Bombay Stories

JANAKI

IT was the beginning of the racing season in Pune when Aziz wrote from Peshawar: ‘I’m sending Janaki, an acquaintance of mine. Get her into a film company in Pune or Bombay. You know enough people. I hope it won’t be too difficult.’

It wasn’t a question of being difficult, but the problem was I had never done anything like that before. Usually the men who take girls to film companies are pimps or their like, men who plan to live off the girls if they can get a job. As you can imagine I worried a lot about this, but then I thought, ‘Aziz is an old friend. Who knows why he trusts me so much, but I don’t want to disappoint him.’ I was also reassured by the thought that the film world is always looking for young women. So what was there to fret about? Even without my help, Janaki would be able to get a job in some film company or other.

Four days later Janaki arrived, and after a long journey — from Peshawar to Bombay, and then from Bombay to Pune. As the train pulled up, I started to walk along the platform because she would have to pick me out of the crowd. I didn’t have to go far because a woman holding my photo descended from the second-class compartment. Her back was to me. Standing on tiptoes, she started looking through the crowd. I approached her.

‘You’re probably looking for me,’ I said.

She turned around.

‘Oh, you!’ She looked down at my photo and then in a very friendly manner said, ‘Saadat Sahib, the trip was so long! After getting off the Frontier Mail in Bombay, I had to wait for this train for so long, it nearly killed me.’

‘Where are your things?’

‘I’ll get them,’ she said and entered the compartment to bring out a suitcase and a bedroll. I called out for a coolie. As we were leaving the station she said to me, ‘I’ll stay in a hotel.’

I got her a room in a hotel just opposite the station. She needed time to wash up, change her clothes and rest, and so I gave her my address, told her to meet me at ten in the morning, then left.

At ten thirty the next morning she arrived in Parbhat Nagar where I was staying at a friend’s small but newly built apartment. She had got lost trying to find the place, and I had been up late writing the night before and so had slept in. I bathed and changed into a T-shirt and pyjama. I had just sat down with a cup of tea when she showed up.

The previous day, though weary from her trip, she had been bursting with life both on the platform and at the hotel, but when she appeared that morning at Apartment #11 in Parbhat Nagar, she looked anxious and worn out: she looked as though she had just donated ten to fifteen ounces of blood or had an abortion.

As I already said, my friend’s house was completely quiet. I was staying there to write a film script. There was no one else in the apartment except an idiotic servant, Majid, the type that makes a house only more desolate. I made a cup of tea and gave it to Janaki.

‘You must have eaten breakfast at the hotel before coming,’ I said. ‘But, anyway, please have some tea.’

Biting her lips anxiously, she picked up the cup and began to drink. Her right leg was shaking violently, and her lips quivered. I could tell there was something she wanted to say, but she hesitated. I thought maybe during the night someone had harassed her. So I asked, ‘You didn’t have any problems at the hotel, did you?’

‘What? Oh, no.’

I didn’t press her to say any more. Then after we finished our tea, I thought I should say something. ‘How’s Aziz Sahib?’

She didn’t answer. She set the cup down on a stool, got up, and hurriedly said, ‘Manto Sahib, do you know any good doctors?’

‘Not in Pune.’

‘Aaggggh!’ she screamed in frustration.

‘Why? Are you sick?’

‘Yes.’

She sat down in a chair.

‘What’s the problem?’

When she smiled, her sharp lips became thinner. She opened her mouth. Again she wanted to say something but couldn’t find the courage. She got up, picked up my pack of cigarettes, took one out and lit it.

‘Please forgive me, but I just can’t quit.’

I learned later that she didn’t just smoke but smoked with a vengeance. She held the cigarette in her fingers like a man and took a deep drag. In fact, she inhaled so deeply that her daily habit was the same as a normal person’s smoking seventy-five cigarettes.

‘Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?’

Annoyed, she pounded her foot on the floor like a young girl.

‘Hai, Allah! How can I tell you?’ she asked. Then she smiled. Her teeth were extraordinarily clean and shiny. She sat down, and trying to avoid my gaze, she said, ‘The problem is that I’m fifteen or twenty days late and I’m scared that …’

Until then I hadn’t understood, but when she stopped so abruptly I thought I finally knew what was going on.

‘This happens often,’ I said.

She took another deep drag and blew out the smoke in a thick rush.

‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m talking about something else. I’m afraid I’m pregnant.’

‘Ah!’ I exclaimed.

She took a final drag and then stubbed out the cigarette in the saucer. ‘If I am, it’ll be a big problem,’ she went on. ‘This happened once in Peshawar, but Aziz Sahib brought some medicine from a doctor friend, and then everything was okay.’

‘You don’t like kids?’

She smiled. ‘Sure, I like them. But who wants to go through the trouble of raising them?’

‘You know it’s a crime to have an abortion.’

She became pensive. In a voice full of sadness, she said, ‘Aziz Sahib said this too, but, Saadat Sahib, my question is, how is it a crime? It’s a personal matter, and the people who make the laws know an abortion is very painful. Is it really a serious crime?’

I couldn’t help laughing. ‘You’re a strange woman, Janaki.’

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

As she laughed, tears came to her eyes. I have noticed that when sincere people laugh, they always cry. She opened her bag, took out a handkerchief, and wiped away her tears. Then in an innocent manner, she asked, ‘Saadat Sahib, tell me, is what I’m saying interesting?’

‘Very.’

‘That’s a lie.’

‘Why?’

She lit another cigarette.

‘Well, maybe it’s interesting. I only know that I’m kind of silly. I eat too much. I talk too much. I laugh too much. You can see, can’t you, how big my stomach’s become from eating too much? Aziz Sahib always used to say, “Janaki, don’t eat so much!” But I never listened. Saadat Sahib, the thing is whenever I eat less, it always feels like something’s missing!’

Then she laughed again, and I did too. Her laughter was very strange. It sounded like the jingling of a dancer’s ankle bells.

She was just about to say something more about abortions when my friend came in. I introduced him to Janaki and told him how she wanted to get into acting, and then my friend took her to his studio because he was almost sure that the director he was working with would give her some special role in his new film.

I did as much as I could to find work for Janaki at the studios in Pune. At one place she had a voice test. At another, a screen test. One film company dressed her up in all different sorts of clothes, and yet nothing came from any of this. Janaki was already worried about her period being late, and she became even more stressed after suffering through these auditions for four or five days and with no result. In addition, the twenty green quinine pills she took each day to abort her baby made her listless. Then she was also worried about how Aziz Sahib was faring in Peshawar. She had sent him a telegram as soon as she had arrived in Pune and since then, every day without fail, had written a letter to him in which she urged him to take care of his health and to take his medicine on time.

I didn’t know what was wrong with Aziz Sahib, and all Janaki told me was that he loved her so much that he would immediately do whatever she asked. Although he often quarrelled with his wife over his medicine, he never made a fuss with Janaki.

At first I thought Janaki was just putting on a show about worrying for Aziz Sahib, but her candid talk gradually convinced me she really cared about him. Moreover, there was proof because she would always cry after reading his letters.

Her efforts to get into film companies resulted in nothing, but one day Janaki’s mood improved when she learned that her guess had been wrong — she was late, but she wasn’t pregnant.

Janaki had been in Pune for twenty days. She was writing Aziz one letter after another, and he was writing her long love letters in return. Then Aziz wrote to me, saying that if Janaki couldn’t get in anywhere in Pune, I should try the many studios in Bombay. This made sense, but it was difficult for me to get away because I was busy writing the script. I called a friend of mine, Sayeed, who was playing the hero in some film. As it happened, he wasn’t in the studio just then, but Narayan was there. When he overheard I was calling from Pune, he took the phone and shouted in English, ‘Hello, Manto! Narayan speaking from this end!’ Then he slipped into Urdu, ‘What do you want? Sayeed isn’t here right now. He’s at home separating his stuff from Razia’s.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘They had a fight. Razia’s started seeing another guy.’

‘But what’s there to sort out?’

‘Man, Sayeed is really awful,’ Narayan said. ‘He’s taking back all the clothes he ever bought for her. Anyway, enough of that. What’s going on?’

‘Actually, the thing is one of my good friends in Peshawar has sent a girl who wants to get into acting.’

Janaki was standing next to me. I realized I hadn’t explained things quite right. I was about to correct myself when Narayan shouted, ‘A woman? From Peshawar? Hey, send her quick! I’m a Qasuri Pathan too!’

‘Don’t be silly, Narayan. Listen, tomorrow I’m sending her on the Deccan Queen. Either you or Sayeed will have to go to the station to pick her up. Tomorrow, on the Deccan Queen. Don’t forget.’

‘But how will I recognize her?’

‘She’ll recognize you. But listen — try to get her into some studio or other.’

The conversation lasted only three minutes. I hung up and said to Janaki, ‘You’re going to Bombay tomorrow on the Deccan Queen. I’ll show you photos of Sayeed and Narayan. They’re tall and handsome young men, and so you’ll have no problem spotting them.’

I showed Janaki a bunch of photos of Sayeed and Narayan, and she stared at them for a long time. I noticed that she looked at Sayeed’s photos with greater attention.

She put the album aside, and trying to avoid my eyes, she asked, ‘What kind of men are they?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean what kind of men are they? I’ve heard that most men in films are bad.’ There was a tone of serious inquiry in her voice.

‘You’re right. But why does the film industry need good men?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘There are two types of people in the world — those who understand pain from their own suffering and those who see the suffering of others and guess what pain is. What do you think — which one truly understands the essence of pain?’

She thought for a moment and then answered, ‘Those that suffer themselves.’

‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘Those who know from personal experience are good at acting. Only someone who has experienced heartbreak can portray this feeling well. A woman who spreads her prayer mat five times a day, or a woman who thinks she doesn’t need love, when she tries to portray love in front of a camera, how can she be anything but a disaster?’

Janaki thought for a moment. ‘You mean that before getting into films a woman should know everything?’

‘That’s not necessary. She can learn after she gets into acting.’

She didn’t think seriously about my statement but returned to her original question. ‘What kind of men are Sayeed Sahib and Narayan Sahib?’

‘Do you want details?’

‘What do you mean by details?’

‘I mean which of them will be better for you?’

This upset Janaki. ‘What are you saying?’

‘Just what you want to hear.’

‘Never mind,’ she said and then smiled. ‘I won’t ask anything else.’

I smiled too. ‘When you ask, I’ll recommend Narayan.’

‘Why?’

‘Because he’s a better person than Sayeed.’

I still think so. Sayeed is a poet, a very heartless poet. If he catches a chicken, he won’t slaughter it but will wring its neck. Once he’s done with that, he’ll pluck out its feathers and make soup. Once he’s drunk the soup and gnawed on the bones, he will retire to a corner to write a poem about the chicken’s death, crying profusely as he writes.

He drinks, but he never gets drunk. This irritates me as it defeats the very purpose of drinking. He gets up slowly in the morning, and his servant brings him a cup of tea. If there’s any rum left over from the night before, he pours it into the tea and drinks the mixture in slow gulps, as though he has no sense of taste.

When he gets a sore, he lets it fester until pus forms. There’s the risk of developing a serious condition, but he will never look after it and will never go to a doctor. If you tell him to go, he responds, ‘Sometimes disease becomes a part of your body. If it’s not bothering me, why do I need to treat it?’ Then he looks over his wound as if it were an impressive couplet.

He will never be able to act because he lacks sensitivity. I saw him in a film that was very popular because of the heroine’s songs, and there was a scene in which he had to hold his beloved’s hand and declare his love. I swear he took her hand as if he were grabbing a dog by the paw! I’ve told him on many occasions, ‘Stop dreaming about being an actor. You’re a good poet. Go home and write some poems.’ But he’s obsessed with acting.

I like Narayan a lot. He made up a list of principles for working in a studio, and I like them a lot too.

1) An actor should never marry during his acting career. If he marries, he should stop acting and open up a yoghurt business. If he’s famous, he’ll do well.

2) If an actress addresses you as ‘bhayya’ or ‘bhai sahib’, immediately ask her in a whisper, ‘What’s your bra size?’

3) If you fall in love with an actress, don’t waste time dilly-dallying. Go meet her in private and recite the line, ‘I, too, have a tongue in my mouth.’ If she doesn’t believe you, then stick the whole thing out.

4) If you fall in love with an actress, don’t take so much as a single paisa from her. That money’s meant for her husband or her brothers.

5) Remember, if you want to have a child with an actress, hold off until after independence!

6) Remember that an actor has an afterlife too. From time to time, instead of preening before a mirror, get a little dirty. I mean, do some charity work.

7) Out of all the people at the studio, give your highest respect to the Pathan guard. Greet him when you get to the studio in the morning. Something good will come of this, if not in this world then in the next, where there are no film studios.

8) Never get addicted to liquor and actresses. It’s quite likely that Congress will suddenly outlaw them both.

9) A shopkeeper can be a Hindu shopkeeper or a Muslim one, but an actor can never be a Hindu actor or a Muslim one.

10) Don’t lie.

These are ‘Narayan’s Ten Commandments’ that he keeps in a notebook. They reveal his character. People say he doesn’t obey them all. Maybe. But he abides by most of them. This is a fact.

Without Janaki’s asking, I managed to get across what I thought about Sayeed and Narayan. In the end, I told her directly, ‘If you go into acting, you’ll need a man’s help. I think Narayan will prove to be a good friend.’

She listened to my advice and then left for Bombay. The next day she came back very happy because Narayan had got her hired at his studio for a year on a salary of 500 rupees a month. How did she get this job? We talked about this for quite a while. When she finished, I asked her, ‘You met both Sayeed and Narayan. Which one did you like more?’

Janaki smiled mischievously. She looked at me tentatively and said, ‘Sayeed Sahib!’ Then she became pensive. ‘Saadat Sahib, why did you go to such lengths to praise Narayan?’

‘Why?’

‘He’s so sleazy. In the evening, he sat down outside to drink with Sayeed Sahib. I called him ‘bhayya’, and then he leaned over and asked me my bra size! God knows how furious that made me! What a despicable man!’ There was sweat on Janaki’s forehead.

I laughed loudly.

‘Why’re you laughing?’ she asked sharply.

‘At his foolishness.’ Then I stopped laughing.

After complaining for a while about Narayan, Janaki began going over her worries about Aziz. She hadn’t received a letter from him for several days, and all sorts of fears tormented her. She hoped he hadn’t got a cough again. He rode his bicycle so recklessly that she hoped he hadn’t had an accident. She worried about whether he would come to Pune, as he had promised her when she left Peshawar, ‘I’ll show up when you’re least expecting me.’ After she had expressed all of her misgivings, she calmed down. Then she began to praise him, ‘He cares a lot about his kids. Every morning he makes sure they exercise, then he bathes them and takes them to school. His wife is really lazy, and so he has to deal with the relatives. Once I got typhoid and for twenty days straight he took care of me just like a nurse would.’ And so on and so on.

Then she thanked me in the nicest possible words and set off for Bombay, where the door to a new and glittering world had opened for her.

In Pune I finished my film script in about two months. I collected my pay and left for Bombay where I needed to sign another contract.

I arrived in Andheri at the bungalow that Sayeed and Narayan were sharing, at about five in the morning. When I entered the verandah, I found the front door locked. I thought, ‘They must be sleeping. I don’t want to disturb them.’ There was another door in the back usually left unlocked for the servant, and so I went around and entered there. Inside there were two beds. Sayeed was sharing one with a woman, her face hidden beneath their quilt.

I was very sleepy. Without taking off my clothes, I lay down on the second bed. There was a blanket at its foot that I spread over my legs, and I was just about to fall asleep when an arm adorned with bangles emerged from behind Sayeed and reached towards the chair next to the bed.

A white cotton shalwar was draped over the chair.

I shot up. Janaki was sleeping with Sayeed! I took the shalwar from the chair and threw it towards her.

I went to Narayan’s room and woke him. When he told me his shooting had ended at two in the morning, I was sorry for waking the poor soul. Nevertheless he wanted to chat, and so we stayed up gossiping until nine in the morning, returning often to the subject of Janaki.

When I brought up the time he had asked Janaki about her bra size, Narayan laughed convulsively. Laughing away, he said, ‘The best part about that was when I asked her, she blurted out, “Thirty-four!” Then she realized how rude my question was and cussed me out. She’s just a child. Now whenever we run into each other, she covers her breasts with her dupatta. But, Manto, she’s a very faithful woman!’

‘How do you know?’

Narayan smiled. ‘A woman that blurts out her bra size to strangers doesn’t have it in her to cheat.’

It was strange reasoning, but in a very serious manner Narayan convinced me that Janaki was sincere. He said, ‘Manto, you can’t imagine how well she’s looking after Sayeed. Taking care of such an absolutely careless person isn’t easy, but Janaki does it very well. She’s a dutiful and affectionate nurse. It takes half an hour to wake that bastard, but she actually has the patience to do it. She makes sure he brushes his teeth. She dresses him. She feeds him breakfast. And at night after he’s had his rum, she closes all the doors and lies down with him. At the studio she talks only about Sayeed Sahib, “Sayeed Sahib’s a great man. Sayeed Sahib sings really well. Sayeed Sahib’s weight is up. Sayeed Sahib’s pullover is ready. I ordered sandals from Peshawar for Sayeed Sahib. Today Sayeed Sahib has a light headache. I’m going to take him some Aspro. Today Sayeed Sahib wrote a couplet for me.” And then when I run into her, she remembers the bra thing and scowls.’

I stayed at Sayeed and Narayan’s for about ten days. During that time Sayeed didn’t say anything to me about Janaki, maybe because it had already become old news. But Janaki and I talked a lot. She was happy with Sayeed, and yet she complained about his carelessness, ‘Saadat Sahib, he never thinks about his health. He’s completely absent-minded. I worry constantly about him because he never thinks about anything. You’ll laugh, but every day I have to ask him if he’s gone to the bathroom.’

Everything that Narayan said proved true. Janaki was always busy looking after Sayeed, and her selfless service impressed me very much. But I kept thinking about Aziz. Janaki used to worry a lot about him, and yet had she forgotten him after she started living with Sayeed? I would have asked her if I had stayed in Andheri any longer. But I got into an argument with the owner of the film company where I was about to sign a contract and left for Pune in order to escape the tension. It must have been only two days later when a telegram arrived from Aziz saying that he was coming. Then, after five or six hours, he was sitting next to me, and early the next morning Janaki was knocking on my door.

When Aziz and Janaki saw each other, they didn’t show the usual excitement of reunited lovers. My relationship with Aziz had always been reserved, and so perhaps they felt embarrassed to show their love in front of me. Aziz wanted to stay in a hotel, but as my friend was doing an outdoor shoot in Kolhapur, I insisted they stay with me. There were three rooms. Janaki could sleep in one and Aziz in another. Although I should have let them share a room, I wasn’t close enough to Aziz to ask him if that’s what he wanted. Besides he had never made it clear what their relationship was.

That night they went to the movies, but I didn’t go because I wanted to start a story for a film. I had given Aziz a key so that I wouldn’t have to worry about opening the door. I stayed up until two o’clock that night. Regardless of how late I work, I always get up between three thirty and four to get a glass of water, and I got up that night too. But as soon as I got up, I realized my water pitcher was in the room I had given to Aziz.

If I hadn’t been dying of thirst, I wouldn’t have bothered him, but because I had drunk too much whisky my throat was completely dry. I had to knock on the door. After several moments Janaki opened the door while rubbing her eyes. ‘Sayeed Sahib!’ she said without looking up. Then when she saw it was me, she sighed, ‘Oh!’ Aziz was sleeping on the bed. I couldn’t help but smile. Janaki smiled too, and then made a funny face, twisting her lips to the side. I took the pitcher and left.

When I woke in the morning, there was smoke in my room. I went into the kitchen where Janaki was burning paper to heat water for Aziz’s bath. Tears were flowing from her eyes. When she saw me, she smiled and blew into the brazier. ‘Aziz Sahib catches a cold if he bathes in cold water,’ she explained. ‘He was sick for a month in Peshawar without me to look after him. How did he expect to get better when he refused to take his medicine? Just look how skinny he’s become.’

Aziz had a bath and left on some business, and then Janaki asked me to write a telegram to Sayeed. ‘I should have sent him a telegram as soon as I arrived yesterday,’ she said. ‘What have I done? He must be so worried!’ She dictated the telegram. She mentioned how she had arrived safely, but she was more interested in asking about his health and urged him to take his shots according to the doctor’s orders.

Four days passed. Janaki sent Sayeed five telegrams, but he didn’t reply even once. She was thinking about going to Bombay when one evening Aziz’s health suddenly got worse. She dictated another telegram for Sayeed and then was busy taking care of Aziz all night. It was an ordinary fever, but Janaki was overcome with anxiety, which seemed strange until I realized that a part of it was due to her concern over Sayeed’s silence. Over those four days, she said to me time and again, ‘Saadat Sahib! I’m sure Sayeed Sahib is sick, otherwise he definitely would have written back.’

On the fifth evening we were all sitting around and Janaki was laughing about something when a telegram arrived from Sayeed. It read, ‘I’m very sick. Come immediately.’ As soon as Janaki read this, she fell silent. Aziz didn’t like this at all, and when he addressed her, his tone was sharp. I left the room.

When I came back in the evening, Aziz and Janaki were sitting apart from one another as though they had been fighting. Janaki’s cheeks were stained with tears. After we chatted for a while, Janaki picked up her purse and said to Aziz, ‘I’m going, but I’ll be back very soon.’ Then she addressed me, ‘Saadat Sahib, please look after him. He still has a slight fever.’

I went with her to the station. I bought a ticket on the black market, saw her to her seat and left. Then I returned to the apartment, and Aziz and I stayed up late talking but we never mentioned Janaki.

The third day, at about five thirty in the morning, I heard the door open and then Janaki impatiently asking Aziz about his health and whether he had taken his medicine in her absence. I couldn’t hear how he replied, but half an hour later, with my eyes still heavy with sleep, I heard him speaking to her, and although I couldn’t make out his exact words, he was clearly angry.

At ten in the morning Aziz had a cold bath, ignoring the water Janaki had heated for him. When I mentioned to her that he’d left the water untouched in the bathroom, her eyes welled with tears.

Aziz left after bathing, and Janaki flopped down on the bed. In the afternoon I went to check on her and discovered she had a high fever. When I went out to get a doctor, I found Aziz putting his things into a horse-drawn carriage. ‘Where are you going?’ I asked. He shook my hand and said, ‘Bombay. God willing, we’ll meet again.’ Then he sat down in the carriage and left. I didn’t even have a chance to tell him Janaki had a severe fever.

The doctor examined Janaki and told me she had bronchitis. If she wasn’t careful, it might turn into pneumonia. The doctor wrote a prescription and left, and then Janaki asked about Aziz. At first I thought I shouldn’t tell her, but then I realized nothing would be gained from concealing the truth, and so I told her he had left. She was devastated. She buried her face in her pillow and cried.

The next day around eleven when Janaki’s fever dropped one degree and her health seemed a little better, a telegram arrived from Sayeed. He wrote in a harsh tone, ‘Remember, you didn’t keep your promise.’ Then in spite of her fever and my attempts to stop her, she left for Bombay on the Pune Express.

After five or six days a telegram arrived from Narayan, ‘Urgent. Come to Bombay ASAP.’ I thought he meant he had talked to some producer about my contract, but when I arrived in Bombay, I learned that Janaki’s health was very poor. Her bronchitis had in fact turned into pneumonia. Moreover, after getting to Bombay, she had fallen and scraped both her thighs very badly while trying to board a local train to Andheri.

Narayan told me that Janaki had suffered through this with great courage. But after she had reached Andheri, Sayeed had pointed at her packed bags and had said, ‘Please leave.’ Narayan said, ‘When she heard Sayeed’s icy words, she turned completely to stone. The thought must have crossed her mind, “Why didn’t I die underneath the train?” Saadat, say what you will, but no man should treat women like Sayeed does! The poor soul had a fever and then had fallen trying to board a train and only because she was rushing to see this bastard. But Sayeed didn’t stop to think about this. He just repeated, “Please leave.” Manto, he said this so coldly, it was as if he was reading from a newspaper.’

This made me very sad, and I got up and left. When I came back in the evening, Janaki wasn’t there but Sayeed was, sitting on his bed, a glass of rum in front of him, and he was busy writing a poem. I didn’t say anything but went straight to my room.

The next day at the studio, Narayan told me Janaki was at the house of one of the studio’s extra girls and that her health was precarious. He said, ‘I talked to the owner of the studio and then sent Janaki to the hospital. She’s been there since yesterday. Tell me, what should I do? I can’t go to see her since she hates me. You go and check on her.’

I got to the hospital, and she immediately asked about Aziz and Sayeed. After all they had done to her, it was impressive that she asked about them with affection.

Her health was very poor. The doctor told me that both of her lungs were inflamed and her life was in danger, and yet I was surprised by how Janaki bore all her difficulties with such manly courage.

When I returned from the hospital and looked for Narayan in the studio, I learned he had been missing since the morning. When he returned to the house in the evening, he showed me three small glass vials.

‘Do you know what these are?’ he asked.

‘No. It looks like medicine.’

Narayan smiled. ‘Exactly. Penicillin.’

I was very surprised because penicillin was in short supply. Despite the quantities produced in America and England, very little got to India and that was reserved for the military hospitals. I asked Narayan, ‘Penicillin’s so scarce. How did you get it?’

He smiled and said, ‘When I was a boy, I was very good at stealing money from our safe at home. Today I went to the Military Hospital and stole these three vials. Come on, let’s hurry. We’ve got to move Janaki from the hospital to a hotel.’

I took a taxi to the hospital and then took Janaki to a hotel where Narayan had already booked two rooms. Over and over again Janaki weakly asked me why I had brought her there, and each time I told her, ‘You’ll soon find out.’

And when she found out — meaning, when Narayan came into the room holding a syringe — she scowled and turned away. She said to me, ‘Saadat Sahib, tell him to go away!’

Narayan smiled. ‘My dear, spit out all your anger. This is going to save your life.’

Janaki got mad. In spite of her weak condition, she raised herself from the bed, ‘Saadat Sahib, either kick this bastard out, or I’m going.’

Narayan shoved her back down and said, smiling, ‘Nothing’s going to stop this bastard from giving you this injection. If you muck this up, it’s your loss!’

He grabbed Janaki’s arm. He gave the syringe to me and then wet a cotton ball with alcohol. He cleaned her upper arm and then gave me the cotton ball and stuck the needle in her arm. She screamed out, but the penicillin had already entered her arm.

Narayan released his grip, and Janaki began to cry. But Narayan didn’t care. He swabbed the injection site with the cotton ball and left for the next room.

This was at nine o’clock at night. The next injection had to be given three hours later, as Narayan told me that the penicillin would have no effect if more than three hours elapsed between injections. So he stayed up. At about eleven o’clock, he lit the stove, sterilized the syringe and filled it with medicine.

Janaki’s breathing was raspy and her eyes were shut. Narayan cleaned her other arm and again stuck the needle in her arm. Janaki emitted a feeble cry. Narayan took out the needle, cleaned Janaki’s arm, and said to me, ‘The third’s at three o’clock.’

I don’t know when he gave the third and fourth injections, but when I awoke I heard the sound of the stove and Narayan’s asking one of the hotel boys for ice since he had to keep the penicillin cold.

At nine o’clock, when we went into the room to give Janaki her injection, she was lying with her eyes open. She glared with hatred at Narayan but said nothing. Narayan smiled. ‘How are you feeling, my dear?’ Janaki didn’t respond.

Narayan went over and stood next to her. ‘These injections aren’t injections of love. They’re to cure your pneumonia. I swiped this penicillin from the Military Hospital. Okay, turn on your side a little, and slide down your shalwar so I can get at your hips. Have you ever had an injection here?’

Before Janaki could protest, Narayan slid down Janaki’s shalwar and said to me, ‘Get the alcohol swab ready.’

Janaki began to thrash her legs.

‘Janaki! Stop thrashing!’ Narayan said. ‘Nothing’s going to stop me from giving you this shot!’

Narayan gave her the fifth injection. There were fifteen left, and Narayan gave them on a schedule of one every three hours. It was forty-five hours’ work.

Even though Janaki’s health hadn’t noticeably improved after the first five injections, Narayan still had faith in the penicillin’s miraculous powers. He fully believed that she would make it, and we talked on and on about this new drug. At about eleven o’clock a servant brought a telegram for me. A film company in Pune wanted me to come immediately, and I had to go.

After ten or fifteen days, I returned to Bombay in connection with work. After finishing my work, I went to Andheri where Sayeed told me that Narayan was still at the hotel, but because the hotel was in a distant suburb, I spent the night at Sayeed’s.

I reached the hotel at eight the next morning and found the door to Narayan’s room ajar. I entered but the room was empty, and when I opened the door to the next room, guess what I saw?

When Janaki saw me, she hid underneath a quilt. Narayan, who was lying next to her, saw me leaving.

‘Hey, Manto, come in!’ he called out. ‘I always forget to shut the door. Come over here, buddy! Sit over there. But first hand over Janaki’s shalwar, will you?’