouchable Girl record. He also knew that this girl was deeply in love with Ashok Kumar, and that countless hustlers had scammed her for sex by pretending to set up meetings between her and the actor. He also knew that the Punjabi girl who lived in Dawar wore a coat and pants only because one of her boyfriends had told her that her legs looked just like those of the actress in Morocco. She had seen this film many times, and when her friend told her that Marlene Dietrich wore pants to show off her beautiful legs (for which she had a large insurance policy), then she began to wear pants too, even though she could hardly fit her butt into them. He also knew the South Indian girl from Mazagaon liked to sleep with cute college boys because she was fixated on having a beautiful child despite the fact that this was impossible because she was infertile. And he knew that the skin of the black Madrasi woman who always wore diamond earrings would never get lighter and that she was wasting her money on whitening creams. He knew everything about his girls, but he never suspected that one day Kanta Kumari (whose real name was so difficult, he could never remember it) would be standing in front of him naked. It was his life’s greatest surprise. Khushiya continued to think, and the paan juice had built up in his mouth so much so that he was having problems chewing the small bits of betel nut that passed between his teeth. Drops of sweat appeared on his small forehead, like the drops of water that emerge from paneer when you gently squeeze the soft mass through cheesecloth. His masculine dignity had been affronted, and when he remembered Kanta’s naked body, he felt humiliated. Suddenly he said to himself, ‘I’ve been disgraced! I mean a girl stands in front of you stark naked and says, “What’s the big deal? It’s just my Khushiya?” Hell, she treated me like I wasn’t the real Khushiya but the cat that’s always dozing off on her bed, right?’ Now he was sure he’d been insulted. He realized that he implicitly expected women, whores included, to take him for a man and so to dress modestly in his presence, as had been the tradition for so long. He had gone to Kanta’s room to find out when and where she was moving and beyond that hadn’t thought about what she would be doing when he got there. If he had tried, he wouldn’t have been able to come up with much more than a few possibilities: 1) She would be lying on her bed with a cloth strip tied around her forehead to combat a headache. 2) She would be picking fleas out of her cat’s fur. 3) She would be removing armpit hair by applying that foul-smelling powder he couldn’t stand. 4) She would be on her bed with cards spread out, busy playing Patience. But that was the limit of his imagination. She didn’t live with anyone, and so he hadn’t expected to find anyone else there. He had gone there on business, and suddenly Kanta—I mean the clothes-wearing Kanta whom he always saw dressed for the day—appeared before him completely naked, or just about. Faced with this spectacle, Khushiya felt as though he had a banana peel in his hand while the banana itself had fallen to the floor. No, he felt something else: he felt as though he himself had been stripped naked. If it had come to just this, Khushiya could have gotten over his surprise—he could have thought of some excuse or another. But the problem was the slut had smiled and said, ‘When you said it was Khushiya, I thought, what’s the big deal? It’s only my Khushiya, I’ll let him in.’ This was still eating him up. ‘The bitch was smiling!’ he kept muttering to himself. Her smile had seemed as naked as her body, but what a smile! He felt as though he had looked into her body—as though a carpenter had scraped off dissimulation and he had gazed into her being. He thought back to his childhood and how a lady who lived next door would call to him, ‘Khushiya, honey, run and fill up this bucket with some water.’ He would fill up the bucket and return. Then from behind a dhoti’s makeshift curtain she would say, ‘Come and put it over here. My face is covered in soap, and I can’t see a thing.’ He would push aside the curtain and put the bucket down next to her. He would see her naked body covered in soapsuds, but he never got aroused. ‘Come on, I was only a kid then—I was so innocent!’ Khushiya thought. ‘There’s a huge difference between a boy and a man. Who worries about purdah with boys? But now I’m twenty-eight. Not even an old woman goes nude in front of a twenty-eight-year-old.’ What did Kanta think he was? Wasn’t he still a young man filled with a young man’s desires? Of course, seeing Kanta nude so unexpectedly had flustered him. But with stolen glances, hadn’t he checked her out and found her womanly assets in good condition? What surprise was there that he thought Kanta was well worth ten rupees and that the bank clerk was an idiot, the one that walked away last Dassehra when he was refused a two-rupee discount? And above all, hadn’t he felt a strange tension ripple through his muscles, a tension that made him want to stretch his limbs and yawn? Why didn’t this sexy girl from Mangalore respect his manhood but considered him just Khushiya and so let him see her naked body? He angrily spit the paan juice on the pavement, making a messy mosaic there. Then he rose and boarded a tram home. At home he washed up and put on a new dhoti. In his building there was a hair salon, and he went in and combed his hair in front of the mirror. Then suddenly something occurred to him. He sat down in a chair and sharply told the barber he wanted a shave. It was the second time he had come in that day, and so the barber asked, ‘But Khushiya, did you forget? I shaved you just this morning.’ Khushiya ran a hand over his cheeks. ‘There’s still some stubble.’ He got a good shave and had powder applied to his face. Then he left the salon. There was a taxi stand right in front of the shop, and he drew the attention of a driver in the style of Bombay by saying, ‘Chi, chi!’ and signalling with his finger to the driver to bring the taxi around. When Khushiya was seated in the taxi, the driver turned around and asked, ‘Where to, sir?’ These three words, especially the ‘sir’, pleased Khushiya. He smiled and in a friendly manner said, ‘I’ll tell you soon enough, but first go towards the Paseera House by Lamington Road, okay?’ The driver set the metre by pushing its red lever down. He started the engine, which rumbled to life, and then turned the taxi toward Lemington Road. They travelled along the road and had nearly reached its end when Khushiya said, ‘Turn left.’ They turned left and before the driver could shift into a higher gear, Khushiya said, ‘Please stop in front of that pole there.’ The driver pulled up right next to the pole, and Khushiya got out. He went up to a paan stall and bought a paan. He talked to a man standing next to the stall, and they both returned to the taxi. When the two were seated, Khushiya instructed the driver, ‘Straight ahead!’ The route was rather long, but the driver went wherever Khushiya signalled. After passing through many crowded markets, the taxi entered a half-lit alley devoid of almost all traffic. Some people were lying on bedding in the street, and others were getting massages. The taxi passed these people and reached a bungalow-like wooden house. Khushiya said, ‘Okay, stop here.’ The taxi stopped, and Khushiya whispered to his companion, ‘Go. I’ll wait for you here.’ The man gave Khushiya a bewildered glance and then left for the wooden house opposite. Khushiya stayed seated. He crossed one leg over the other, took a bidi from his pocket and lit it. After several drags, he tossed it onto the street. He was anxious, and his heart was beating so strongly that he thought the taxi driver hadn’t switched off the engine. He imagined the driver was running up the bill, and so he said sharply, ‘If you keep the engine running like this, how many more rupees will you earn?’ The driver turned around. ‘Sir, the engine’s off.’ When Khushiya realized his mistake, his anxiety grew further. He said nothing but bit his lips. Suddenly he put on the black, boat-like hat he had been holding. He shook the driver’s shoulder and said, ‘Look, a girl’s going to come out. As soon as she gets in, start the engine, okay? It’s nothing to worry about—it’s no monkey business.’ Two people emerged from the wooden house. Khushiya’s friend led Kanta, who was wearing a bright sari. Khushiya moved to the side of the taxi partially in shadows. Khushiya’s friend opened the taxi’s door. Kanta sat down, and this man closed the door behind her. Immediately she cried out in astonishment, ‘Khushiya! You?’ ‘Yes—me.’ ‘But you got the money, right?’ In a husky voice Khushiya addressed the driver, ‘Okay, Juhu Beach.’ The engine rattled into life, making whatever Kanta was saying inaudible. The taxi lurched forward, leaving Khushiya’s friend standing startled in the middle of the street as the taxi disappeared down the half-lit alley. And never again did anyone see Khushiya sitting on the stone platform in front of the auto supply store. TEN RUPEES SHE was at the corner of the alley playing with the girls, and her mother was looking for her in the chawl (a big building with many floors and many small rooms). Sarita’s mother had asked Kishori to sit down, had ordered some coffee-mixed tea from the tea boy outside, and had already searched for her daughter throughout the chawl’s three floors. But no one knew where Sarita had run off to. She had even gone over to the open toilet and had called for her, ‘Hey, Sarita! Sarita!’ But she was nowhere in the building, and it was just as her mother suspected— Sarita had gotten over her bout of dysentery (even though she hadn’t taken her medicine), and without a care in the world she was now playing with the girls at the corner of the alley near the trash heap. Sarita’s mother was very worried. Kishori was sitting inside, and he had announced that three rich men were waiting in their car in the nearby market. But Sarita had disappeared. Sarita’s mother knew that rich men with cars don’t come around every day, and in fact, it was only thanks to Kishori that she got a good customer once or twice a month because otherwise rich men would never come to that dirty neighbourhood where the stench of rotting paan and burnt-out bidis made Kishori pucker his nose. Really, how could rich men stand such a neighbourhood? But Kishori was clever, and so he never brought men up to the chawl but would make Sarita dress up before taking her out. He told the men, ‘Sirs, things are very dicey these days. The police are always on the lookout to nab someone. They’ve already caught 200 girls. Even I am being tried in court. We all have to be very cautious.’ Sarita’s mother was very angry. When she got to the bottom of the stairs, Ram Dai was sitting there cutting bidi leaves. ‘Have you seen Sarita anywhere?’ Sarita’s mother asked her. ‘I don’t know where she’s gone off to. If I find her, I’m going to beat her to a pulp. She’s not a little girl any more, and yet she runs around all day with those good-for- nothing boys.’ Ram Dai continued cutting bidi leaves and didn’t answer because Sarita’s mother usually went around muttering like this. Every third or fourth day she had to go looking for Sarita and would repeat these very words to Ram Dai where she sat all day near the stairs with a basket in front of her as she tied red and white strings around the cigarettes. In addition to this refrain, the women of the building were always hearing from Sarita’s mother how she was going to marry Sarita off to a respectable man so that she might learn how to read and write a little, or how the city government had opened a school nearby where she was going to send Sarita because her father very much wanted her to know how to read and write. Then she would sigh deeply and launch into a recitation of her deceased husband’s story, which all the building’s women knew by heart. If you asked Ram Dai how Sarita’s father (who had worked for the railway) reacted when his boss swore at him, then Ram Dai would immediately tell you that he got enraged and told off his boss, ‘I’m not your servant but a servant of the government. You don’t intimidate me. Look here, if you insult me again, I’m going to break your jaw.’ Then it happened. His boss went ahead and insulted Sarita’s father, and so Sarita’s father punched him in the neck so hard that this man’s hat fell to the floor and he almost collapsed. But he didn’t. His boss was a big man—he stepped forward and with his army boot kicked Sarita’s father in the stomach with such force that his spleen burst and he fell down right there near the railroad tracks and died. The government tried the man and ordered him to pay 500 rupees to Sarita’s mother, but fate was unkind: Sarita’s mother developed a love for gambling and in less than five months wasted all the money. Sarita’s mother was always telling this story, but no one knew whether it was true. No one in the building felt any sympathy for her, perhaps because their lives were so difficult that they had no time to think about others. No one had any friends. Most of the men slept during the day and worked nights in the nearby factory. Everyone lived right on top of one another, and yet no one took any interest in anyone else. Almost everyone in the building knew that Sarita’s mother was forcing her young daughter to be a prostitute, but because they weren’t in the habit of concerning themselves with others, no one ever contradicted Sarita’s mother when she would lie about how innocent her daughter was. Once when Tukaram harassed Sarita by the water spigot one early morning, Sarita’s mother started screeching at Tukaram’s wife, ‘Why can’t you keep track of that dirty rat? I pray to God he goes blind for eyeing my little girl like that. I’m telling you the truth, some day I’m going to smack him so hard he won’t know up from down. If he wants to raise hell somewhere else, that’s fine, but if he wants to live here, he’s going to have to behave like a respectable person, got it?’ Hearing this, Tukaram’s squint-eyed wife rushed out of her room tying on her sari. ‘Watch out, you old witch, if you say anything else!’ she said. ‘Your little angel flirts with even hotel boys. You think we’re all blind—you don’t think we know about that fine character who comes to your place and why your little Sarita gets dressed up and goes out? You—going on about honour—you must be kidding! Go! Get out of here!’ Tukaram’s wife was notorious for many things, but every single person in the building knew about her relationship with the kerosene seller, about how she would call him inside and close the door. Sarita’s mother made it a point to mention this. In a spiteful voice, she harped, ‘And your gigolo, the kerosene seller? You take him into your room for two hours just to sniff his kerosene?’ And yet Sarita’s mother and Tukaram’s wife wouldn’t stay angry for long. One day Sarita’s mother saw Tukaram’s wife whispering sweet nothings to some man in the darkness of night, and the very next day when Tukaram’s wife was coming back from Pydhoni, she saw Sarita seated with a ‘gentleman friend’ in a car, and so the two agreed that they were even and began talking to each other again. ‘You didn’t see Sarita anywhere, did you?’ Sarita’s mother asked Tukaram’s wife. Tukaram’s wife looked through her squinty eyes towards the alley’s corner. ‘She’s playing with her friend over by the trash heap.’ Then she whispered, ‘Just a minute ago Kishori went upstairs, did you see him?’ Sarita’s mother glanced right and left. Then she whispered, ‘I just asked him to sit down, but Sarita’s always disappearing right when she’s needed. She doesn’t ever think, she doesn’t understand anything. All she wants to do is play all day.’ Then she headed off towards the trash heap, and when she reached the concrete urinal, she went up to Sarita, who immediately stood up and a despondent expression spread over her face. Sarita’s mother angrily grabbed her by the arm and said, ‘Go home—get going! All you do is horse around, you good-for-nothing.’ Then as they were on their way home, she whispered, ‘Kishori’s been waiting. He brought a rich man with a car. So listen. Hurry and run upstairs. Put on that blue georgette sari. And look, your hair’s all messed up. Get ready quick, and I’ll fix your hair.’ Sarita was very happy to hear that a rich man with a car had come. She didn’t care about the man but she really liked car rides. When she was in a car speeding through the empty streets, the wind whipping over her face, she felt as though she had been transformed into a rampaging whirlwind. Sarita must not have been any older than fifteen, but she acted like a thirteen-year-old. She hated spending time with women and having to talk to them. All day long she kept busy playing meaningless games with younger girls. For example, she really liked to draw chalk lines on the alley’s black asphalt, and she would play this game with so much concentration that it seemed as though the world would end if those crooked lines weren’t there. Or she would take an old gunnysack from their room and spend hours engrossed with her friends on the footpath —twisting it around, laying it on the pavement, sitting on it, and such childish things. Sarita wasn’t beautiful or fair-skinned. Her face was always glossy because of Bombay’s humid climate, her thin lips looked like the brown skin of the chikku fruit and were always lightly quavering, and above her upper lip you could always find three or four glistening beads of sweat. And yet she was healthy. Although she lived in a dirty neighbourhood, her body was graceful and fit—in fact you could say that she embodied youth itself. She was short and a little chubby, but this chubbiness made her seem only healthier, and when she rushed about the streets, if her dirty dress should fly up, passing men would look at her young calves that gleamed like smooth teak. Her pores were like those of an orange, its skin filled with juice, which, if you applied the slightest pressure, would squirt up into your eyes. She was that fresh. Sarita had good-looking arms as well. Even though she wore a poorly fitting blouse, the beauty of her shoulders was still visible. Her hair was long and thick and always smelled of coconut oil, and her braid snapped like a whip against her back. Sarita didn’t like the length of her hair because her braid gave her problems when she played, and she had tried all sorts of ways to hold it in place. Sarita was blissfully free from worry. She got two meals a day, and her mother did all the work at home. Sarita carried out only two duties: every morning she would fill up buckets of water and take them inside, and in the evening she would fill up the lamps with a drop or two of oil. This had been her strict routine for years, and so each evening, without thinking, she would reach for the tea saucer in which they kept their coins and grab one before taking the lamp down to buy oil. Once in a while, about four or five times a month, Kishori would bring customers, and the men would take Sarita off to a hotel or some dark place, and she considered this good entertainment. She never bothered much about these nights, perhaps because she thought that some guy like Kishori must go to other girls’ houses too. Perhaps she imagined that all girls had to go out with rich guys to Worli to sit on cold benches, or to the wet sand of Juhu Beach. Whatever happened to her must happen to everyone, right? One day when Kishori brought a regular john, Sarita said to her mother, ‘Mom, Shanta’s old enough now. Send her out with me, okay? This one always orders me eggs, and Shanta really likes eggs.’ Her mother replied evasively, ‘Okay, okay, I’ll send her out once her mom comes back from Pune.’ The next day Sarita saw Shanta coming back from the open toilet, and she told her the good news, ‘When your mom comes back from Pune, everything’s going to work out. You’ll start coming with me to Worli.’ Then Sarita told the story of what had happened one recent night, making it sound like a wonderful dream. Shanta was two years younger than Sarita, and after listening to Sarita’s story, she felt a ripple of excitement course through her body. She wanted to hear even more, so she grabbed Sarita’s arm and said, ‘Come on, let’s go outside.’ They went down near the open toilet where Girdhari, the shopkeeper, had put out dirty pieces of coconut to dry on gunnysacks. There they gossiped for hours. Behind a makeshift curtain, Sarita was putting on her blue georgette sari. The cloth gave her goose bumps, and the thought of the upcoming car ride excited her. She didn’t stop to think about what the man would be like or where they would go, but as she quickly changed she hoped that the car ride wouldn’t be so short that before she knew it, she would be standing in front of the door to some hotel room where once inside, the john would start drinking and she would begin to feel claustrophobic. She hated those suffocating rooms with their two iron beds on which she could never get a good sleep. Smoothing out her sari’s wrinkles, she let Kishori look at her for a second, then asked him, ‘Kishori, how do I look? Is the sari okay from behind?’ Without waiting for an answer, she went over to the broken wooden chest where she kept her Japanese powder and rouge. She set her rusted mirror up against the window’s iron bars, and bending over a little to look at her reflection there, she put powder and purple- tinged rouge on her dusky cheeks. When she was ready, she smiled and looked at Kishori for his approval. Then she haphazardly covered her lips in lipstick. The sum effect was that she looked like one of those clay dolls that appear in toy sellers’ stores over Diwali. Sarita’s mother came in, quickly fixed Sarita’s hair, and said to her daughter, ‘Look, my little girl, remember to talk like a grown-up, and do whatever he says. This man is very rich, okay? He even has his own car.’ Then she turned to Kishori, ‘Now, quickly, take her out. The poor man! Just think how long he’s been waiting!’ Outside in the bazaar, there was a factory wall stretching into the distance on which a small sign read, ‘NO URINATING’. Next to this sign there was a parked yellow car in which three young men from Hyderabad were sitting, each one covering his nose with a hanky. (They would have moved the car, but the wall went on for a long way and the stench of piss ran its entire length.) When the driver saw Kishori, he said to his friends, ‘Hey, he’s coming. Kishori. And … and … hey, this girl’s really young! Guys, look—the one in the blue sari.’ When Kishori and Sarita came up to the car, the two men in the back seat picked up their hats and cleared space between them for Sarita. Kishori stepped forward, opened the back door and quickly pushed Sarita inside. Then he closed the door and said to the guy behind the wheel, ‘Sorry it took so long. She had gone to see a friend. So … so …?’ The young man turned around to look at Sarita and then said to Kishori, ‘Okay, then. But, look …’ He stuck his head out of the window and whispered to Kishori, ‘She won’t put up a fuss, will she?’ Kishori put his hand on his heart. ‘Sir, please trust me.’ The young man took two rupees out of his pocket and gave it to Kishori. ‘Go enjoy yourselves,’ Kishori said and waved goodbye. Then the driver started the car. It was five in the evening, and traffic filled the Bombay streets—cars, trams, buses, and people were everywhere. Sarita didn’t say anything as she sat scrunched between the two men. She squeezed her thighs together and rested her hands on her lap, and several times just as she had built up the courage to say something, she would suddenly stop. She wanted to tell the driver, ‘Sir, please drive quickly. I’m about to suffocate back here.’ No one said anything for quite some time; the driver watched the road, and the men in the back seat were silent as they thought anxiously about how for the first time they were sitting so close to a young girl, one who was theirs, one with whom they could mess around without getting into any trouble. The driver had been living in Bombay for two years and had picked up girls like Sarita both during the day and at night; he had had many prostitutes in his yellow car and so wasn’t nervous in the least. His two friends had come from Hyderabad: Shahab wanted to experience all that the big city had to offer, and so Kifayat, the owner of the car, had bought Sarita through Kishori. Kifayat had said to his second friend, Anwar, ‘You know, there’d be nothing wrong if you got one for yourself.’ But Anwar thought it wrong and couldn’t bring himself to consent. Kifayat had never seen Sarita before, and despite the novelty she presented, he wasn’t interested in her just then, since he couldn’t very well drive and look at her at the same time. Once they left the city and entered the suburbs, Sarita sprang to life. The cool wind rushing over the speeding car soothed her, and she felt fresh and full of energy again. In fact, she could barely contain herself: she began to tap her feet, sway her arms, and drum her fingers as she glanced back and forth at the trees that streamed past the road. Anwar and Shahab were becoming more relaxed, and Shahab felt he could do whatever he wanted with Sarita. He reached around her waist, and suddenly Sarita felt someone tickling her. She sprang away, wriggling close to Anwar, and her laughter trailed from the car’s windows far into the distance. Again Shahab reached out for Sarita, and she doubled over, laughing so hard that she could hardly breathe, forcing Anwar to scrunch against the car door and try to maintain his composure. Shahab was in ecstasy, and he said to Kifayat, ‘By God, she’s really spunky!’ Then he pinched her thigh very hard, and Sarita reacted impulsively, twisting Anwar’s ear for no reason other than he was closest. Everyone burst out laughing. Kifayat kept looking over his shoulder even though he could see everything in the rearview mirror. He sped up, trying to keep pace with the laughter in the back seat. Sarita wanted to get out and sit on the car’s hood next to its iron fixture shaped like a flying bird. She leaned forward, Shahab poked her, and Sarita threw her arms around Kifayat’s neck in order to keep her balance. Without thinking, Kifayat kissed her hand, and Sarita’s entire body tingled. She jumped over the seat to sit next to Kifayat where she began to play with his necktie. ‘What’s your name?’ she asked. ‘Me? I’m Kifayat.’ Then he took out ten rupees from his pocket and gave it to her. The money distracted Sarita, and she instantly forgot what Kifayat had said as she took the note and crammed it into her bra. She was a child—ignorant and happy. ‘That was very nice of you,’ she said. ‘And your necktie’s nice too.’ Sarita was in such a good mood that she liked everything she saw. She wanted to believe that even bad things could be redeemed, she wanted the car to continue speeding along, and she wanted everything to fall into the whirlwind. Suddenly she wanted to sing. She stopped playing with Kifayat’s tie and sang, ‘It was you who taught me how to love/and woke my sleeping heart.’ After singing this film song for a while, Sarita suddenly turned around and said to Anwar, ‘Why are you so quiet? Why don’t you say something? Why don’t you sing something?’ Then she jumped into the back seat and began to run her fingers through Shahab’s hair and said to him, ‘Let’s sing together. You remember that song Devika Rani sang, “I wish I could be a bird singing through the forests”? I really like Devika Rani.’ Then she put her hands together, propped them beneath her chin, and batting her eyelashes began to tell the story, ‘Ashok Kumar and Devika Rani were standing next to each other, and Devika Rani said, “I wish I could be a bird singing through the forests”, and Ashok Kumar said …’ Suddenly Sarita turned to Shahab, ‘Sing along, okay?’ Sarita began to sing, ‘I wish I could be a bird singing through the forests’. And in a coarse voice Shahab repeated the same. Then they all began singing together. Kifayat began honking the horn to the song’s rhythm, and Sarita followed the beat by clapping. Sarita’s feminine voice mixed with Shahab’s raspy one, as well as the horn’s honking, the wind’s rushing, and the engine’s rumbling—it all sounded like the music of a small orchestra. Sarita was happy—Shahab was happy—Kifayat was happy—and seeing them all happy made Anwar happy too, and yet he was embarrassed for having been so inhibited. He felt a tingling sensation in his arms, and his repressed emotions awoke: he stretched loudly, yawned, and then felt ready to join in the revelry. As she sang, Sarita took Anwar’s hat from his head, put it on and then jumped into the front seat to look at herself in the rearview mirror. Seeing Sarita wearing his hat, Anwar couldn’t remember whether he had been wearing it from the beginning of the car ride. He felt disoriented. Sarita slapped Kifayat’s thigh and asked, ‘If I put on your pants, and wore your shirt and tie, would I look like a well-dressed businessman?’ But this talk of cross-dressing upset Shahab, and he shook Anwar’s arm, ‘By God, you’re such an idiot to have given her the hat!’ Anwar took these words to heart. He thought for a moment that he really was an idiot. ‘What’s your name?’ Kifayat asked Sarita. ‘My name?’ Sarita took the hat’s elastic cord and strapped in beneath her chin. ‘Sarita.’ ‘Sarita, you’re not a woman but a firecracker,’ Shahab said. Anwar wanted to say something, but Sarita began to sing in a loud voice, ‘I’m going to build my house in the City of Love and forget the rest of the world!’ Kifayat and Shahab felt transported, but Anwar still couldn’t get over his nerves. Sarita kept singing, ‘I’m going to build my house in the City of Love and forget the rest of the world …’ and she stretched out the last word for as long as her breath lasted. Her long hair was blowing back and forth, and it looked like a column of thick smoke spreading in the breeze. She was happy. Sarita was happy—Shahab was happy—Kifayat was happy—and Anwar once again tried to join in, but when the song ended, everyone felt as though a shower of rain had suddenly stopped. Kifayat asked Sarita to sing another song. ‘Yeah, one more,’ Shahab encouraged her. ‘If they could only hear us now!’ Sarita began to sing, ‘Ali has come to my courtyard. I’m staggering from joy!’ Hearing these lyrics, Kifayat began swerving the car from side to side. Then suddenly the winding road ended, and they found themselves near the sea. The sun was setting, and the breeze off the ocean was becoming colder by the minute. Kifayat stopped the car. Sarita got out and set off running down the beach, and Kifayat and Shahab joined her. She ran upon the wet sand by the tall palm trees that rose along the ocean’s open vista, and she wondered what it was she wanted—she wanted to fade into the horizon, dissolve into the water, and soar so high into the sky that the palm trees stood beneath her; she wanted to absorb the sand’s moisture through her feet, and … and … the car, the speed, the lash of the rushing air … she felt transported. The three young men from Hyderabad sat down on the wet sand and began to drink beer, but then Sarita grabbed a bottle from Kifayat and said, ‘Wait, let me pour you some.’ Sarita poured so quickly that the beer’s head rose over the glass’s edge, and this pleased her extraordinarily. She dipped her finger into the beer and licked off the foam, but it was very bitter and she immediately puckered her lips. Kifayat and Shahab burst out laughing. When he couldn’t stop, Kifayat had to look away to calm himself, and then he saw that Anwar too was laughing. They had six bottles—some they poured quickly so that the head overflowed their glasses and its foam disappeared into the sand, and some they actually managed to drink. Sarita kept singing, and once when Anwar looked at her, he imagined that she was made of beer. The damp sea breeze was glistening on her dark cheeks. She was very happy, and now Anwar was too. He wished that the ocean’s water would change into beer, and then he would dive in with Sarita. Sarita picked up two empty bottles and banged them against each other. They clanged loudly, and she burst out laughing, and everyone followed suit. ‘Let’s go for a drive,’ she suggested to Kifayat. They left the bottles right there on the wet sand and raced ahead to the car to their seats. Kifayat started the engine and off they went. Soon the wind was rushing over them and Sarita’s long hair streamed up, over her head. They began to sing. The car sped, lurching down the road, and Sarita kept singing where she sat in the back seat between Anwar, who was dozing, and Shahab. Mischievously, she started to run her fingers through Shahab’s hair, yet the only effect of this was that it lulled him to sleep. Sarita turned back to look at Anwar, and when she saw that he was still sleeping, she jumped into the front seat and whispered to Kifayat, ‘I’ve put your friends to sleep. Now it’s your turn.’ Kifayat smiled. ‘Then who’ll drive?’ ‘The car will drive itself,’ Sarita answered, smiling. The two lost track of time as they talked with each other, and before they realized it, they found themselves back in the bazaar where Kishori had ushered Sarita into the car. When they got to the factory wall with the ‘NO URINATING’ sign, Sarita said, ‘Okay, stop here.’ Kifayat stopped the car, and before he could say or do anything Sarita got out, waved goodbye and headed to her home. With his hands still on the wheel, Kifayat was replaying in his mind all that had just happened when Sarita stopped and turned around. She returned to the car, removed the ten-rupee note from her bra and dropped it onto the seat next to him. Startled, he looked at the note. ‘What’s this, Sarita?’ ‘This money—why should I take it?’ she said before she turned and took off running. Kifayat stared in disbelief at the note, and when he turned to the back seat, his friends were fast asleep. BARREN WE met exactly two years ago today at Apollo Bunder. It was in the evening when the last rays of the sun had disappeared behind the ocean’s distant waves, which looked like folds of thick cloth from the benches along the beach. On this side of the Gateway of India, I walked past the first bench where a man was getting his head massaged and sat down on the second. I looked out as far as I could see over the broad expanse of water. Far out, where the sea and the sky dissolved into each other, big waves were slowly rising. They looked like an enormous muddy carpet being rolled to the shore. Light shone from the streetlamps along the beach, and its glimmering reflection formed thick lines across the water. Beneath the stone wall in front of me, the masts of sailboats were swaying lightly with their sails lashed to them. The sounds of the waves and the voices of the beach crowd merged into a humming sound that disappeared into the evening air. Once in a while the horn of a passing car would sound loudly, as though someone in the midst of listening to a very interesting story had said, ‘Hmm’. I enjoy smoking at times like these. I put my hand into my pocket and took out my pack of cigarettes, but I couldn’t find any matches—who knew where I had lost them? I was just about to put the pack back into my pocket when someone nearby said, ‘Please, here’s a match.’ I turned around. A young man was standing behind the bench. People in Bombay usually have fair complexions, but his face was pale to a frightening degree. ‘You’re very kind,’ I thanked him. He gave me the matches, and I thanked him again and invited him to sit down. ‘Please light your cigarette. I have to go,’ he said. Suddenly I realized he was lying. I could tell from his tone that he was in no hurry and had nowhere to go. You may wonder how I could detect this from his tone alone, but that was exactly how it seemed. I said again, ‘What’s the hurry? Please sit down.’ I extended my cigarette pack towards him. ‘Help yourself.’ He looked at the brand. ‘Thanks, but I smoke only my brand.’ Believe me or not, but again I could have sworn he was lying. His tone betrayed him as before, so I took an interest in him. I resolved to get him to sit down and light a cigarette. I thought it wouldn’t be difficult at all because from his two sentences I could tell that he was fooling himself. He wanted to sit down and have a smoke, but at the same time something made him hesitate. I clearly sensed this conflict in his voice, and believe me when I say that his very hold on life seemed uncertain as well. His face was incredibly skinny. His nose, eyes, and mouth were so fine that it seemed as though someone had drawn them in and then washed them out with water. At times his lips seemed to fill out, but then this clarity would fade like an ember disappearing in ashes. His other features also behaved this way: his eyes were like big drops of muddy water over which his thin eyelashes drooped, and his hair was the black of burnt paper. You could make out the contour of his nose if you were nearby, but from a distance it flattened out. He slouched a little and this made him seem of average height, but when he would suddenly straighten his posture, he proved to be much taller. His clothes were ratty but not dirty. His coat’s cuffs were worn and threadbare in places. The stitching of his collar was coming undone, and his shirt seemed as though it would not last one more washing. But even in these clothes, he was trying to carry himself with dignity. I say ‘trying’ because when I looked at him again, a wave of wretchedness swept over him, and it seemed he wanted to disappear from view. I stood up, lit a cigarette, and once again extended my pack toward him. ‘Please help yourself.’ I rolled it so that he couldn’t refuse. He took out a cigarette, put it in his mouth and lit it. He started smoking but suddenly realized his mistake. He took the cigarette out of his mouth, and pretending to cough said, ‘Cavenders don’t suit me, their tobacco is so strong. They’re too harsh for my throat.’ ‘Which cigarettes do you like?’ I asked him. ‘I … I …’ he stuttered. ‘Actually I don’t smoke that much. Dr Arolkar forbade it. But if I smoke, I smoke 555s because their tobacco isn’t that strong.’ Dr Arolkar was known all over Bombay because he charged ten rupees for a consultation, and the cigarette brand he mentioned was also very expensive. In one breath he had uttered two lies, neither of which I believed, but I didn’t say anything. I’m telling you the truth when I say that I wanted to expose his deceit and make him feel ashamed so that he would beg for my forgiveness. But when I looked at him, I realized lying had become a part of his personality. Most people blush after they lie, but he didn’t. He believed everything he said and lied with such sincerity that he didn’t suffer even the smallest pinprick of conscience. Anyway, enough of this. If I go into such detail, I’ll fill page after page and the story will get boring. After a little polite banter, I brought the conversation around to what I wanted to talk about. I offered him another cigarette and started to praise the charming ocean scene. As I am a short story writer, I managed to describe the ocean, Apollo Bunder, and the crowds in such an interesting way that he didn’t complain about his throat even after smoking six cigarettes. Suddenly, he asked me what my name was. When I told him, he shot up from the bench and said, ‘You’re Manto? I’ve read some of your stories. I didn’t know you were Manto. I’m very happy to meet you. By God, very happy, indeed!’ I wanted to thank him, but he began again, ‘Yes, I remember very well. Recently, I read a story of yours—what was it called? Anyway, it was about a girl who loves some guy, but this guy takes advantage of her and then disappears. Then there’s another guy who loves this girl too, the guy telling the story. When he finds out about the girl’s predicament, he goes to see her. He says, “Don’t think about what’s past. Build upon the memory of love and forge ahead. Put to use the joy you were able to find.” But actually I don’t remember that much about the story. Tell me, is it possible—no, it’s not about what’s possible—tell me, wasn’t that you? I’m sorry, I have no right to ask you that. But in your story, aren’t you the guy who meets the girl at the brothel but leaves when she falls asleep exhausted in the dull moonlight?’ He suddenly stopped. ‘I shouldn’t have asked you that. No one wants to talk about personal matters.’ ‘I’ll tell you,’ I answered. ‘But I feel awkward telling you everything when we’ve just met. What do you think?’ His excitement, which had grown as he talked to me about my story, suddenly died. ‘You’re exactly right,’ he whispered. ‘And yet how do you know this isn’t our last meeting?’ ‘Well, it’s true that Bombay is a huge city, but I have the feeling that we’ll meet many times. Anyway, I’m unemployed—I mean I’m a story writer—and so you can find me right here at this time every night, unless of course, I’m sick. A lot of girls come here, and so I come here to fall in love. Love isn’t a bad thing!’ ‘Love … love …’ He wanted to say something but couldn’t bring himself to begin. He fell quiet like a burning rope losing its last coil. I had brought up love only as a joke, but in fact, the setting was so charming that it wouldn’t have been half bad to fall in love. At dusk, when the streetlights flicker on and a cool breeze picks up, a romantic quality hangs in the air and instinctive you want a woman close to you. Anyway, God only knows what story he was talking about. I don’t remember all my stories, especially the romances. In real life I haven’t been close to that many women, and if I write about them, it’s either to earn quick money or to indulge in some fantasy. I never think much about these stories since they aren’t serious. But I have met a special kind of woman about whom I have written some stories aside from the romances. In any event, the story he mentioned must have been a cheap romance I wrote to fulfill some desire. But now I’ve started talking about my stories! When he repeated the word ‘love,’ I suddenly wanted to say something more about the subject. ‘Yes, our ancestors divided love into many types. But love, whether in Multan or on Siberia’s icy tundra, whether in the winter or the summer, whether among the rich or the poor, whether among the beautiful or the ugly, whether among the crude or the refined, love is always just love. There’s no difference. Just as babies are always born in one and only one way, love too, comes about in only one way. There’s no difference if you say that Mrs Sayyidah went to the hospital to have her baby or Rajkumari went into the jungle, if you say that a bhangan stirs love in Ghulam Muhammad or a queen inspires love in Natwar Lal. Many babies are born prematurely and so are weak, and love, too, remains weak if it is rushed. Sometimes childbirth is very painful, and sometimes falling in love causes great pain. Just as a woman may miscarry, love can die before it has had a chance to grow. Sometimes women are infertile, and from time to time you’ll also find men incapable of loving. That isn’t to say they don’t want to love. No, not at all. They want to, but they don’t know how to. Some women can’t have babies, and some men can’t inspire love because they lack something emotional. You can have miscarriages of love too.’ I was so excited by what I was saying that I forgot to check to see whether he was taking it in, and when I turned his way, he was looking out over the ocean’s empty distance and he seemed lost in thought. I stopped. When a car’s horn honked loudly, he woke from his trance and absent-mindedly said, ‘Yes, you’re completely right!’ I wanted to challenge him, ‘I’m completely right? Tell me what I just said.’ But I didn’t say anything and instead gave him time to break free from his weighty thoughts. He remained absorbed in thought for a while. Then he said again, ‘What you said is completely right, but … well, let’s talk about something else.’ I really liked the line of thinking I’d chanced upon, and being too excited to stop I started up again, ‘Well, I was suggesting that some men don’t know how to love. I mean, they want to love but aren’t able to act on their desire. I think this is because of some psychological problem. What do you think?’ His face became pallid, as though he had just seen a ghost. This change was so sudden that I became worried and asked, ‘Are you okay? You look sick.’ ‘No, not at all, ‘he said, but his distress only grew. ‘I’m not sick at all. Why did you think that?’ ‘Anyone would say you’re sick, if they saw you right now. You’re turning terribly pale. I think you should go home. Come on, I’ll walk with you.’ ‘No, I’ll go alone, but I’m not sick. Sometimes my heart gives me some trouble—maybe it’s that. I’ll be fine in a minute, so please keep talking.’ I sat silently for a while, and it seemed he wasn’t in the right state of mind to absorb my words. But then he insisted, and I started up again, ‘I was asking what you think about men who can’t love. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to be them. When I think about a certain type of woman, one obsessed with having a child, one who tearfully beseeches God for just one child, and who, when nothing comes from her pleading, tries to remedy her infertility with charms and spells, and who takes ashes from the crematorium and stays up countless nights reciting mantras given to her by sadhus, all the while continuing to beg and present offerings to God; then I imagine men who can’t love must feel the same. They truly deserve our sympathy, and in fact, I feel more sympathy for them than I do for the blind.’ Tears came to his eyes, and clearing his throat he stood up. He looked past me and said, ‘Oh, it’s getting late … I had something important to do. Time has really flown by as we sat here, chatting.’ I got up too. He turned around and quickly grasped my hand, and then without looking in my direction he said, ‘Now I want to go.’ Then he left. We met again at Apollo Bunder. I don’t usually go for walks, but this was still a month before my interest in Apollo Bunder died—that is, a month before I received a long, saccharine letter from an Agra poet who wrote in a bawdy manner about Apollo Bunder and the beautiful girls there, remarking how lucky I was to live in Bombay. Now whenever someone asks me to go there, I think of that letter and feel nauseated. But our second meeting took place when I still went in the evening to sit on the bench where masseurs were busy close by thumping sense back into their customers’ heads. Twilight had turned to night. The October heat lingered, and yet there was a light breeze. People were out walking, carrying themselves like weary travellers, and behind me the kerb was lined with parked cars. Almost all the benches were full. I sat down next to two garrulous men, a Gujarati and a Parsi, who had been sitting there for God knows how long. They were speaking Gujarati, but their accents were different, and the Parsi modulated his voice in a way so that when they started to talk fast, it sounded like a parrot and a mynah were fighting. I got sick of their endless prattling and got up. I turned to walk in the direction of the Taj Mahal Hotel, and suddenly I saw him walking in my direction. I didn’t know his name and so couldn’t call out to him, but when he saw me, he stared at me as if he had found what he was looking for. There weren’t any empty benches, so I said, ‘It’s been quite a while since we met. There aren’t any empty benches here, so let’s go and sit in the restaurant over there.’ He made some desultory remarks, and we set off. After walking a bit, we got to the restaurant and sat down on its big cane chairs. We ordered some tea, and I offered him a cigarette. Coincidentally, that very day I had gone to Dr Arolkar who had told me to stop smoking, or if I couldn’t manage that, then to smoke good cigarettes like 555s. According to the doctor’s instructions, I had bought a pack just that evening. My friend looked carefully at it, then looked at me as if he wanted to say something and yet he said nothing. I laughed. ‘Don’t think I bought these cigarettes just because of what you said. It’s quite a coincidence that today I went to see Dr Arolkar for some chest pain I’ve been having. He told me I could smoke these cigarettes, but just a few.’ I looked at him as I spoke and saw that my words seemed to upset him. I quickly reached into my pocket and took out the prescription Dr Arolkar had written. I put it on the table and said, ‘I can’t read this, but it seems like Dr Arolkar has prescribed every possible vitamin.’ He stole glances at the prescription on which Dr Arolkar’s name and address were written alongside the date, and the restlessness that had earlier shown on his face immediately disappeared. He smiled and said, ‘Why is it that writers are often undernourished?’ ‘Because they don’t get enough to eat. They work a lot, but don’t get paid much.’ The tea came and we started to talk about different things. Probably two and a half months had passed since our first meeting. His face had become even more pallid, and black circles had developed around his eyes. He seemed to be suffering from some chronic emotional problem because in the course of talking, he would stop and unintentionally sigh, and if he tried to laugh, no sound came out. Suddenly I asked, ‘Why are you sad?’ ‘Sad … sad …’ he said, and a smile spread over his lips, the kind that the dying take pains to show when they want to prove they are unafraid of death. ‘I’m not sad. You must be sad.’ Then he drained his tea in one gulp and stood up. ‘Okay, then. I have to go. There’s something important I have to do.’ I was sure he didn’t have anything to do, but I didn’t stop him from going. I had no chance to find out his name, but at least I learned that he had serious emotional problems. He was more than sad—he seemed to be suffering from depression—and yet he didn’t want others to know about his sadness. He wanted to lead two lives: the one being that of outward reality and the other being in his head, and this second one consumed his every waking moment. That being said, he was unsuccessful in both lives, and I hadn’t figured out why. I ran into him for the third time at Apollo Bunder, and this time I invited him home. We didn’t speak to each other on the way there, but that changed once we arrived. At first his face clouded with sadness, but then he chased it away and tried against his nature to impress me with lively conversation. This made me pity him even more: he was trying so hard to avoid reality, and yet, at times, this self-deception seemed to please him. As we talked, he glanced at my table and saw a wooden picture frame there that held the photo of a young woman. He got up and approached it. ‘Do you mind if I look at this picture?’ he asked. ‘Not at all.’ He gave the picture a cursory glance and went back to sit in his chair. ‘She’s a very pretty girl. I take it she’s your …’ ‘No, that was a long time ago. I liked her, even loved her. But, sad to say, she didn’t know, and I … I … no, well, her parents married her off. The picture is a souvenir of my first love that died before it really even began.’ ‘A souvenir of your love,’ he repeated, passing his tongue over his dry lips. ‘But you must have had other affairs. I mean you must have experienced real love too.’ I was about to say that I was one of those men like him who couldn’t love. But then, who knows why, I stopped and without any reason told a lie, ‘Yes, I’ve had my share. You must have had a lot of lovers too.’ He turned completely silent, as silent as the ocean’s depths. He fell lost in thought, and when his silence began to depress me, I said, ‘Hello, there! What are you thinking about?’ ‘I … I … nothing. I was just thinking about something.’ ‘You were remembering something? Something from a dream? An old wound?’ ‘A wound … an old … wound … not any wound. I have only one, and it’s very deep, and very deadly. One is enough,’ he said and then stood up to walk around the room. But as it was small and filled with chairs, a table, and a cot, there was no space, so he had to stop by the table. Now he looked very carefully at the picture and said, ‘They look so similar—yours and mine. But her face wasn’t so mischievous, and her eyes were large and knowing.’ He sighed with disappointment and sat on a chair. ‘It’s impossible to understand death, especially when it happens to someone so young. There must be some power that opposes God, a power that’s very jealous and wants no one to be happy. Anyway.’ ‘No, no, as you were saying,’ I encouraged him. ‘But, to be honest, I actually thought you’d never been in love.’ ‘Why? Just now you said I must have had many lovers,’ he said and then looked questioningly at me. ‘If I’ve never been in love, why am I always sad? If I’ve never been in love, why am I like I am? Why don’t I take care of myself? Why do I feel like I’m melting away like a candle?’ These were rhetorical questions. I said, ‘I was lying when I said I thought you’d had many lovers, but you too lied when you said you weren’t sad, that you weren’t sick. It’s not easy to know what others are feeling. There might be many other reasons for your sadness, but as long as you don’t tell me, how can I know? No doubt you’re getting weaker and weaker by the day, and obviously you’ve experienced something terrible, and … and … I feel sorry for you.’ ‘You feel sorry for me?’ Tears welled in his eyes. Then he said, ‘I don’t need anyone’s sympathy. Sympathy can’t bring her back from the grave—the woman I loved. You haven’t loved. I’m sure you’ve never loved because you have no scars. Look over here,’ he said, pointing at himself. ‘Every inch of my body is scarred by love. My existence is the wreck of that ship. How can I tell you anything? Why should I tell you when you won’t understand? If someone tells you his mother has died, you can’t feel what he must feel. My love—to you—to anyone else—will seem completely ordinary. No one can understand its effect on me. I was the one who loved, and I was the one everything happened to.’ He fell silent. Something must have caught in his throat, because he repeatedly tried to swallow. ‘Did she take advantage of your trust? Or did something else happen?’ ‘Take advantage of me? She wasn’t capable of taking advantage of anyone. For God’s sake, please don’t say that. She wasn’t a woman but an angel. I curse death, which couldn’t stand to see us happy! It swept her away under its wings forever. Aghh! This is too much! Why did you have to remind me of all this? Listen, I’ll tell you a little of the story. She was the daughter of a rich and powerful man. I had already wasted all of my inheritance by the time I met her. I had absolutely nothing and had left my hometown and gone to Lucknow. I had a car, so I knew how to drive, which is why I decided to become a driver. My first job was with the Deputy Sahib, whose only child was this girl—’ All of a sudden he stopped. After a while, he emerged from his reverie and asked, ‘What was I saying?’ ‘You got a job at the Deputy Sahib’s house.’ ‘Yes, Zahra was the Deputy Sahib’s only child, and I drove her to school every morning at nine o’clock. She kept purdah, and yet you can’t keep hidden from your driver for long, and I caught a glimpse of her on the very second day. She wasn’t just beautiful. I mean there was something special about her beauty. She was a very serious girl, and her hair’s centre parting gave her face a special kind of dignity. She … she … what should I say she was like? I don’t have the words to describe her.’ At great length, he attempted to enumerate Zahra’s virtues. He wanted to describe her in a way that would bring her to life, but he didn’t succeed, and it seemed like his mind was too full of thoughts. From time to time his face became lively, but then he would be overcome by sadness and start sighing again. He told his story very slowly and as though he found pleasure in its painful recitation. It went like this. He fell completely in love with Zahra. For several days he kept busy devising different strategies to catch a glimpse of her, but when he thought about his love with any seriousness, he realized how impossible it was. How can a driver love his master’s daughter? When he thought about this bitter reality, he became very sad. But he gathered his courage and wrote a note to Zahra. He still remembered its lines: Zahra, I know quite well I’m your servant and that your father pays me thirty rupees a month. But I love you. What should I do? What shouldn’t I do? I need your advice. He slipped this note into one of her books. The next day as he took her to school, his hand trembled as he drove, and the steering wheel kept slipping from his grip. Thank God he didn’t have an accident! He felt strange all day, and while he drove her back from school in the evening, Zahra ordered him to stop the car. He pulled over, and Zahra spoke very seriously, ‘Look, Naim. Don’t do this again. I haven’t told my father about it—I mean the letter you slipped into my book. But if you do this again, I’ll be forced to say something. Okay? Let’s go. Start the car.’ He told himself he should quit his job and forget his love forever. But this was all in vain. A month passed without his resolutions were his dilemma being solved, and then he mustered the courage to write another note, which he stuck into one of Zahra’s books just as before. He waited to see what would happen. He was sure he would be fired the next morning, but he wasn’t. As he was driving Zahra home from school, she once again asked him to refrain from such behaviour, ‘If you don’t care about your honour, then at least think about mine.’ When she spoke in this stern way, Naim lost all hope. Again he decided to quit his job and leave Lucknow forever. At the end of the month, he sat down in his room to write his last letter, and in the weak light of his lantern, he wrote: Zahra, I’ve tried very hard to do as you wanted, but I can’t control my feelings. This is my last letter. I’m leaving Lucknow tomorrow evening, and so you won’t have to say anything to your father. Your silence will seal my fate. But don’t think that I won’t love you just because I live far away. Wherever I am, I will always love you. I’ll always remember driving you to school and back, driving slowly so that the ride would be smooth for you, for how else could I express my love? He slipped this letter into one of Zahra’s books. On the way to school she said nothing, and in the evening she said nothing as well. He lost all hope and went directly to his room. There he packed his few possessions and set them to the side, and in his lamp’s weak light he sat down on the cot and fell into thinking about his hopeless love for Zahra. He was miserable. He understood his position. He knew he was a servant and had no right to love his master’s daughter. And yet he couldn’t understand why he shouldn’t love her—after all, he wasn’t trying to take advantage of her. Around midnight, when he was still ruminating upon this, someone knocked at his door. His heart skipped a beat. Then he reasoned it must be the gardener. Someone had probably fallen ill at home, and he was coming to ask for help. But when he opened the door, it was Zahra. Yes, Zahra—without a shawl, she was standing there in the cold December night! He couldn’t find any words to say. For several minutes they stood there in funereal silence. At last Zahra opened her lips and in a quavering voice said, ‘Naim, I’ve come. Now, tell me what you want. But before I enter your room, I want to ask a few questions.’ Naim remained silent. ‘Do you really love me?’ she asked. Naim felt as though someone had just hit him. He blushed. ‘Zahra, how can you ask me that question when answering it will only belittle my love? Can’t you tell I love you?’ Zahra didn’t say anything. Then she asked her second question, ‘My father’s rich, but I’m worth nothing. Whatever they say is mine isn’t really mine but his. Would you love me even if I weren’t rich?’ Naim was a very emotional man, and this question, too, stung him deeply. ‘Zahra, for God’s sake, please don’t ask me questions whose answers you can find in trashy romance novels.’ Zahra entered his room, sat on his cot and said, ‘I’m yours and will always be yours.’ Zahra kept her word. They left Lucknow for Delhi, got married, and found a small house. The day when the Deputy Sahib came looking for them, Naim was at work. The Deputy Sahib scolded Zahra sharply, telling her she had destroyed his honour. He wanted her to leave Naim and forget everything that had happened, and he was even ready to pay Naim 2,000 to 3,000 rupees. But his strategy didn’t work. Zahra said she would never leave Naim. She told her father, ‘Dad, I’m very happy with Naim. You couldn’t find a better husband for me. We don’t want anything from you. If only you could give us your blessings, we’d be very grateful.’ Zahra’s father became incensed. He threatened to have Naim thrown in jail, but Zahra asked, ‘Dad, what crime has Naim committed? If you want to know the truth, we’re both innocent. Anyway, we love each other and he’s my husband. This isn’t a crime, and I’m not a child.’ The Deputy Sahib was smart and quickly understood that if his daughter had consented to marry Naim then he couldn’t bring any charges against her husband. He left Zahra once and for all. Then after a while, the Deputy Sahib tried to intimidate Naim through some people he knew and also tried to bribe him. But nothing worked. The married couple was happy, even though Naim didn’t earn much money and Zahra, who had never had to do anything for herself as a girl, had to wear cheap clothes and do housework. Zahra was happy that she had entered a new world, one in which Naim’s love revealed itself anew each day. She was truly very happy, and Naim was too. But one day, as is God’s will, Zahra had severe chest pains and before Naim could do anything she died. That is how Naim’s world became shrouded in darkness forever. It took him about four hours to get through his story, as he told it slowly and with evident relish. When he finished, the pallid hue on his face lifted, and his face glowed, as though someone had given him a blood transfusion. And yet his eyes were full of tears, and his throat was dry. When he finished telling his story, he got up hurriedly, as though he had somewhere to go. ‘It was really wrong of me to tell you this story. It was really wrong of me. Zahra’s memory was not meant for anyone but me. But … but …’ His voice quavered as he fought back tears, ‘I’m living, and she … she …’ He couldn’t continue and so quickly shook my hand and left. I never saw Naim again. I went to Apollo Bunder many times to find him but was never successful. After six or seven months, I got a letter from him, which I’ll copy below. Sahib! You must remember the love story I recited at your house. It was completely false. All lies. There’s no Zahra and no Naim. I’m real, but I’m not the Naim who loved Zahra. You once said there are people who can’t love, and I’m one of those—someone who wasted his entire youth trying to love. Naim’s love for Zahra was something I made up to amuse myself, just as Zahra’s death was. I still don’t understand why I killed her in my story, although it probably has to do with how everything I touch ends up cursed. I don’t know whether you believed my story. But I’ll tell you something strange. I thought—I mean, while I told the story—I thought it was completely true! One hundred per cent true! I felt I had loved Zahra and she had truly died. You’ll be even more surprised to hear that as days passed, the story seemed more and more real, and Zahra’s laughter began to echo in my ears. I started to feel her warm breath. Each part of the story came to life, and thus I … I dug my own grave. Even though she was imaginary, Zahra was more real than me. She died, and so I, too, should die. You will get this letter after my death. Goodbye. I’m sure I’ll meet Zahra somewhere, but where? I’ve written to you only because you’re a writer. If you can make a story out of this, you’re welcome to the seven or eight rupees. (You once told me you get seven to ten rupees for a story.) This is my gift to you. Well, goodbye. Yours, ‘Naim’ Naim made up Zahra and then died. I’ve written this story and live on. This is my life’s boon. THE INSULT AFTER an exhausting day, she lay down on her bed and immediately fell asleep. The official from the city’s Sanitation Department whom she called ‘Boss’ had just fucked her and left for home in a drunken stupor. He could have stayed the night, but he professed great concern for his lawfully wedded wife who loved him very much. The money she had earned from the official in exchange for her bodily labours was slowly slipping from the top of her tight, saliva- stained bra, and these coins clinked together in rhythm with her breathing, a sound that dissolved into that of her heart’s irregular beating. In fact, it seemed as though the coins were melting right into her blood! Heat was spreading through her chest, caused in part by the brandy, a small bottle of which the official had brought, and in part by the beora, which they had drunk with water after the soda had run out. She was lying face down on her long and broad teak bed. Her arms were bare up to her shoulders and spread out like a kite’s bow. Her right armpit’s shrivelled flesh was nearly blue from having been shaven over and over; it looked like a chunk of skin from a plucked hen had been grafted there. Her room was small and messy and things were strewn about everywhere. Underneath her bed, her mangy dog had propped his head on top of three or four withered sandals and although asleep, was baring his teeth at some invisible something. The dog’s fur was so patchy that if someone saw him from a distance, they would mistake him for the folded piece of sacking used to wipe the floor. Her beauty products were stored in a small niche in the wall—rouge, lipstick, powder, a comb, and the iron pins she used to put up her hair in a bun. A cage hung nearby in which a green parrot slept, its face hidden in the feathers of its back. The cage was filled with pieces of raw guava and rotten orange peels, and around this foul-smelling fruit hovered small black flies and moths. There was a cane chair with a grease-stained back next to the bed, and to the right of this chair rested a beautiful stool on top of which was a portable gramophone made by His Master’s Voice. A tattered black cloth was draped over the gramophone, and on the footstool and everywhere else in the room, rusty needles were littered. Four picture frames hung on the wall above this stool, and each held a man’s photo. At a short distance from the photos—I mean, just as you entered the room and in the corner on the left—there was a brightly coloured picture of Ganesha that she had probably ripped off a bolt of cloth and framed, and both fresh and withered flowers hung over its frame. In that incredibly oily niche, she kept a cup of lamp oil, and to its side was a small lamp, its flame standing erect like a flick of paint on a devotee’s forehead in the room’s torpid air. Burnt-out stumps of incense soiled the niche. When she made the day’s first money, she would hold it out before her, touch it to the statue of Ganesha, and then touch it to her forehead before stuffing it in her bra. Her breasts were large, so there was no chance the money would fall out, but when Madho came on vacation from Pune, she had to hide some of it in the small hole beneath the foot of her bed that she had hollowed out just for this purpose. Her pimp, Ram Lal, had told her how to keep her money from Madho. When he heard that Madho came from Pune to sleep with her, he said, ‘How long have you been seeing this bastard? What a strange love affair! The asshole doesn’t spend anything but gets to sleep with you, and then he makes off with your money? There’s something wrong with this picture. You must really like this guy. I’ve been a pimp for seven years, and I know all you girls have weaknesses.’ Ram Lal pimped all over Bombay—for 120 whores whose rates went from ten to a hundred rupees. He told Saugandhi, ‘Bitch, don’t waste your money like that. He’ll strip your clothes right off your back, the motherfucker! Dig a little hole beneath the foot of your bed and hide all your money there. When he comes, say, “I swear, Madho, I haven’t seen one dick all day! Order me a cup of tea and a pack of Aflatoon biscuits from the tea boy downstairs. My stomach’s growling.” Okay? Things are rough right now, honey. The Congress Party, the fuckers, have banned alcohol, and business is very slow. But at least you find a way to get liquor. I swear to God, when I see your empty bottles and smell the wine, I really want to be reborn a whore.’ Saugandhi liked her breasts more than any of her other physical attributes. Her friend Jamuna encouraged her, ‘If you support those cannon balls with a bra, they’ll stay firm forever.’ Saugandhi laughed. She replied, ‘Jamuna, you think everyone’s just like you. For ten rupees, men do whatever they want with you, and so you think this must be true for everyone. If any man ever touches me there, just see what happens!’ Then she remembered something. ‘Oh, let me tell you what happened yesterday. Ram Lal brought over a Punjabi at two in the morning, and they decided on thirty rupees for the night. After Ram Lal left, I turned off the light, and this guy got so scared! Jamuna, are you listening? I swear, as soon as the lights went out, he started shaking up and down! He was scared of the dark! I asked, “Hey, what’re you waiting for? It’s about to turn three. Your time’s running out.” He said, “Turn it on, turn it on.” I asked, “What do you mean?” He said, “The electricity! The electricity!” I said, “What electricity?” He said, “The light! The light!” His shrill voice made me break out laughing. I said, “No way!” When I pinched his chubby thigh, he sprang to his feet and turned on the light. I quickly covered myself with the sheets and said, “Don’t you have any shame, asshole?” When he returned to the bed, I rushed over to turn off the light. This made him anxious again. I swear it was a fun night—sometimes dark, sometimes light, sometimes light, sometimes dark. As soon as he heard the morning’s first tram, he put on his clothes and left. The bastard must have won a bet or something. I mean, why else would he waste his money like that? Jamuna, you’re so clueless. I know a lot of tricks for guys like that!’ Saugandhi really did know a lot of useful tactics, which she shared with one or two girlfriends. Her general advice went as follows, ‘If he’s good but doesn’t talk much, then tease him a lot, try to irritate him, tickle him, play with him. If he has a beard, then run your fingers through it like a comb and twist a few hairs. If he has a big belly, pat it like a drum. Don’t give him the chance to do what he wants. He’ll leave happy and you’ll be saved. Guys that never say anything are dangerous. They’ll really hurt you if you let them!’ But Saugandhi wasn’t as clever as she thought, and she had very few regulars. She was extremely emotional, so at the crucial moment, every ruse she knew would slip from her mind. Her stomach had many stretch marks from the time she had given birth, and the first time she had seen those lines, they reminded her of the lines her mangy dog made in the ground, pawing out of frustration whenever a bitch passed, ignoring him as she worried over her puppy. Saugandhi lived mostly in her mind, but a kind word always made her body tingle with pleasure, and although she told herself that sex was worthless, her body liked it very much! She dreamed of being overcome by fatigue, the type of fatigue that would beat her to sleep, the type of sleep that falls upon you after being ground down all day— how delightful it would be! That type of unconsciousness that wraps around you after being utterly wrung dry of your last ounce of energy— what pleasure! Sometimes she wasn’t sure if she existed, and sometimes she felt as though she was stuck in between, floating high in the sky with the wind encompassing her—the wind above her, below her, on the right, and on the left—nothing but the wind, suffocating and yet wonderful! As a child, when she played hide-and-seek, she would hide inside her mother’s big trunk, and while waiting to be caught, she would become afraid of suffocating and her heart would race. How much she had liked that sensation! Saugandhi wanted to spend her entire life inside a trunk like that while people looked for her in vain, though occasionally she would let them find her so that she, too, could go in search for someone. Her life for the last five years was just like hide-and-seek: sometimes she went looking for someone, and sometimes a man came for her. That was how her life passed. She was happy because she had to be. Every night she shared her wide, teak bed with a different man, and she knew countless ways to keep her johns in their place. While she had resolved many times not to accept their vulgar demands and to treat them indifferently, she would always get caught up in the moment and give in. She couldn’t control her desire to be loved. It seemed like every night some john would proclaim his love to her. Saugandhi knew they were lying, and yet her emotions would overwhelm her and she would imagine they really did. ‘Love’. What a beautiful word! She wanted to smear it all over her body and massage it into her pores. She wanted to abandon herself to love. If love were a jar, she would press herself through its opening and close the lid above her. When she really wanted to make love, it didn’t matter which man it was. She would take any man, sit him on her lap, pat his head, and sing a lullaby to put him to sleep. She was so full of love that she could have loved any of her customers and moreover, could have kept this love alive forever. She had already sworn her love to the four men whose photos were hanging on the wall. She felt like a good person, but why weren’t men good? She could never understand this, so once while looking into the mirror, she spontaneously said to herself, ‘Saugandhi, time has not been kind to you!’ The time she had spent as a prostitute—the days and nights of the past five years—was all that mattered to her. She was not as happy as she had dreamed of being, and yet she was content. Anyway, it wasn’t as if she were planning to build a palace. Money wasn’t an issue. She usually charged ten rupees, from which Ram Lal took a two and a half rupee cut, and so she got seven and a half rupees a day, and that was enough. When Madho came from Pune to ‘poke’ her, as Ram Lal liked to put it, she handed over ten or fifteen rupees although she did this only because she had a crush on him. Ram Lal was right—there was something about Madho that Saugandhi liked. Why don’t I just go ahead and tell you everything. When Saugandhi met Madho, he had said, ‘You don’t feel ashamed? Do you know what you’re selling me? Why do you think I’ve come? Chi, chi, chi. Ten rupees, and like you say, two and a half are your pimp’s. What’s left, seven and a half, right—seven and a half? For seven and a half rupees you promise to give me something you can’t give, and I’ve come for something I can’t just take. I want a woman, but do you want a man? Any woman will do for me, but do you really like me? What’s our relationship? It’s nothing, nothing at all. Only these ten rupees—two and half are your pimp’s and the rest you’ll waste— they’re all that connects us. You’re eyeing it, and I’m eyeing it. Your heart says something, and my heart says something. Why shouldn’t we make something together? I’m a head constable in Pune. I’ll come once a month for three or four days. Stop doing this. I’ll buy everything for you. What’s this room’s rent?’ Madho went on to say many more things, the sum of which had such a strong effect on Saugandhi that for several moments she felt like a head constable’s wife. Madho tidied the room and took the initiative to tear up the pornographic photos at the head of her bed. Then he said, ‘Saugandhi, dear, I won’t let you put up pictures like that. And this water pitcher—look how dirty it is! And this—this rag, these rags— aghh!—what an awful smell! Throw them outside. And what have you done to your hair? And …’ Saugandhi and Madho talked for three hours, and afterwards Saugandhi felt as though she had known him for years. No one ever paid any attention to the room’s smelly rags, the dirty pitcher, or the pornographic photos. No one ever treated her room like a home, where domestic concerns were possible. Men came and left, without even noticing how filthy her bed was. No one said, ‘Look how red your nose is today! I hope you don’t catch a cold. Wait here. I’ll go get some medicine.’ Madho was really good. Everything he said was irreproachable. How incisively he had scolded her! She began to feel she really needed him and that was how their relationship began. Madho came from Pune once a month and before going back always said, ‘Look, Saugandhi, if you take up your old job, well, then our relationship is over. If you let even one man sleep here, I’ll grab you by your hair and throw you out. Look, as soon as I get to Pune I’ll send a money order for this month’s expenses. Remind me, what’s the rent here?’ But neither did Madho send any money nor did Saugandhi stop being a prostitute. Both knew very well what was going on. Saugandhi never asked Madho, ‘What’re you blathering on about? Have you ever given me anything?’ And Madho never asked Saugandhi, ‘Where did you get this money? I didn’t give it to you.’ Both were lying, and both were pretending. But Saugandhi was happy just as those who can’t wear real gold become content with imitation trinkets. Completely exhausted, Saugandhi had fallen fast asleep with the light on. It hung overhead, and its sharp light fell directly on her eyes but she didn’t wake up. There was a knock at the door. Who would come at two in the morning? The rapping penetrated Saugandhi’s sleep only faintly, as a fly’s buzzing would. The knocking intensified, and she lurched awake. Her mouth was full of bitter and viscous saliva, its taste a mixture of the previous night’s liquor and the small bits of fish wedged between her teeth. She wiped off the smelly paste with the hem of her lungi and rubbed her eyes. She saw she was alone. She bent over to look underneath the bed—her dog was grimacing through his sleep, his mouth propped up on the dried-out sandals. Then she looked over at the parrot’s cage and saw the parrot sleeping, its head lodged in the feathers of its back. Someone was knocking. Saugandhi got up, her head throbbing. She scooped a ladleful of water from the pitcher and gargled. She guzzled another ladleful and went to the door to crack it open. ‘Ram Lal?’ Ram Lal was tired of knocking. ‘Are you dead or what?’ he asked, furiously. ‘I’ve been standing here knocking myself silly. Where were you?’ Then he lowered his voice and asked, ‘Is anyone inside?’ Saugandhi shook her head, so Ram Lal shouted, ‘Then why didn’t you open the door? Aghh! I’ve had enough of this. That must have been some sleep, huh? I’m never going to make it in this business if I have to beat my head against a wall for two hours just trying to get a girl out of bed. And why are you staring at me like that? Quick, take off that lungi and put on your flowery sari. Powder your face and come with me. There’s a rich man waiting for you in his car. Hurry up!’ Saugandhi sat down in the easy chair, and Ram Lal came in and started combing his hair in front of the mirror. Saugandhi reached towards the stool, picked up a jar of balm, and opened its lid. ‘Ram Lal, I’m not in the mood today.’ Ram Lal put the comb back in the niche and turned around. ‘You should have said so first.’ Saugandhi rubbed balm across her forehead and temples. ‘Not that, Ram Lal,’ she said. ‘It’s not that. I just don’t feel good. I drank a lot.’ Ram Lal’s mouth began to water. ‘If there’s any left, hand it over! I want some too.’ Saugandhi put the jar of balm on the stool. ‘Do you think I’d have this damn headache if I didn’t drink it all? Look, Ram Lal, bring your guy up here.’ ‘No, no, he won’t come. He’s a gentleman. He was even anxious about his car being in the alley. Put on something and come with me. You’ll start feeling better.’ All this trouble and just for seven and a half rupees. When Saugandhi had a bad headache, she usually wouldn’t work, but now she really needed the money. The husband of a Madrasi woman who lived next door had been killed by a car. Now this woman had to return with her young daughter to Madras, but she didn’t have enough money to cover the journey. She was worried to the point of distraction. Saugandhi had reassured her just the day before, ‘Don’t worry. My boyfriend’s about to come from Pune. I’ll get some money from him and buy your tickets.’ Madho was indeed about to come, but Saugandhi would have to come up with the money on her own. With all this in mind, she got up, quickly changed into her flowery sari and put on some rouge. She drank one more ladleful of water and went out with Ram Lal. The alley, larger than some small towns’ markets, was completely silent. The light from the streetlights was weak, as their fixtures had been painted over due to the war. She could just see a car parked at the alley’s far end, and the black car looked like a shadow in the mysterious silence of the night’s last hours. Saugandhi felt as though her headache had spread across the entire scene, and even the wind seemed bitter, as though it too felt the after effects of the brandy and moonshine. Ram Lal walked ahead and said something to the men in the car. Saugandhi reached the car, and Ram Lal moved aside and said, ‘Look, here she is. She’s a very good girl. She’s just started working.’ Then he turned to Saugandhi. ‘Saugandhi, come over here. The boss wants to see you.’ Saugandhi lifted up the edge of her sari in her hand and stepped up to the car’s door as the man shone a flashlight on her. The light dazzled Saugandhi’s sleepy eyes. But then she heard the click of a button, the light went out, and the man said, ‘Yuhkk!’ Instantly, the engine jumped to life and the car took off down the alley. Saugandhi did not have any time to react. She still felt the glare of the flashlight in her eyes and hadn’t even been able to see the man’s face. What had just happened? What was this ‘yuhkk’ echoing in her ears? ‘I guess he didn’t like you,’ Ram Lal said. ‘All right then, I’m leaving. I’ve wasted two hours for nothing.’ Saugandhi had to fight off a desire to do something violent. Where was that car? Where was that man? So that ‘yuhkk’ meant he didn’t like me? That bas.… She caught herself. The car was already gone, and its red tail-lights were fading into the darkness of the night’s empty market. But this red- hot ‘yuhkk’ was piercing her chest! She wanted to shout out, ‘Hey, you rich fuck, stop the car! Come back here for just a minute.’ But fuck that asshole—he was already too far away! She stood in the deserted market. Her flowery sari, which she wore on special occasions, was rippling in the breeze and seemed to be saying, ‘Yuhkk, yuhkk.’ How she hated that sound! She wanted to tear her sari apart and fling its scraps into the wind! She recalled how she had put on lipstick and powdered her cheeks to make herself more attractive, and now she felt so ashamed by this that she began sweating. She rationalized her feelings, ‘I didn’t dress up for that pig! It’s my habit—not just mine but everyone’s. But at two in the morning, and Ram Lal, and this market, and that car, and the flashlight!’ And as she thought all this, the streetlamps started flickering on all around her, and again she thought she could hear the rumbling of a car’s engine. She was sweating, and the balm on her forehead was seeping into her pores. Her body felt distant, and she felt as though her forehead didn’t belong to her. A gust of wind blew across its sweaty surface, and she felt like someone had cut up a piece of satin and stuck it to her forehead. Her head was still throbbing, but the internal noise of her thoughts had drowned out the pain. Saugandhi wanted the pain to engulf her body—she wanted pain in her head, in her legs, in her stomach, and arms too, the kind of pain that made it impossible to think. Thinking this, she noticed a sensation in her heart. Was it pain? Her heart contracted and then returned to normal. What was that? Damn, that was it! That ‘yuhkk’ was messing with her heart! Saugandhi turned towards home, then stopped to think. Ram Lal said the man thought I was ugly. But, no, Ram Lal didn’t say that. His actual words were, ‘I guess he didn’t like you.’ But maybe he … but maybe he … did dislike the way I look. But if he thought I was ugly, so what? I think a lot of men are ugly. The last new moon, that john was really bad. But did I scrunch up my nose in disgust? When he climbed on top of me, wasn’t I revolted? Didn’t I just stop myself from throwing up? But, Saugandhi, you didn’t kick and scream. You didn’t turn him away. This rich guy in the car spat in your face. ‘Yuhkk!’ What could this ‘yuhkk’ mean? 1) ‘What a joke! This girl’s so ugly even her mother can’t bear looking at her.’ 2) ‘I wouldn’t let this bitch shine my shoes.’ 3) ‘Ram Lal, where did you unearth this specimen?’ 4) ‘Ram Lal, you went out of your way to praise this girl? Ten rupees for this? A cow’s asshole would be better.’ Saugandhi was seething from head to foot. She got angry at herself and then at Ram Lal, but she quickly exonerated them and began to think about the man. With every bone in her body, she wished to see that man once more. She wanted to redo the scene once more, just once more. It would happen like this. She would stroll up to the car, a hand would emerge with the flashlight, it would flash in her face, and she would hear that ‘yuhkk.’ But this time she would leap on him like a wild cat and furiously scratch at his face. With her long fingernails, she would tear into his cheeks. She would grab him by the hair, drag him outside, and pummel him without mercy. And when she got tired, she would cry. She thought of adding the crying part only because three or four tears were already welling in her eyes—she felt that angry and helpless. She asked herself, ‘Why are you crying? What’s wrong with you?’ Tears continued to swim in her eyes. She blinked and her eyelashes became wet, and Saugandhi stared through her tears in the direction where the man’s car had gone. Suddenly she heard a noise—phar, phar, phar. Where was it coming from? Saugandhi looked around but didn’t see anyone. Then she realized what it was—it was her heart that was racing and not the sound of a car! What was going on? Why would it be going along fine and then suddenly begin to pound? It was like a needle catching on a worn-out record, and the music’s natural flow, ‘The night passed while I counted stars …’ turning into a one-word echo, ‘stars, stars, stars …’ The sky was filled with stars. Saugandhi looked up and exclaimed, ‘How beautiful!’ She wanted to think of something else, but their beauty only served as a nasty reminder and she thought to herself, ‘Stars are beautiful, but you’re ugly. Did you forget already how that man insulted you?’ But Saugandhi wasn’t ugly. She remembered all the recent times she had looked in the mirror, and while there was no doubt she didn’t look the same as she had five years earlier when she was living with her parents and free from all worry, in any event she wasn’t ugly. In fact she was the type of woman that men stare at. She had all the bodily attributes that men want in a woman, and was young and had a good figure. Sometimes when bathing, she would see with pleasure how round and firm her thighs were. She was also polite, friendly, and compassionate, and so it was hard to imagine that she ever disappointed any of her customers. She remembered the year before when she had been living in Gol Petha over the Christmas season. A young man had spent the night, and when he got up the next morning and went into the next room to take his coat off the hook, he discovered that his wallet was missing. Saugandhi’s servant had stolen it. The poor soul was very upset. He had come on vacation from Hyderabad and didn’t have enough money to get back. Saugandhi felt so sorry for him that she gave him his ten rupees back. ‘What have I ever done wrong?’ Saugandhi addressed everything around her—the darkened streetlights, the iron electricity poles, the pavement’s rectangular stones, and the street’s gravel. She looked at her surroundings and then lifted her gaze to the sky, but there was no answer. She knew the answer herself. She wasn’t bad at all but good, and yet she wanted someone to praise her, someone to put his hand on her shoulder and say, ‘Saugandhi, who says you’re bad? That person’s the bad one!’ No, there wasn’t any special need for that. It would be enough if someone said, ‘Saugandhi, you’re really good!’ She thought about why she wanted someone to praise her, as she had never before felt such a strong need for this. Why did she turn even to inanimate objects, asking them to confirm her worth? And why did she feel in her body such an overwhelming desire to give comfort? Why did she want to take the world onto her lap? Why did she want to cling to the streetlamp, putting her hot cheeks against its cold iron? Then for a moment she felt as though everything was looking at her with sympathy—the streetlamps and the electricity poles, the paving stones, everything! Even the star-filled sky that hung above her like a milky sheet in the growing light seemed to understand her, and Saugandhi in turn felt she could understand the stars’ twinkling. But what was this confusion inside her? Why did she feel so unsettled? She wanted to get rid of the bad feelings boiling inside her, but how could she do this? Saugandhi was standing next to the red mailbox at the alley’s corner. Sharp gusts of wind buffete

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