My Name Is Radha

Janki

Just as the racing season was getting under way in Puna, Aziz wrote from Peshawar: ‘I’m sending Janki, an acquaintance of mine. Do find her work in some film company in Puna or Bombay. You’re well connected in the film world. Hope it won’t be too much of a bother for you.’

The timing wasn’t the problem; the problem was that I had never done anything of the kind before. Usually the men who took women to film companies were ones who sought to live off their earnings. So, obviously, the proposition made me quite uneasy. Then I thought, I really shouldn’t disappoint him. He and I had known each other for a long time and he was sending her with such confidence in me. Besides, the thought that the doors of any film company would be open for a young woman reassured me to some degree. Why fret, she would find a job in some film company or other without my help anyway.

Four days later she arrived. She had travelled a long distance, from Peshawar to Bombay and then on to Puna. After the train came to a halt, I started down from one end and began looking for her, someone I’d never seen before. I had passed only a few carriages when a woman got out of a second-class compartment with my photograph in her hand. Standing with her back towards me, she rose up on her toes and started looking for me in the crowd. I came closer to her and said, ‘Perhaps I’m the one you’re looking for.’

She turned around. ‘Oh, you.’ She looked at my photo and said quite casually, ‘Saadat Sahib, it was such a long journey. At Bombay, after I got off of the Frontier Mail, the atrocious wait for this train drained everything out of me. I really am totally worn out.’

‘Your luggage?’ I asked.

‘I’ll bring it out,’ she said. Stepping back into the carriage, she brought out two suitcases and a bedroll.

I hailed a coolie.

Outside the station she said, ‘I’ll stay in a hotel.’

I got her a room in the hotel right across the road from the station. She needed to take a bath, change and get some rest, so I gave her my address, asked her to come to see me at ten in the morning, and left.

At half-past ten the following day she arrived at my place in Prabhat Nagar; I was staying in a friend’s small, newly built flat. Janki had got delayed because it took her quite a while to find the place. My friend was out. I’d woken up late as I was working on my film script well into the night. After my bath, I was having tea when, all of a sudden, she walked in.

Despite the fatigue of the trip, she had appeared quite sprightly on the platform and, later, at the hotel. Now, though, as she stepped into the room where I sat in my pyjamas and undershirt, she looked terribly haggard and in bad shape.

She had been bubbling with life on the platform; not so when she came to see me in Flat No. 11, Prabhat Nagar. It seemed as though she’d either just donated a pint of blood or had an abortion.

As I mentioned, I was staying at my friend’s to finish my script. There was no one else in the flat, except for an idiotic servant. The house was quite desolate, and Majeed was the kind of servant whose presence only heightened the sense of desolation.

I poured out some tea in a cup and offered it to Janki. ‘You must have had your breakfast at the hotel,’ I said. ‘All the same, have some tea.’

She bit her lips nervously, picked up the teacup and started sipping from it, all the while shaking her right leg. Her quivering lips gave the impression that she wanted to say something to me but was feeling hesitant for some reason. Maybe some traveller at the hotel had tried to get fresh with her, I thought.

‘You didn’t have any problems at the hotel, did you?’ I asked.

‘Oh no. None.’

Her brief answer left nothing to go on so I kept quiet. But after we had finished tea, I thought I should say something. ‘How is Aziz Sahib?’

She returned the cup to the teapoy without answering and quickly got up. ‘Manto Sahib, do you know a good doctor?’ she said hurriedly.

‘Not in Puna, I don’t.’

‘Oh!’

‘Why, are you sick or something?’ I asked.

‘Yes.’

She sat back down in a chair.

‘What’s the problem?’

Her full lips, which contracted automatically, or perhaps wittingly, when she smiled, opened. She tried to say something but couldn’t. She got up again, picked up my cigarette tin, took one out and lit it, and said, ‘Please forgive me, I smoke.’

Only later did I discover that she didn’t just smoke; she smoked with a zest and gusto usually seen only in men. She held the cigarette between her fingers like they did, took deep long drags like they did, and blew the smoke out of some seventy-five cigarettes in a day.

‘Why don’t you say what’s wrong?’

Annoyed, she stomped her foot petulantly, like a young girl.

‘Hai Allah! How can I tell you. .’ She smiled, the arch of her curved lips revealing a line of exceptionally clean and sparkling white teeth. She sat down again and, making every effort not to let her tremulous eyes look straight into mine, said, ‘It’s like this: I’m late by fifteen days and I’m afraid that. .’

At first, I didn’t get her drift. But when she stopped abruptly, I had a vague feeling that I knew what she was alluding to.

‘Well, such a thing often happens.’

She took a deep drag, blew out the smoke forcefully like men, and said, ‘No. This time it feels different. I’m afraid I am pregnant.’

‘Oh!’

She took a final drag of the cigarette and crushed it in the saucer. ‘And if that’s what’s happened, I’ve got a big problem. Something like this happened in Peshawar once. But fortunately Aziz Sahib got me such potent medicine from a hakim friend of his that it aborted in no time at all.’

‘Don’t you like kids?’ I asked.

She smiled. ‘I do. . but the hassle of raising them.’

‘You do know that killing unborn babies is a crime, don’t you?’

She quickly sobered up. . and then said in a tone full of amazement, ‘Aziz Sahib said the same thing. But really, Saadat Sahib, why is it a crime? After all, it’s a personal matter. Besides, those who make laws, they must know how painful an abortion can be. Crime, huh!’

I couldn’t help laughing. ‘You really are a strange woman, Janki.’

She also laughed. ‘Aziz Sahib says so too.’

In the midst of her laughter tears appeared in her eyes. I’ve noticed that when sincere people laugh, their eyes invariably well up. She took out a handkerchief from her bag, wiped her tears, and asked with a child’s innocence, ‘Tell me, Saadat Sahib, do you find what I say interesting?’

‘Very,’ I said.

‘That’s a lie!’

‘And what’s your proof?’

She lit up again. ‘Oh, maybe it is so. All I know is that I’m a little dumb-headed. I eat a lot, chatter a lot, laugh a lot. You can see for yourself how badly my stomach has puffed up from eating too much. Aziz Sahib keeps admonishing me not to overeat, but I never listen. The thing is, Saadat Sahib, if I eat less, I feel as if there’s something I wanted to tell someone but forgot.’

She started to laugh again. I joined her. It was strange, this laugh of hers. It sounded like the tinkling of ankle bells.

Just as she was about to resume talking about abortions, the friend with whom I was staying returned. I introduced Janki and said that she wanted to work in films. My friend took her to his studio. He was confident that the director for whom he worked as a secretary would select her for a particular role in his new film.

I tried to find work for her in all the film studios in Puna and pulled whatever strings I could. She was voice-tested in one place, camera-tested in another, and in a third they assessed her in different outfits, but nothing worked out. She was already quite upset about missing her period, and the week she had to spend in vain in the cheerless, depressing atmosphere of different film studios made things even worse. On top of that, the twenty green quinine pills she was popping every day to abort were making her even more sluggish. How Aziz Sahib was faring in her absence back in Peshawar was yet another cause of her constant worries. She had fired off a wire immediately after arriving in Puna and a letter a day thereafter, urging in each that he not neglect his health and take his medicine regularly.

What illness Aziz Sahib suffered from, I don’t know; nonetheless, I did gather from Janki that he loved her and immediately did whatever she asked him to do. Many times his wife quarrelled with him about being lax in taking his medicine, but when Janki made the same request, he didn’t so much as make a peep.

At first I thought her concern for Aziz Sahib was just for show. Slowly, though, her unpretentious talk convinced me that she really did care for him a lot. Whenever he wrote to her, tears would gather in her eyes while she read his letter.

Our repeated trips to film companies produced no result. And then one day she became overjoyed to learn that her fears were unfounded. Surely she had missed her period, but pregnant she was not.

Twenty days had passed since her arrival in Puna. During this time she had continued sending Aziz letter after letter. He also wrote pretty lengthy love letters to her. In one he suggested that if no job was forthcoming in Puna, I should try in Bombay. It was teeming with studios. It was a reasonable suggestion. However, as I was far too busy writing the script at the moment, it was difficult for me to accompany her there, so I phoned my friend Saeed who was playing the part of the hero in a film. By chance, he wasn’t at the studio, but Narain was. When Narain found out that I was on the phone, he took the call, shouting loudly, ‘Hello, Manto. . Narain speaking. Tell me, what do you want? Saeed isn’t here. He’s sitting at home. . settling accounts with Razia.’

‘Whatever do you mean?’ I asked.

‘They had a fight. Razia is carrying on with someone else.’

‘But settling accounts with Razia. . what accounts?’

‘Yaar, this Saeed, he’s terribly mean. He’s asking her to return all the clothes he ever bought for her.’

‘Look, a friend of mine from Peshawar has sent a woman here. She’s eager to work in films.’

Janki was standing close by. I realized I hadn’t explained myself properly, and was about to correct myself when Narain’s loud voice crashed against my ears. ‘Woman, wow! From Peshawar? Wow again! Khu, send her, send her double quick. I too am a Pathan. . a Pathan from Qusur.’

‘Don’t talk nonsense. Listen, I’m sending her to Bombay tomorrow, aboard the Deccan Queen. You or Saeed should pick her up at the station. Deccan Queen, remember.’

‘But how will we recognize her?’ I heard him ask.

‘She’ll recognize you. But do try to find work for her.’

‘You’re going to Bombay tomorrow on the Deccan Queen,’ I told Janki. ‘I’ll show you Saeed’s and Narain’s photos. Both of them are tall, stout and handsome. You’ll have no problem spotting them.’

I took out the album and showed her their pictures. She looked at both for a long time, though I noticed she looked at Saeed’s more closely. She put the album aside and, making a faltering attempt to look straight into my eyes, asked, ‘What kind of men are they?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean what kind of men are they?. . Most men in films tend to be quite nasty, I’ve heard.’

I detected a trace of probing in her grave tone.

‘That, of course, is true. Why would anyone want good men working in films?’

‘Why not?’

‘There are two types of people in this world: those who grasp the extent of their pain from their own suffering, and those who grasp it by looking at the suffering of others. Tell me, which of the two do you think truly feels the real pain of suffering and its agony?’

After some reflection she answered, ‘Why, those who have suffered themselves.’

‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘Those who’ve been through real suffering can portray it best in films. Only a man who has floundered in love knows what heartbreak is. A woman who spreads out the rug and prays five times a day, who thinks love is as unlawful as eating the flesh of a pig, how can she profess love to a man in front of a camera?’

She reflected again for a bit. ‘So you mean a woman should know about everything before entering films?’

‘Not necessarily. She can also learn after she’s begun.’

Janki paid no heed to all this and repeated her earlier question, ‘So what kind of men are Saeed Sahib and Narain Sahib?’

‘You want me to describe them in detail?’

‘What do you mean by “in detail”?’

‘Basically just which one will be better for you.’

She didn’t like what I said.

‘What kind of talk is that?’

‘The kind you wanted.’

‘Drop it.’ She smiled. ‘I won’t ask you about anything any more.’

‘But if you were to, I would recommend Narain.’

‘Why?’

‘Because he’s a much better person than Saeed.’

I think so even now. Saeed is a poet, a terribly heartless poet. He won’t slaughter a chicken with a knife; he’ll wring its neck, pluck its feathers and then make broth out of it. He’ll drink the broth, chew on the bones, then sit in a corner comfortably and write a poem about the chicken’s demise, with tears in his eyes.

When he drinks, he never really gets drunk. This is something that annoys me a lot. It kills the very purpose of drinking. In the morning, he takes all the time in the world to wake up. The servant serves him tea in bed. If Saeed finds some rum on the bedside table left over from the previous night, he’ll dump it into his tea and drink the mixture one mouthful at a time, as if he has absolutely no sense of taste.

If a sore appears on his body and begins to fester, he pays no attention to it, none at all, not even if puss starts to ooze out and the sore threatens to morph into a dangerous abscess. He won’t deign to visit the doctor. If you try to say something, his only answer will be, ‘Maladies often become a permanent part of the body. When this wound doesn’t trouble me, why bother treating it?’ Meanwhile, he’ll look at the wound as if he’s chanced upon a beautiful line of poetry.

He’ll never understand film acting because he’s nearly bereft of all delicate feelings. I saw him once in a film that became quite popular because of the songs sung by the heroine. At one point in the story he was scripted to hold her hand and profess his love to her. I swear, he grabbed her hand as if he was grabbing a dog’s foot. How often have I told him, ‘Put the thought of acting out of your mind. You’re a darn good poet. Stay home and write poems.’ But will he listen? He’s obsessed with being an actor no matter what.

Narain now, I like him a lot. I also find the rules he’s devised for working in a studio quite appealing.

One should never marry during his acting career. If he must marry, he should give up acting right away and open a dairy shop instead. If he’s been a good actor, he’ll make good money.

The minute an actress addresses you as ‘bhai’ or ‘bhaiya’, immediately whisper in her ear, ‘What size is your bra?’

If you’ve gone gaga over an actress, don’t waste your time pussyfooting around. Meet her in private and tell her flat out, ‘I too have a tongue in my mouth.’ If she doesn’t believe it, stick out your whole tongue at her.

Should you be so lucky as to bag an actress, don’t ever take even a penny from her earnings, even though that is kosher for her husband and brothers.

Make absolutely sure no child of yours is born to her, but she’s free to bear your child after swaraj.

Remember, even an actor has to face Judgement Day. So don’t even try to pretty up your record with a comb and razor; instead, use some crude method for it, such as doing a good deed every now and then.

Pay the greatest regard to the Pathan watchman at the studio. Greet him first thing in the morning when you come in. You’ll reap a reward if you do, in the next world if not in this, for there aren’t going to be any film companies in that other world.

Never become addicted to liquor and actresses. Who knows, the Congress may put a ban on both of them one day!

A Muslim or a Hindu can be a businessman, but an actor cannot be a Hindu actor or a Muslim actor.

Don’t lie.

He has inscribed all of these under ‘Narain’s Ten Commandments’ in his diary. They give a good idea of what kind of man he is. People say he doesn’t abide by them himself, but that’s not true.

Although Janki hadn’t asked, I shared with her my thoughts about the two men. I told her plainly that if she made it into the film world, she would need the support of one man or the other. And Narain, in my view, would prove to be a good friend.

She heard me out and left for Bombay. When she returned the next day she was overjoyed. Apparently, Narain had signed her up with his studio for a whole year at a monthly salary of five hundred rupees. We talked for quite a while about how she got the job. After listening to her, I asked, ‘You met both Saeed and Narain, right? Who liked you more?’

The hint of a smile appeared on her lips. Again with her hesitant eyes she looked at me and said, ‘Saeed Sahib,’ and then suddenly she became serious. ‘Saadat Sahib, why did you praise Narain to high heaven?’

‘Why? What happened?’

‘He’s so awful! In the evening when they both sat down to drink, I happened to address Narain as ‘bhaiya’ and he quickly bent over and whispered into my ear, “What size is your bra?” Bhagwan knows this burned me up, from my head right down to my very toes. What kind of lewd man is he?’

Her forehead started to perspire. I let out a resounding laugh.

‘Why are you laughing?’ she screamed.

‘Oh, at his silliness,’ I said and stopped laughing.

After fulminating against Narain for a while, she started talking about Aziz in a tone full of concern. For days now there hadn’t been a letter from him. All kinds of misgivings were crowding her brain: Has he caught a head cold again? Some bike accident? He rides so recklessly. Maybe he’s on his way to Puna because, when he was sending her off, he’d told her that he would sneak up to see her one of these days.

Reciting her concerns calmed her frayed nerves a little and she launched into praises of Aziz. He takes good care of his kids at home. He puts them through an exercise routine every morning, bathes them, and takes them to school. His wife is so gauche, so lacking in social graces that he has to show proper courtesies to relatives himself. When Janki came down with typhoid once, he looked after her continually for twenty days like a dutiful nurse. And so on and so forth.

The next day, after thanking me in appropriately warm words, she left for Bombay where the gates of a bright new life had been flung open to embrace her.

It took me another two months to finish my film script. I collected my payment and proceeded to Bombay where I was to receive another contract. At about five in the morning, I arrived in Andheri where Saeed and Narain were sharing a bungalow that was not much to speak of. I walked on to the veranda and found the front door locked. ‘Perhaps they’re sleeping,’ I thought. ‘Best not to bother them.’ There was a back door which was often left open for the servants. I entered through it. The kitchen and adjacent dining room were, as usual, terribly untidy and grimy. The room across from them was reserved for guests. I opened the door and went in. There were two beds. Saeed and someone were sleeping together in one of them, covered with a quilt.

I was feeling very sleepy and didn’t bother to change. I stretched out on the other bed and threw the blanket lying at the foot of the mattress over my legs. I was about to fall asleep when a bangle-clad forearm shot up from behind Saeed and reached towards the chair standing nearby, on which hung a white muslin shalwar.

I sat up with a start, only to see Janki in bed with Saeed. I picked up the shalwar and tossed it to her.

I went to Narain’s room and woke him up. He’d been out on a film shoot until two in the morning. I felt sorry for waking the poor man up, but found him quite eager to chat, though not on any particular subject. My sudden appearance had apparently provoked him into talking a bit of nonsense with me so we indulged in such talk till nine o’clock. The subject of Janki cropped up several times during our gossip session.

When I told him about the bra incident, he laughed his head off, and mentioned, ‘The juiciest part is yet to come: When I stuck my mouth to her ear and whispered, “What size is your bra?” she told me straight away, “Twenty-four.” Sometime later, she suddenly realized the strangeness of my question and started cursing me. She’s just like a little girl. Whenever we run into each other, she quickly pulls her dupatta over her breast. But, Manto, let me tell you, she’s really a very faithful woman.’

‘Just how do you know that?’ I asked.

‘How?’ He smiled. ‘A woman who gives the size of her bra to a total stranger could never dupe anyone.’

Strange logic, that! But Narain bent over backwards to convince me that Janki was, in fact, a very sincere woman. ‘Manto,’ he said, ‘you have no idea how devoted she is to Saeed. It’s no picnic looking after someone as indifferent as him. I see how well she’s acquitting herself of this difficult but self-imposed responsibility. She’s not just a woman, she’s also a diligent and honest ayah. She spends a good half an hour every morning waking that donkey up. She makes him brush his teeth, helps him dress, feeds him breakfast, and, at night, when he goes to bed after a shot of rum, she closes the door and settles in beside him. If she runs into someone at the studio, she only talks about Saeed. “Saeed Sahib is such a nice man. Saeed Sahib sings so well. Saeed Sahib has put on weight. Saeed Sahib’s pullover is ready. I’ve sent for a pair of Potohari sandals from Peshawar for Saeed Sahib. Saeed Sahib has a slight headache, I’m going to get some Aspro for him. Saeed Sahib wrote a she‘r for me today.” But whenever she bumps into me, she invariably frowns remembering the incident about the bra.’

I stayed with Saeed and Narain for nearly ten days, but Saeed didn’t once talk to me about Janki, perhaps because their affair had become an old story by that time. But Janki and I talked quite a bit. She was very happy with Saeed, though she complained a lot about his devil-may-care attitude. ‘Saadat Sahib,’ she would say, ‘he doesn’t give a damn about his health. He’s so careless. He’s always immersed in his own thoughts and pays no attention to anything. What! You’re laughing? Would you believe it, I even have to ask him every day whether or not he’s been to the toilet.’

Everything Narain had told me about Janki was absolutely correct. I always found her fretting over Saeed. During my ten-day stay at Andheri, I found Janki’s selfless dedication to Saeed very impressive, but I also kept thinking about Aziz. ‘Janki had worried about him no less.’ I wondered, ‘Has she entirely forgotten him now that she’s met Saeed?’

Had I stayed longer, I would certainly have asked Janki about it. However, I got into an argument over something with the owner of the film company that wanted to negotiate a contract with me, and to ease my anxiety I immediately took off for Puna. Barely two days passed before I received Aziz’s telegram — he was in Bombay, on his way to Puna. Six hours later he was with me.

And early the next morning Janki was knocking at the door.

Aziz and Janki met, but they didn’t show the ardour or the impatience of lovers meeting after a long separation — perhaps because my relations with Aziz had been quite formal and reserved right from the start of our friendship and they didn’t want to appear impetuous in my presence.

Aziz thought that he might stay in a hotel. However, the friend with whom I was staying was in Kolhapur on an outdoor shooting assignment so I let Aziz and Janki stay with me. The flat had three rooms; Janki and Aziz could sleep in separate rooms. I suppose I ought to have put both in one room, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t that informal with Aziz. Besides, at no point had he ever even vaguely hinted at his affair with Janki.

In the evening, the two of them went out to see a movie. I stayed home as I wanted to get started on a new film script. I was awake until two in the morning and then fell asleep. I’d already given the spare key to Aziz, so there was no reason to worry about letting them in.

Regardless of how late I work, I always wake up once between three-thirty and four o’clock to have a drink of water. Out of habit, I woke up that night too. It just so happened that Aziz was occupying the room in which I had set up my bed, and where my water pitcher was kept.

I would never have bothered Aziz had I not been so awfully thirsty. My throat was completely parched from the large amount of whisky I had guzzled. I knocked. Some time elapsed before the door opened. Rubbing her dopey eyes, Janki said, ‘Saeed Sahib!’ But when she saw me, a soft ‘Oh’ escaped from her lips.

Inside Aziz was sleeping on the bed. I smiled spontaneously. Janki smiled too, her lips twisted to one side. I picked up the pitcher and left.

I woke up in the morning to a smoke cloud in my room. I rushed to the kitchen, only to find Janki burning piles of paper to heat water for Aziz’s bath. Tears, from the smoke, were streaming down her cheeks. When she saw me, she smiled and blew into the brazier. ‘Aziz Sahib catches a cold if he takes a cold bath,’ she explained. ‘He was sick the whole month I wasn’t in Peshawar to look after him. And why wouldn’t he be sick! He’d stopped taking his medicine! Did you notice how much weight he’s lost?’

After his bath Aziz went out to take care of some business and Janki asked me to send a telegram to Saeed. ‘I really should have informed him yesterday, right after I arrived here. Oh, what a terrible mistake! He must be worried sick.’

She had me write out the text. She informed him of her safe arrival in Puna, but she seemed more concerned about how he was doing and whether he was taking his shots regularly.

Four days went by, during which Janki sent Saeed five telegrams. He didn’t write back. As she made plans to return to Bombay, suddenly, towards evening, Aziz came down with something. Janki asked me to send Saeed another telegram. She spent the whole night ministering to Aziz. It was just an ordinary fever, but Janki was exceedingly worried. I think there was also a measure of anxiety over Saeed’s silence. ‘I’m convinced,’ she said, ‘Saeed Sahib is ill, otherwise he would surely have written back.’

On the fifth day, Saeed’s telegram arrived in the evening. Aziz was present at the time. ‘I’m very sick,’ Saeed had written and instructed her to ‘return forthwith’. Just before the telegram arrived, Janki was laughing her head off over something I’d said, but the minute she heard about Saeed’s illness she fell silent. Aziz took her silence very badly and when he addressed her, I could sense the bitterness in his tone. I got up and went out.

When I returned in the evening I found the two sitting apart as though they’d had a prolonged quarrel. There were dried tear stains on Janki’s cheeks. After some small talk, she picked up her handbag and said to Aziz, ‘I’m going, but I’ll return soon,’ and then to me, ‘Saadat Sahib, please watch over him; his fever still hasn’t broken.’

I accompanied her to the station, bought her a ticket on the black market and left after seating her in her carriage.

Back at the flat, Aziz had a light fever. We talked a long time, without any mention of Janki.

Three days later, around five-thirty in the morning, I heard the sound of someone opening the front door. Janki entered. She was asking Aziz in convoluted words about his health and whether he had taken his medicine regularly while she was away. I didn’t hear what Aziz said, but half an hour later, just as my eyes were closing under the onslaught of sleep, I heard the muted sound of Aziz’s angry voice. I couldn’t make out anything clearly except that he was giving her a piece of his mind.

At ten, he took a cold bath, leaving the water Janki had heated for him untouched. When I reported this to her, tears welled up in her eyes.

After the bath, Aziz got dressed and went out. Janki stayed in bed. About three in the afternoon I approached her, only to find that she was running a very high temperature. I went out to get a doctor and saw that Aziz was having his stuff loaded on to a tonga.

‘Where are you headed?’ I asked.

He shook my hand and said, ‘Bombay. God willing, we’ll meet again.’

He hopped on to the carriage and left before I could tell him about Janki’s raging fever.

The doctor examined her carefully and diagnosed bronchitis. If proper care were not taken, it was likely that it would turn into pneumonia. He wrote out a prescription and walked out. Janki asked me about Aziz. My first thought was to suppress the information, but there was no point in hiding it. I told her he had left. She was shocked. She buried her head in the pillow and cried for a long time.

The next morning, her fever had gone down one degree and she was feeling slightly better when Saeed’s telegram arrived from Bombay, around eleven. In very harsh words he reproached her, ‘Remember, you didn’t keep your promise.’

I tried as hard as I could but wasn’t able to stop her from leaving at once. She boarded the Puna Express in her precarious condition and left.

Five or six days later, Narain sent me a telegram. ‘An urgent matter has come up; come at once.’

I thought he had negotiated a contract for me with some producer. This was not the case. When I reached Bombay, he told me that Janki’s condition was very grave. Her bronchitis had in fact turned into pneumonia. And that, after arriving in Bombay, she had fallen while attempting to board a moving train bound for Andheri and hurt both of her thighs badly.

Janki bore her bodily pain bravely, but when she came to Andheri and Saeed pointed to her baggage and said, ‘Please leave,’ her spirit broke. Narain told me, ‘Saeed’s cold words left her stunned for a moment. I’m sure she must have thought of throwing herself under a train and dying. Saadat, regardless of what you may say about Saeed, his conduct with women is atrocious, downright unmanly. The poor thing! She was running a high fever and she’d fallen from a moving train, all of that just to get to this donkey as soon as possible. But he couldn’t care less! He repeated “Please leave!” without even a wisp of emotion, so coldly, just like a line of newsprint spilling out of a linotype machine. It hurt me a lot. I got up and left. When I returned in the evening, Janki was nowhere; Saeed was sitting on the bed writing a poem with a glass of rum in front of him. I didn’t say a word to him and went to my room. The next day I found out at the studio that Janki was lying critically ill at the house of one of the girls who work as extras. I talked to the owner of the studio and had her admitted to a hospital. She’s been there since yesterday. Tell me what else I can do. She hates me, so I can’t visit her. You go and check on her condition.’

I went to the hospital. The first thing she asked was how Aziz and Saeed were doing. I must say, I was deeply touched by her concern for the two even after how shabbily they had treated her.

Her condition was critical. The doctors told me that she had inflammation in both lungs and her life was in danger. What floored me, though, was that Janki was weathering her condition with fortitude.

When I returned to the studio and looked for Narain, I was told that he had been gone since morning. In the evening, when he came back, he showed me three small vials, their mouths tightly sealed with rubber caps, and asked, ‘Know what these are?’

‘No. They look like some kind of shots.’

He smiled. ‘Yes, shots. Penicillin shots.’

I was astounded. Penicillin, in those days, was being produced in very small quantities in America and England, and all of it was earmarked strictly for military hospitals. ‘Penicillin is a rare commodity. How did you get hold of it?’ I asked.

He smiled and said, ‘When I was a boy I was quite the expert at breaking into our family safe to steal money. Well, I did that again today. I sneaked into the military hospital and swiped these three vials from the refrigerator. Let’s move Janki to a hotel. Come on, hurry up.’

I took a taxi to the hospital and brought her to the hotel where Narain had already booked two rooms.

In an exceedingly feeble voice, she asked over and over again why I had brought her here, and every time I replied that she would know soon. When she did learn, that is, when Narain entered the room with a syringe in hand, she turned her face away in dismay and said to me, ‘Saadat Sahib, tell him to go away.’

Narain smiled. ‘Darling, spit out your anger. Your life is at stake.’

Janki became furious. In spite of her weak condition, she sat up in the bed and said, ‘Saadat Sahib, either you throw this bastard out or I’m leaving.’

Narain pressed her back on the bed and said smiling, ‘This bastard won’t budge without giving you the shot. I’m warning you, don’t even try to resist.’

He gave the syringe to me, grabbed her arm with one hand, rubbed her upper arm with a cotton ball doused in alcohol, handed the cotton to me, took the syringe and plunged the needle into the muscle. She screamed, but the penicillin had entered her body.

As soon as Narain released her arm, she began to cry. He paid no attention, cleaned the injection site with the cotton ball, and went into the other room.

The first shot was administered at nine in the evening. The second was due in three hours. Narain warned me that if it was delayed by even half an hour, the penicillin’s effect would wear off entirely. So he stayed awake. At eleven he got the stove going, sterilized the needle in boiling water, and filled the syringe with the next dose.

Janki’s eyes were shut, her breathing raspy. Narain rubbed an alcohol-soaked wad of cotton on her other arm and jabbed the needle. A shrill cry escaped from her lips. Narain pulled the needle out, rubbed the cotton over the spot on her arm, and said, ‘We’ll give her the third dose at three o’clock.’

I have no idea when he gave her the third or even the fourth injection. When I awoke I heard the hissing sound of the burning stove and Narain asking the attendant for some ice. He had to keep the penicillin chilled.

At nine in the morning, we entered her room to give her the fifth shot and found her lying in bed with her eyes open. She scowled at Narain with hatred in her eyes, but said nothing. Narain smiled. ‘How are you feeling, my dear?’

Janki remained quiet.

Narain stood close to her and said, ‘These shots I’m jabbing into your arm are not love shots. They’re meant to cure your pneumonia. I swiped them from the military hospital. . Come on, lie on your stomach and slide your shalwar down your bottom a bit. Have you ever taken an injection there?’

He poked a spot on her derrière with his finger. Naked hate, tinged with awe, surfaced in Janki’s eyes.

When she turned over, Narain said, ‘Shabash!’ and before she could resist, he pulled down her shalwar and ordered me, ‘Come on, rub some alcohol here!’

She started to thrash her legs every which way. ‘Don’t,’ Narain shouted, ‘I’m giving you a shot, one way or another.’

The fifth injection was given successfully. Fifteen more remained, to be administered every three hours. The whole course required forty-five hours.

Five injections later, Janki’s condition still hadn’t shown any signs of improvement. But Narain believed in the miraculous potency of penicillin. He was absolutely sure that she would walk out of here fully cured. We talked a long time about this drug.

Around eleven Narain’s servant walked in with a telegram for me. It was from a film company in Puna. They had asked me to rush over. I had to leave.

I returned to Bombay on the company’s business about ten or fifteen days later. After finishing my work I went to Andheri. Saeed told me that Narain was still holed up in the hotel. Since the hotel was quite far away in the city, I spent the night in Andheri.

I reached the hotel the next morning around eight and found Narain’s door ajar. I entered but found the room empty. I pushed on the door to the other room. Something flashed before my eyes. The moment she saw me, Janki slipped under the quilt. Narain was sprawled out next to her. Seeing me leave, he shouted, ‘Come, Manto, come in. I always forget to latch the door. Come, yaar, sit down in this chair, but first hand Janki’s shalwar to her, will you?’