Bombay Stories

MAMMAD BHAI

IF you walked from Faras Road down what people called White Alley, you would find some restaurants at its end. Restaurants are everywhere in Bombay, but these ones were special because the area is known for prostitutes.

Times have changed. It was almost twenty years ago that I used to frequent those restaurants. If you went past White Alley, you would come to the Playhouse where movies were shown all day. Lively crowds swarmed outside its four theatres, and men rounded up customers by ringing bells in an ear-splitting fashion and yelling, ‘Come in — come in — two annas — a first-class film — two annas!’ Sometimes these bell ringers would even forcibly push people inside.

There were masseurs, too, who knocked their customers’ heads around with what they claimed was a very scientific method. Getting a massage is all fine and well, but I don’t understand why people in Bombay are so enamoured of it, why all day and night they feel the need for an oil massage. If you want, you can easily find a masseur at even three o’clock in the morning, and all night you can be sure to hear someone calling out from this or that street corner, ‘Pi — pi — pi’, which is Bombay shorthand for ‘massage’.

Faras Road was really a road’s name but it was used for the entire neighbourhood where prostitutes lived. It was a large area. There were many alleys with their own names, and yet for the sake of convenience they were all called Faras Road or White Alley. There were hundreds of shops with cage façades in which women of all different ages and complexions sold themselves. They were available from eight annas to a hundred rupees and were of every sort — Jewish, Punjabi, Marathi, Kashmiri, Gujarati, Anglo-Indian, French, Chinese, Japanese; you could get whatever sort you wanted. Just don’t ask me what they were like. All I know is that somehow they always had customers.

A lot of Chinese lived in the neighbourhood, and though I don’t know what they all did for business some had restaurants with signboards covered in insect-like up-and-down script advertising God knows what. In fact all different sorts of people lived and did business there. There was one alley called Arab Sen although the people who lived there called it Arab Alley, and probably between twenty and twenty-five Arabs lived there working as pearl merchants. The rest of the alley’s residents were Punjabis or were from Rampur.

I rented a room there for nine and a half rupees a month. The room got no natural light, and so I always had to keep a lamp on.

If you haven’t been to Bombay, you might not believe that no one takes any interest in anyone else. But the truth is that if you are busy dying in your room, no one will interfere. Even if one of your neighbours is murdered, you can be assured you won’t hear about it. In all of Arab Alley there was only one man who took an interest in everyone else, and that was Mammad Bhai.

Mammad Bhai was from Rampur. There wasn’t anyone better in the martial arts — fighting with clubs, wooden sticks, or swords. I often overheard his name mentioned in the restaurants of Arab Alley, but for the longest time I never got to meet him.

In those days I left my room at daybreak and didn’t get back till very late, but I very much wanted to meet him. In the neighbourhood, he was a legend and there were countless stories about him. People said that when billy-club-carrying gangs, twenty or twenty-five strong, jumped him, he would dispose of the assailants in under a minute, then walk away without even one hair out of place. There were also stories about his unsurpassed skill with a knife. He was the quickest in all of Bombay, so quick in fact that his victim wouldn’t realize he had just been stabbed but would walk ahead for a hundred steps before suddenly collapsing. People knew this could be the work of only Mammad Bhai.

I wasn’t interested in witnessing his knife-wielding expertise so much, but I had heard so many stories about him that I couldn’t help but want to see him up close. His presence overshadowed the entire neighbourhood. He was a gangster, and yet people said he was a resolute bachelor and never looked at anyone’s wife or daughter. He sympathized with the poor and often gave a little money to the destitute prostitutes not just in Arab Alley but in all the alleys in the vicinity. Nonetheless, he never visited these women himself but sent a young apprentice to bring back whatever news they had.

I don’t know how he made a living. He ate well and wore nice clothes, and he owned a small horse-drawn cart to which he yoked a strong pony. He drove the cart himself and was accompanied by two or three loyal apprentices. He would take the cart out for a tour of Bhindi Bazaar or go to a saint’s shrine and then return to Arab Alley and go to an Iranian restaurant where he would sit with his apprentices and energetically discuss hand-to-hand combat.

A Marwari Muslim dancer lived next to me, and he told me hundreds of stories about Mammad Bhai, including how he was worth a 100,000 rupees. One time this man got cholera, and when Mammad Bhai found out, he called all the doctors of Arab Alley into his room and said, ‘Look, if anything happens to Ashiq Husain, I’m going to kill every one of you.’ In a reverential manner, Ashiq Husain told me, ‘Manto Sahib, Mammad Bhai is an angel! An angel! When he threatened the doctors, they shook in fear. They looked after me so well that I was better in two days!’

In the dives of Arab Alley, I heard more stories about Mammad Bhai. One young man — an aspiring martial artist and so probably one of Mammad Bhai’s apprentices — told me Mammad Bhai kept a dagger tucked in his waistband that was so sharp he could shave with it. He kept it without a scabbard, the knife’s cold metal pressed against his belly, and the blade was so sharp that if he bent just a little wrong he would become old news fast.

You can imagine how each day my desire to meet him only increased. I don’t remember what exactly he looked like, but after so many years I can still recall anticipating that he must be enormous, the kind of man Hercules bicycles would use as a model in their advertising.

Those days I left for work early in the morning and didn’t return until ten at night, and when I got back I would quickly eat and go straight to bed. Living like this, how could I meet Mammad Bhai? I often resolved to skip work and stay in Arab Alley looking for him, but work heaped up and I couldn’t carry out this plan.

I was thinking about how I might meet him when suddenly I got the flu so bad I began to fear for my health. One Arab Alley doctor told me there was a danger it would worsen into pneumonia. I was all alone. The man living next door had got a job in Pune and wasn’t around. My fever was roasting me alive, and despite how I drank water continuously, my thirst never slackened.

I am a very tough person. Usually I don’t need anyone to take care of me, but I didn’t know what kind of fever it was — the flu, malaria, or something else. It crushed me flat. It was the first time in my life I wished for someone to comfort me, or if not that then just to show his face for a moment so that I would know that at least someone cared.

For two days I lay in bed tossing and turning, but no one came. And who could have? How many friends did I have? Just a handful, and they lived so far away that they wouldn’t even know if I had died. Like I said, who in Bombay cares about anyone? No one gives a damn if you live or die.

I was in a very bad state. The hotel’s tea boy told me Ashiq Husain’s wife was sick and that he had left for home. Who could I call? I was very weak. While I was thinking about dragging myself down to a doctor’s, there was a knock at the door. I thought it was the tea boy, the ‘bahar vala’ in Bombay slang. In a lifeless voice, I said, ‘Come in.’

The door opened, and a thin man entered. I noticed his moustache first. In fact the moustache was what distinguished him, and without it no one was likely to notice him at all.

Adjusting his Kaiser Wilhelm adornment with one finger, he came up to my cot. Several men followed him in. I was stunned. I couldn’t imagine who they were or why they were visiting me.

The skinny guy with the Kaiser Wilhelm addressed me in a tender voice, ‘Vamato Sahib, what have you done? Hell, why didn’t you tell me?’ Changing Manto to Vamato was nothing new, and I wasn’t in the mood to correct him. I weakly asked, ‘Who are you?’

‘Mammad Bhai.’

I shot up. ‘Mammad Bhai … so you’re Mammad Bhai … the notorious gangster!’

I immediately felt awkward and stopped. Mammad Bhai used his pinkie to press his stiff moustache hairs up and then smiled. ‘Yes, Vamato Bhai. I’m Mammad, the famous gangster. I learned from the hotel’s tea boy that you were sick. Hell, what were you trying to do by not telling me? It pisses Mammad Bhai off when people hide things.’

I was about to say something when Mammad Bhai addressed one of his companions, ‘Hey, you there — what’s your name? Go get that doctor, whatever-his-name-is, you know who I mean? Tell him Mammad Bhai needs him. Tell him to drop whatever he’s doing and come at once. And tell the bastard to bring all the medicine he has.’

The apprentice left immediately. I was looking at Mammad Bhai, and all the stories I had heard about him were swirling around in my feverish mind, but each time I looked at him these images got confused and all I could see was his moustache. It was intimidating but also very beautiful, and it seemed to me that he had grown it out expressly to make his naturally soft and elegant features threatening. I came to the conclusion in my feverish mind that he really wasn’t as tough as he made himself out to be.

As there wasn’t a chair in the room, I invited Mammad Bhai to sit on my bed, but he refused curtly, ‘We’re fine. We’ll stand.’

Then he began pacing, although there was hardly enough space in the room for that. He lifted his kurta’s hem and drew out his dagger from his pyjama’s waistband. The dagger must have been made of silver, and its dazzling blade was beyond description. He passed it over his wrist, cleanly shaving off the hairs there. He grunted with satisfaction and began to trim his fingernails.

His mere presence seemed to have reduced my fever by several degrees. Now with a steadier mind I said, ‘Mammad Bhai, your dagger’s so sharp. Aren’t you scared to keep it tucked next to your stomach?’

Mammad Bhai neatly cut back one of his nails, ‘Vamato Bhai, this knife’s for others. It knows this. It’s mine, for fuck’s sake. How could it hurt me?’

He spoke about his knife just as a mother would talk about her son, ‘How could he raise his hand against me?’

The doctor arrived. His name was Pinto, and mine was Vamato. He was Christian and greeted Mammad Bhai in keeping with his religion’s way. He asked what the problem was. Mammad Bhai explained quickly, and his tone carried the threat that Dr Pinto should watch out if he couldn’t manage to cure me.

Dr Pinto did his work like an obedient boy. He took my pulse and used his stethoscope to examine my chest and back. He took my blood pressure and asked all about my sickness. Then he turned to Mammad Bhai and said, ‘There’s nothing to worry about. He has malaria. I’ll give him an injection.’

Mammad Bhai was standing nearby. He listened to what Dr Pinto had to say, and while shaving his wrist said, ‘I don’t want to know the details. If you have to give an injection, go ahead. But if anything happens to him …’

The doctor shook in fear. ‘No, Mammad Bhai, everything will be fine.’

Mammad Bhai tucked his dagger back into his waistband. ‘Okay, fine then.’

‘So I’m giving the injection,’ the doctor said, opening his bag and taking out a syringe.

‘Wait, wait,’ Mammad Bhai interrupted him. He was nervous. The doctor quickly replaced the syringe in the bag, and in a whiny voice asked, ‘Yes?’

‘It’s just that I can’t watch anyone getting stuck with a needle,’ Mammad Bhai said and then left with his companions in tow.

Dr Pinto gave me a quinine injection. He did it very skilfully, as otherwise a malaria injection is very painful. When he was done, I asked how much it was.

‘Ten rupees,’ he replied.

I took my wallet out from underneath my pillow and was giving him a ten-rupee note when Mammad Bhai walked in. He looked at us with a furious expression. ‘What’s going on?’ he thundered.

‘I’m paying him.’

‘What the hell! You’re charging us?’ Mammad Bhai asked the doctor.

Dr Pinto was terrified. ‘When did I ask for any money? He was giving it to me.’

‘Hell, you’re charging us. Give it back.’ Mammad Bhai’s tone was as sharp as his dagger’s blade.

Dr Pinto gave me back the note, packed his bag, apologized to Mammad Bhai and left.

Mammad Bhai twisted his thorny moustache with one finger and then smiled. ‘Vamato Bhai, I can’t believe that he was trying to charge you. I swear I would have shaved off my moustache if that bastard had taken your money. Everyone here is at your service.’

There was a moment of silence. Then I asked, ‘Mammad Bhai, how do you know me?’

Mammad Bhai’s moustache twitched. ‘Who doesn’t Mammad Bhai know? My boy, I’m the kingpin here. I keep track of my people. I have my own CID. They keep me informed — who’s come, who’s left, who’s doing well, who’s doing bad. I know everything about you.’

‘Like what?’ I asked, just for fun.

‘Hell, what don’t I know? You’re from Amritsar. You’re Kashmiri. You work in the newspapers here. You owe the Bismillah Hotel ten rupees and so never go by there. A paan seller in Bhindi Bazaar is after you because you still haven’t paid him the twenty rupees and ten annas you owe him for some cigarettes.’

I could have died from shame.

Mammad Bhai stroked his bristly moustache again. ‘Vamato Bhai, don’t worry. Your debts have been cleared, and you can get a fresh start. I told those bastards to make sure never to mess with Vamato Bhai, so, God willing, no one will bother you again.’

I didn’t know what to say. The quinine injection had given rise to a buzzing sensation in my ears. Moreover, I was so overwhelmed by his kindness that it was hard to express my gratitude. I could only say, ‘Mammad Bhai, may God look after you! Take care!’

Mammad Bhai pushed his moustache up a little and left.

Dr Pinto came by every morning and evening, and each time I mentioned the money, he put his hands over his ears and said, ‘No, Mr Manto! It’s Mammad Bhai’s business. I can’t take a single coin.’

I thought Mammad Bhai was incredible. I mean he was so intimidating that stingy Dr Pinto paid for the injections himself.

Mammad Bhai came to see me every day, either in the morning or the evening, and he would bring with him six or seven apprentices. He reassured me that it was an ordinary case of malaria, ‘God willing, Dr Pinto’s treatment will get you feeling right in no time.’

I was completely cured within fifteen days, and during my convalescence I learned everything about Mammad Bhai.

He must have been in his late twenties. He was very skinny and had surprisingly nimble hands. I heard from the people in Arab Alley that he could throw a pocketknife straight through a man’s heart. And as I said earlier, he was an expert wielder of knives, clubs, and swords. Countless famous stories circulated about how he had committed hundreds of murders, and yet I am still not ready to believe this.

Nonetheless, I shivered in fright at the thought of his dagger. Why did he always keep this deadly weapon tucked unsheathed inside his waistband?

After my health recovered, we ran into each other in one of Arab Alley’s run-down Chinese restaurants. He was trimming his fingernails with his dagger.

I asked him, ‘Mammad Bhai, these days it’s all about guns and pistols. Why do you still use a dagger?’

He adjusted his moustache. ‘Vamato Bhai, I don’t get any pleasure from guns. Even a child can use one. You squeeze the trigger and “bang!” What fun is there in that? This thing — this dagger — this knife — this pocketknife — there’s pleasure in it, you know? Sure as hell there is! And it’s that — what do you call it? — yeah — art. There’s an art in it, okay? If you don’t know how to use a dagger or a knife, you’re nothing. A pistol’s just a toy — a toy that can kill. But there’s no enjoyment in it. Look at this dagger, look at its sharp blade.’ He wet his thumb and ran it along the blade. ‘With this, there’s no bang at all. You can thrust it into someone’s stomach just like this. It’s so smooth that the bastard won’t even know what’s going on. Guns and pistols are nonsense.’

I fell into the habit of seeing Mammad Bhai every day. I felt obliged to him for what he had done for me, and yet whenever I tried to express my gratitude he would get angry and say, ‘I didn’t do you any favour. It was my duty.’

The neighbourhood was his. He looked after the people who lived there, and if someone was sick or having problems, Mammad Bhai would pay them a visit. His agents kept him constantly informed.

He was a gangster and such a dangerous criminal, and yet with God as my witness I still can’t figure out what made him intimidating. That is, other than his moustache. Its every hair stood upright like the quills on a porcupine’s back. Someone told me he greased it every day. When eating, he would dip his fingers into the food’s gravy and then massage it, as ancient wisdom says that oil strengthens hair. His moustache gave him his name — that or maybe his dagger, secured in his shalwar’s waistband.

We became good friends. Although he was illiterate, he treated me with so much respect that the rest of Arab Alley got jealous. One early morning on my way to the office, I overheard a man in a Chinese restaurant saying that Mammad Bhai had been arrested. This surprised me because he was friendly with all the area’s police.

I asked the man why. He told me that a woman named Shirin Bai lived in Arab Alley and her young daughter had been raped the previous day. Shirin Bai had gone to Mammad Bhai and said, ‘You’re our protector. Some man did this horrible thing to my daughter. Damn you that you’re still at home doing nothing!’ Mammad Bhai unleashed a fierce insult at the old woman and then said, ‘What do you want me to do?’ Shirin Bai answered, ‘I want you to slice the bastard’s stomach open.’

Mammad Bhai had been at a restaurant eating dinner. When Shirin Bai stopped talking, he took out his dagger. He checked its sharpness against his thumb and said, ‘Go, I’ll finish your business.’

And he did. Within a half hour the man who had raped Shirin Bai’s daughter was dead.

Mammad Bhai was arrested, but there were no witnesses. Even if there had been any, they would never have testified in court. He stayed for two days in police custody, but he was completely at home there as everyone from the street officers to the inspectors knew him. Nonetheless, when he got out on bail he knew he was in for it, and his spirits were low.

I saw him at a Chinese restaurant, and his usually clean clothes were dirty. I didn’t mention anything about the murder, but he said, ‘Vamato Sahib, I’m sorry it took the bastard so long to die. I made a mistake while stabbing him. My hand got twisted. But it was the bastard’s fault too. He turned suddenly, and so everything turned ugly. He died, but I’m sorry for his pain.’

You can imagine how I reacted — he wasn’t worried about having killed a man so much as having caused him a little pain!

The trial got underway. Mammad Bhai was worried because he had never faced a judge before. Like I’ve said, I really don’t know how many people he’d killed, but he really didn’t know anything about judges, lawyers, witnesses, and the rest.

The police presented the case and fixed a date for the trial. Mammad Bhai was distraught. Over and over he stroked his moustache and said, ‘Vamato Sahib, I’d rather die than go into a courtroom. Hell, you don’t know what it’s like!’

His friends in Arab Alley assured him it wasn’t serious since there were no witnesses. Only his moustache might cause the judge to turn against him.

He considered this. His court date had just about arrived when I found him in an Iranian restaurant. I could tell he was beside himself with worry. He couldn’t figure out what to do about his moustache. He thought that if he showed up in court with it, there was a good chance he would get convicted. You will think that this is just a story, and yet I’m telling you he was truly distraught. His apprentices were worried too because usually nothing bothered him. But many of his close friends had advised him, ‘Mammad Bhai, if you have to go to court, shave off your moustache. Otherwise the judge will lock you up for sure.’ He thought about it so much that he began to wonder whether he had killed the man or if his moustache had! He couldn’t reach any decision. He took his dagger from his waistband and threw it into the alley outside. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

‘Mammad Bhai, what’re you doing?’

‘Nothing, Vamato Bhai. I’ve got a big problem. I have to go to court, and my friends are saying that if the judge sees my moustache, he’s sure to convict me. What should I do?’

What could I say? I looked at his moustache and said, ‘Mammad Bhai, they’re right. Your moustache will influence the judge’s decision. If you really want to know, a conviction won’t be a judgment against you but against your moustache.’

‘Should I shave it off, then?’ Mammad Bhai asked, stroking his beloved moustache.

‘What do you think?’

‘It doesn’t matter what I think — it’s not for you to know. But everyone around here thinks I should shave it off. Should I, Vamato Bhai?’

‘Yes. If you think it’s right, shave it off. It’s a question of the courtroom, and really your moustache is very intimidating.’

The next day, Mammad Bhai shaved off his moustache, and yet he did so only on the advice of others.

His case came before the bench of Mr F.H. Teague. I was there. There were no witnesses against him, but the judge declared him a dangerous criminal and ordered him to leave the state. He had just one day to put all his affairs in order before leaving Bombay.

After leaving the courtroom, he didn’t say anything to me. Over and over he raised his fingers to his cleanly shaven face, but there wasn’t anything there to stroke.

Just before he had to leave Bombay that evening, we met in an Iranian restaurant. Twenty or so apprentices surrounded him, and they were all drinking tea. When he saw me, he didn’t say anything. Without his moustache, he looked entirely respectable. But I could tell he was sad.

I sat down next to him and asked, ‘What’s wrong, Mammad Bhai?’

He unleashed a directionless curse and then said, ‘Hell, Mammad Bhai’s dead.’

‘Don’t worry. If you can’t live here, another place will do.’

He launched into an expletive-filled tirade against every other possible place to live. Then he said, ‘It’s not about where I’m going to live. Here or somewhere else, it’s all the same. But why the hell did I have to shave off my moustache?’

He recited a litany of curses against those who had told him to shave it off. Then he asked, ‘Hell, if I have to leave the city, then why not go with my moustache?’

I couldn’t help but laugh. He flew into a rage. ‘What kind of man are you, Vamato Sahib? Fuck, I swear they should’ve hanged me! But I’m to blame for this foolishness. I never feared anyone but, hell, then I got scared of my moustache.’

He slapped his face twice. ‘Mammad Bhai, a curse on you! Asshole, you got scared of your moustache! Now get out of here, you mother …’

Tears welled in his eyes. How strange they looked against his clean-shaven face!