Manto: Selected Stories

For Freedom

I no longer remember the year, but they were days when ‘Long Live the Revolution’ rang through the streets of Amritsar. There was a youthfulness to those slogans; they seemed to have something of the spirit of the region’s peasantry who, with baskets of manure on their heads, would slice through the city’s bazaars. What days they were! The fear that had hung in the air after Jallianwala Bagh had wholly disappeared. And a fearless longing had taken its place, a blind abandon, ignorant of all destination.

People shouted slogans, held demonstrations, were arrested in the dozens. Getting arrested became an amusing pastime — arrested in the morning; released in the evening; tried; sentenced to a few months in prison; released; a slogan shouted; imprisoned again.

They were days full of life. A tiny bubble could burst and cause a whirlpool. Someone standing in a square might say, ‘There should be a strike.’ And there was a strike. A ripple would rise: every man ought to wear khadi so that all Lancashire’s mills would close, and a boycott on foreign cloth would begin, pyres springing up in every square. People became impassioned, and then and there, tore off their clothes and flung them into the fire. If some woman threw down an unwanted sari from her balcony, the crowd applauded till its hands were sore.

I remember a bonfire outside a police station near the town hall. Sheikhoo, a classmate of mine, grew impassioned, and taking off his silk coat, threw it into the bonfire of foreign cloth. A sea of applause rose because Sheikhoo was the son of a well-known toady. The poor fool, growing still more passionate, took off his silk kurta and surrendered it to the fire. He only realised later that his gold buttons had gone with it!

But, I can’t mock Sheikhoo; I was pretty wild in those days myself. I wanted to get my hands on a pistol and start a terrorist organisation. It didn’t even occur to me that my father was a government pensioner; there was ferment in my heart akin to the kind one has in a game of flash.

School had never really interested me, but during that time, I developed a hatred for my studies. I’d leave the house with my books and head straight to Jallianwala Bagh. I’d stay there till the school day was over, observing the political activities or just lying under a tree’s shadow, looking at the women in the windows of houses beyond, certain that I would soon fall in love with one of them. Why, I can’t say.

There was plenty of bustle at the time in Jallianwala Bagh. Tents and makeshift walls had come up everywhere. In the biggest camp, every two or three days, a ‘dictator’ was appointed who all the volunteers would offer their salaams to. For two to three days, ten to fifteen at the maximum, this dictator would sit there, khadi clad, accepting the greetings of men and women with feigned seriousness. He would collect rice and wheat from the city’s merchants for the communal kitchen and drink endless lassis, which always seemed to be abundant in Jallianwala Bagh. Then, suddenly one day, he’d be arrested and taken off to prison.

I had an old classmate called Shahzada Ghulam Ali. The facts I’m about to recount now will give you some idea of our friendship: we failed the matric exam together, twice; we ran away from home once and went to Bombay. We thought we’d go on to Russia, but our money ran out and we were forced to sleep on pavements, at which point, we wrote letters home, begged forgiveness and made our way back.

Shahzada Ghulam Ali was a beautiful young man. He was tall and fair in the Kashmiri way, with a fine nose, playful eyes and great, rakish charm.

When we were in school, he was not called Shahzada, but later, the city’s revolutionary activities took hold of him. He attended some ten — fifteen meetings, and the demonstrations, the slogans, the garlands of marigolds, the passionate songs, the talk of freedom with lady volunteers, turned him into an amateur revolutionary. Then, one morning he made his first speech. The following day I read in the newspaper that Ghulam Ali had been made Shahzada.

Ghulam Ali became famous throughout Amritsar after he was made Shahzada. It was a small town; it didn’t take long to acquire either a good reputation or a bad one. Where average men were concerned, Amritsaris were very discerning. They were forever exposing each other’s failings, but turned a blind eye to those of their leaders. Perhaps because they were always hungry for a political movement or a stirring speech. A man could be white one day and black the next, but in Amritsar, by changing his colours, a politician could stay alive quite a while. It was a different time — all the big leaders were in jail, their chairs were empty, and though the people had no special need of leaders, the current movement desperately needed men willing to sit, khadi clad, for a day or two in Jallianwala Bagh’s big tents before making a speech and getting arrested.

At the time, new dictatorships sprang up all across Europe. Hitler and Mussolini were being heavily promoted. And perhaps under this influence, the Congress party began churning out ‘dictators’ of its own. By the time it came round to Shahzada Ghulam Ali’s turn, some forty ‘dictators’ had already been arrested.

I rushed to Jallianwala Bagh as soon as I found out that Ghulam Ali had been made dictator. Outside the big tent, there was a volunteers’ guard. But when Ghulam Ali saw me from inside, he waved me in. There was a mattress on the floor, over which a khadi cover had been draped. It was on this that Ghulam, leaning against a bolster, sat with a few khadi clad merchants, discussing vegetables, I believe. In a few a minutes, he finished this conversation, gave a few volunteers their orders, and turned his attention towards me. It tickled me to see this uncharacteristic seriousness, and when he sent away the volunteers, I laughed out loud. ‘So then, Mr Shahzada, tell me more?’

And though I sat there at length, poking fun at Ghulam Ali, I sensed a change in him, a change of which he was not unaware himself. He said many times to me, ‘Don’t Saadat, don’t make fun of me. I know that the head is small and the crown big, but from now on, this is my life.’

Every evening Jallianwala Bagh filled with people. Because I came early, I found a place close to the platform. Ghulam Ali appeared after loud applause, handsome and attractive, in spotless white khadi clothes. His rakish charm made him seem still more attractive. He spoke for about an hour. During the course of the speech, there were many moments when the hairs on my body stood on end. Once or twice, I even wished that I could explode like a bomb, thinking perhaps India might become free if I did.

The years that have passed since then! To now recount that time and the feelings it aroused in us, is difficult. But as I sit down to write this story, and think of Ghulam Ali’s speech, it is the voice of youth, a youth wholly untainted by politics, that rings in my ears. It contained the pure fearlessness of a young man who seemed, in a moment, to be able to grab a young woman, also travelling the road, and to say to her, ‘Listen, I want you’, and in the next, to be imprisoned by the law. Since then, I’ve had the good fortune to listen to many more speeches, but that madness, that extreme youth, that adolescent feeling, the boyish timbre I heard that night in Shahzada Ghulam Ali’s voice, I haven’t heard so much as a faint echo of again. The speeches I hear now are cold, serious, heavy with stale politics and writerly glibness.

At that time, both the government as well as the public were still inexperienced. They were at each other’s throats with no thought of the consequences. The government imprisoned people without understanding what it meant. And the imprisoned went to jail without knowing what their objective was.

It was a sham of sorts, but a combustible sham. People leapt up like flames, burnt and died, then flamed again. And with this flaming and dying, the sad, sleep-filled atmosphere of bondage was infused with a fiery dynamism.

When Shahzada Ghulam Ali’s speech ended, all of Jallianwala Bagh was alight with applause and slogans. Ghulam Ali’s face glowed with emotion. When I went up to the stage and pressed his hand in congratulation, I could feel it shaking. He seemed breathless. Besides the passion in his eyes, I thought I also saw a kind of hunger. He seemed to be searching for someone. And then suddenly, he separated his hand from mine and walked in the direction of a jasmine bush. A girl stood there, dressed in a spotless khadi sari.

The next day, I heard that Shahzada Ghulam Ali was in the grip of a new love. It was the girl I had seen standing deferentially near the jasmine bush. And his love was not unreturned; Nigar was just as captivated by him. As apparent from the name, Nigar was a Muslim girl, and an orphan. She was a nurse at the women’s hospital and perhaps the first Muslim girl to step out of purdah to join the Congress’ movement.

Her khadi dress, her participation in the Congress’ activities and her work at the hospital had worn down Nigar’s Islamic rigidity — that particular severity one finds in all Muslim girls — softening her slightly.

She was not beautiful, but a singular specimen of womanhood. The combination of humility and selflessness that characterises dutiful Hindu women, making them worthy of worship, was blended lightly into Nigar, producing a colour in her that lifted the soul. Though at the time it did not occur to me, as I write now, and think of Nigar, I feel that she was like a beguiling compound of Muslim prayer and Hindu ritual.

Nigar worshipped Shahzada Ghulam Ali and he, too, was devoted to her. When I spoke to him about her, I discovered that they had met during the Congress’ movement. And within a few days of their first meeting, they had sworn love to one another.

Ghulam Ali intended to make Nigar his wife before he went to jail. I can’t remember what his reasons were, as he could just as easily have married her when he returned from jail. In those days, no one went for very long: three months at the minimum and a year at the outside; some were released after no more than fifteen to twenty days so that room could be made for new prisoners. But he’d expressed this intention to Nigar and she was absolutely ready. All that was left to be done was to obtain Babaji’s blessings.

Babaji, as you might know, was an important figure. At the time, he was staying a little outside the city, at the luxurious house of the millionaire Lala Hari Ram Siraf. He spent most of his time at the ashram he’d built in a nearby village, but when in Amritsar, he only stayed at Lala Hari Ram’s house. With his arrival, the house became a place of pilgrimage for his followers. All day a stream of devotees flowed through it. At the end of the day, he would sit outside the house, on a raised platform under a cluster of mango trees, and meet people and receive donations for his ashram. Once he’d listened to a few minutes of devotional singing, he’d bring the audience to an end.

Babaji was a pious, compassionate, learned man and for this reason Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and untouchables alike became his followers, considering him their spiritual leader.

He showed no interest in politics, but it was an open secret that every political movement in Punjab began and ended at his ashram.

In the eyes of the government, he was a problem with no solution, a political enigma that its mightiest intellectuals couldn’t crack. A faint smile from his thin lips was interpreted in a thousand different ways. And Babaji would unveil yet another meaning, leaving a mesmerised public still more mesmerised.

The ongoing civil disobedience movement in Amritsar, which was rapidly sending people to prison, was the work of Babaji’s ashram. Every evening, in his open meetings, he would issue a small statement from his toothless mouth regarding the freedom movement in Punjab and the government’s draconian policies. The most important leaders would cling to his words as though they were sacred amulets.

People swore that his eyes possessed a magnetic power; that there was a kind of magic in his voice; and then the cool of that smiling mind, which the filthiest insult and the most poisonous abuse could not, for even a fraction of a moment, perturb! It was this that was the cause of so much distress to his opponents.

Babaji had held several demonstrations in Amritsar. But I, for some reason, despite having seen all the other leaders, had never laid eyes on him, not even from a distance. And so, when Ghulam Ali spoke to me of going to see him to request his permission to marry, I asked to be taken along as well. The following day, Ghulam Ali organised a horse carriage and we set out early for Lala Hari Ram luxurious house.

Babaji, having completed his ablutions and morning prayers, was listening to a beautiful panditani singing patriotic songs. He sat on a fig leaf mat spread out over a floor of sugar white tiles. A bolster lay near him, but he didn’t use it for support.

Except for the mat on which Babaji sat, there was no furniture in the room. From one edge of it to the other, the white tiles gleamed. Their gleam seemed to accentuate the panditani’s beauty, with her faintly onion pink cheeks and her patriotic songs.

Babaji would have been older than seventy, but his body (he only wore a saffron-coloured loincloth) was free of wrinkles. There was a glow to his skin. I later found out that every morning before bathing, he had olive oil rubbed into his body. He glanced briefly at Shahzada Ghulam Ali, then looked at me as well and, responding to our greeting with a smile, gestured to us to sit down.

Looking back, I find the scene not only interesting, but worthy of close attention. Sitting before me in an ascetic’s asana on a fig leaf mat was an old, half naked man. His posture, his bald head, his half open eyes, his dark, soft body, his face’s every feature, emanated resolve. He seemed to know that the mightiest earthquake could not unseat him from the pedestal on which the world had placed him. Some distance from him, a newly blossomed flower of the Kashmir valley bowed reverentially. She bowed both out of respect for being in the presence of this elderly man, and because she was moved by her own patriotic song. Her extreme youth seemed to want to break out of the rough white sari she wore, and to sing not just patriotic songs, but songs of her youth which, apart from revering this elderly man, might also have liked to honour some young, vigorous figure who’d grab her soft wrist and take her headlong into the roaring bonfire of life. A silent contest seemed to arise between the girl’s onion pink cheeks, dark, lively eyes and storm-filled breasts, concealed in a rough khadi blouse, and the old ascetic’s robust conviction and stony satisfaction. It seemed to say, ‘Come, either unseat me from this place where I sit now and pull me down, or take me still higher.’

The three of us, Shahzada Ghulam Ali, Nigar and I, went to one side and sat down. I was struck dumb. Babaji’s presence as well as the panditani’s unstained beauty were very affecting. Even the floor’s gleaming tiles transfixed me. I found myself thinking, even if she allows me to do nothing else, I want to kiss her eyes. The image sent a shiver through my body. My mind jumped immediately to thoughts of my maid, whom I’d recently developed something of a crush on. I felt for a moment like leaving them all there and rushing home; perhaps I’d be successful in taking her up to the bathroom without anyone seeing. But when my gaze returned to Babaji and the patriotic song’s passion-filled lyrics rang in my ears, I felt a different kind of frisson go through my body. I thought, if only I could get my hands on a pistol, I’d go down to Civil Lines and make a small start by gunning down the English.

Next to me sat Nigar and Ghulam Ali, two people in love. It had been unconsummated for too long and now, perhaps a little tired, they wished for it to swiftly reveal its colours with their becoming one. And this was what they had really come to ask Babaji, their spiritual leader, permission for. In that moment, apart from the patriotic song, the beautiful, but yet unheard words of their own life song were ringing in their ears.

The song finished. Babaji blessed the panditani with great tenderness. Smiling, he turned to Nigar and Ghulam Ali, looking briefly at me as well.

Ghulam Ali was about to introduce himself, but Babaji had an excellent memory. He said immediately in his sweet voice, ‘Shahzada, you haven’t been arrested yet?’

Ghulam Ali folded his hands and said, ‘Sir, no.’

Babaji took out a single pencil from the pen holder and began to play with it. ‘But I was under the impression,’ he said, ‘that you had already been arrested.’

Ghulam Ali didn’t understand his meaning. Babaji turned to the panditani, and pointing to Nigar, said, ‘Nigar has arrested our Shahzada.’

Nigar reddened; Ghulam Ali’s mouth fell open with surprise; the panditani’s onion pink cheeks acquired a serene glow. She looked at Nigar and Ghulam Ali as if to say, ‘This is very good news.’

Babaji once again turned towards the panditani. ‘These children have come to ask my permission to marry. And what of you, Kamal? When will you marry?’

So this panditani’s name was Kamal! Babaji’s sudden question made her start; her onion pink complexion turned red.

In a trembling voice, she replied, ‘But I am to go to your ashram.’

A faint sigh seemed wrapped up in these words, which Babaji’s quick mind took instant note of. He continued to look at her, and smiling in his ascetic’s way, addressed Ghulam Ali and Nigar, ‘So, the two of you have made your decision?’

‘Yes,’ they both replied in subdued voices.

Babaji looked at them with his fine eyes. ‘When men make decisions, they sometimes have to unmake them as well.’

Despite Babaji’s formidable presence, Ghulam Ali’s naive, fearless youth spoke. ‘This decision might, for some reason, have to be altered, but it won’t be unmade.’

Babaji closed his eyes, and in a lawyerly tone, asked, ‘Why?’

Ghulam Ali, surprisingly, was not the slightest bit perturbed. Perhaps this time, the purity of his love for Nigar spoke. ‘Babaji, take the decision we’ve made to free India. Now, perhaps Time will alter our plans, but the decision itself will stand.’

Babaji, I felt, didn’t think it apposite to argue the point. And so, he smiled. The meaning of this smile, like all his smiles, could be interpreted in completely different ways. And if Babaji were to have been asked what it meant, I’m certain he would have drawn out yet another interpretation, entirely different from ours.

But, anyway! This many layered smile widened on his thin lips, and turning to Nigar, Babaji said, ‘Nigar, you come to our ashram. Shahzada will in any case be arrested any day now.’

‘Yes, alright,’ she replied in a quiet voice.

After this, Babaji turned the conversation away from the subject of marriage and towards the political activities in the Jallianwala Bagh camp. Ghulam, Nigar and Kamal sat at length, discussing arrests, releases, milk, lassi and vegetables while I, still struck dumb, was left wondering why Babaji had been so tentative in giving his consent to the marriage. Did he doubt Ghulam Ali and Nigar’s love for each other? Did he mistrust Ghulam Ali’s integrity? Had he invited Nigar to the ashram so that she might forget her soon to be imprisoned fiancé? And as for Babaji’s question, ‘When will you marry, Kamal?’, why had Kamal replied, ‘But I am to go to your ashram’? Did men and women not marry in the ashram? My mind came under the grip of a strange turmoil even as those around me discussed whether the lady volunteers would be able to prepare chapattis on time for five hundred. Were there enough chickpeas? How big was the pan? And couldn’t a single large wood stove be constructed with a pan of the same size, on which as many as six women could make rotis simultaneously?

I wondered whether Kamal, the panditani, would spend her time in the ashram singing patriotic and devotional songs for Babaji. I had met some of the ashram’s male volunteers. The whole lot of them, according to the rules of the place, rose early, bathed, brushed their teeth, lived in the open, sang devotional songs, but their clothes reeked of sweat, often their breath was bad and that colour and vigour that comes to men when they live in the outdoors was entirely absent in them.

Stooped, subdued, sallow, sunken-eyed and weakbodied, like some cow’s deflated udders, lifeless and inert, yes, I’d seen the ashram’s men often in Jallianwala Bagh. But now I wondered, would the murky eyes of these same men who stank somehow of stale grass ogle this panditani made of milk, honey and saffron? Would these same men, with their foul-smelling breath, make conversation with this fragranced creature? Then I checked myself, India’s independence was more important than these considerations; maybe.

For all my love of my country and my passion for independence, I couldn’t quite comprehend this ‘maybe’ because at that moment I thought of Nigar, sitting next to me, telling Babaji that turnips take a long time to soften. Where were turnips and where was the marriage that she and Ghulam Ali had come to seek permission for!

I began to think of Nigar in the ashram. I hadn’t seen it myself, but I have always — I’m not sure why — felt a hatred for these places that go by the names of ashrams, shelters, seminaries and retreats. I have on many occasions seen the students and administrators of these shelters for the blind and orphaned, walking the streets in a column, begging for money. I have seen seminaries and madrasas with boys in shortened religious pyjamas, their foreheads calloused from prayer, in childhood; the older ones, with their thick, black beards; the younger, with that truly repugnant combination of thick and fine hair on their cheeks and chins. They carry on piously reading their prayers, but in each of their eyes, animal passions are clearly visible.

Nigar was a woman, not a Muslim, Hindu or Christian woman, just a woman; no, she was more than that, she was like a prayer incarnate of her love for Ghulam Ali. A woman like this had no need to raise her hands in prayer at Babaji’s ashram, where daily prayer was a regulation.

When I look back now, Babaji, Nigar, Ghulam Ali, the beautiful panditani and Amritsar’s entire atmosphere at that time, infused with the romance of the independence movement, appear to me like a dream, a dream which, once dreamt, begs to be dreamt again. And though I still haven’t seen Babaji’s ashram, the antipathy I possessed for it then, I still possess now.

I have no regard for those places where men are frogmarched along rules that run contrary to their nature. Attaining independence was, without a doubt, the right thing to do and I could understand it if a man should die in attaining it, but that some poor wretch should be defanged, made as benign as a vegetable for its sake — this was utterly beyond my comprehension.

Living in huts, forsaking bodily comforts, singing God’s praises, shouting patriotic slogans — all this was fine, but to slowly deaden one’s senses, one’s bodily desires — what was meant by that? What was left of a man in whom the longing for beauty and drama had died? What distinctiveness, what particularity could remain then between the various pastures of these ashrams, madrasas, shelters and retreats?

Babaji sat at length, talking to Ghulam Ali and Nigar about the political activities at Jallianwala Bagh. At last, he said to this couple who, naturally, hadn’t forgotten their original purpose in coming to see him, that they should come the following evening to Jallianwala Bagh, where they would be made man and wife.

Ghulam Ali and Nigar were elated. What better fortune could they have than Babaji himself conducting their marriage ceremony. Ghulam Ali told me much later, that he was so happy at the news that he felt he had misheard it. Even a slight gesture from Babaji’s frail hands became a historical incident. Would such a great personage really come to Jallianwala Bagh to take interest in the marriage of an ordinary man such as himself, who had only by accident become the Congress ‘dictator’! Surely, it would be front page news in every newspaper in India.

Ghulam Ali was sure that Babaji wouldn’t come; he would be too busy — although he said this in the hope that the opposite would occur. He was proved wrong. At six in the evening in Jallianwala Bagh, when bushes of raat ki rani prepared to diffuse their fragrance, and countless volunteers, after erecting a tent for the bride and groom, now decorated it with jasmine and roses, Babaji, accompanied by the patriotic, song-singing panditani, his secretary and Lala Hari Ram, arrived, pawing the ground with his stick. News of his arrival reached Jallianwala Bagh the moment Lala Hari Ram’s green car stopped in front of the main entrance.

I was there too. In one tent, the lady volunteers were dressing Nigar up as a bride. Ghulam Ali had made no special preparations. He had spent most of the day with the city’s Congress merchants, discussing the volunteers’ needs. His few spare moments, he spent talking to Nigar in private. He didn’t brief his subordinate officers any more than telling them that Nigar and he wished to raise the flag after the marriage ceremony.

When Ghulam Ali received news of Babaji’s arrival, he was standing near the well. I was perhaps telling him at the time: ‘Ghulam Ali, do you know that when the bullets flew here, this well became full to the brim with bodies. Today, everyone drinks its water. The garden’s flowers soak it up and people come and pick the flowers. And yet, there’s never the salty taste of blood in the water or flower buds carrying something of its redness. What a thing!’

I remember well, I said this and looked ahead at the window of a house from which it is said that a young girl had sat watching the scenes below, when she became the victim of one of General Dyer’s stray bullets. The streaks of blood from her chest faded slowly from the house’s old walls.

But blood had become cheap, and spilling it hardly produced the same effect anymore. I remember that seven or eight months after the massacre in Jallianwala Bagh, my third or fourth grade teacher had brought the entire class here. The garden then was not a garden; it was a dry, desolate, uneven piece of land where, at every step, one’s foot knocked against the lumpy earth. I remember our teacher finding a piece of mud, stained perhaps with paan spittle. ‘Look,’ he said, holding it up before the class, ‘it’s still stained with the blood of our martyrs.’

As I write this story, countless other incidents, etched into my memory, rise to the surface. But yes, I was recounting the story of Ghulam Ali and Nigar’s wedding!

When Ghulam Ali heard of Babaji’s arrival, he rushed to gather all the other volunteers, who greeted Babaji with a military style salute. After this, he and Ghulam Ali spent considerable time doing the rounds of the various camps. Babaji, who had a sharp sense of humour, cracked a number of one-liners as he spoke to the lady volunteers and other workers.

When candles could be seen burning in the occasional window, and a kind of half-light fell over Jallianwala Bagh, all the female volunteers began to sing devotional songs in one voice. A few were harmonious; the rest, tuneless. But their collective effect was pleasing. Babaji closed his eyes and listened. About one thousand people were present, sitting around the stage on the floor. Except for the girls singing devotional songs, everybody else sat in silence.

The singing ended and for some moments a pregnant silence prevailed. When Babaji opened his eyes and said in his sweet voice, ‘Children, as you know, I’ve come here today to make two lovers of freedom one,’ the garden erupted in passionate slogans.

Nigar, in her bridal clothes, sat on one end of the stage with her head lowered. She looked beautiful in her khadi tricolour sari. Babaji gestured to her to come over and sat her down next to Ghulam Ali. At this, more passionate slogans rang out. Ghulam Ali’s face glowed more brightly than usual. I looked closely and saw that when he took the marriage documents from his friend and gave them to Babaji, his hands were trembling.

There was a maulvi on the stage as well. He read the Koranic verses that are usually read on these occasions. Babaji closed his eyes. Once the marriage rites were complete, Babaji blessed the couple in his distinct way. And when dried dates were showered on the stage, he jumped at them like a child, collecting a few to keep next to him.

A Hindu girlfriend of Nigar’s, smiling shyly, gave Ghulam Ali a little box and said something to him. Ghulam Ali opened the little box and marked Nigar’s forehead with a streak of sindoor. Jallianwala Bagh once again thundered with applause. Babaji rose to address this clamour. The crowd immediately fell silent.

The pleasant scent of raat ki rani and jasmine floated through the mild evening air. It was a beautiful evening. Babaji’s voice seemed sweeter still. After expressing his heartfelt joy at Ghulam Ali and Nigar’s marriage, he said, ‘These children will now serve their country and community with greater strength and purity. Because the true purpose of marriage is the pure friendship between a man and a woman. By being joined in friendship, Ghulam Ali and Nigar, together, can strive for freedom. In Europe, there are many such marriages whose objective is friendship and friendship alone. People such as these who remove lust from their lives are worthy of our respect.’

Babaji spoke at length about his convictions on marriage. His belief was that the real happiness of marriage could only be attained when the relations between a man and a woman were not physical. He didn’t set nearly the same store by the sexual relationship between a man and a woman as society did. Thousands ate to satisfy their palate, but that didn’t mean that doing so was a human obligation. Far fewer ate only to stay alive. But in reality, it was these few who knew the correct principles behind eating and drinking. Similarly, those who married so that they might know the higher sentiments of marriage, and realise its full purity, were the ones who would know the true joy of conjugal life.

Babaji explained the principles behind his convictions with a delicacy and subtlety that left the listener feeling that the doors to an entirely new world had opened for him. I myself found it very affecting. Ghulam Ali, who sat in front of me, seemed to drink in every word of his speech. When Babaji finished speaking, he said something to Nigar. After this, he rose and in a trembling voice announced: ‘Mine and Nigar’s marriage will be such an honourable marriage. Until the time when India attains its independence, mine and Nigar’s relationship will be no more than a friendship.’

The still air of Jallianwala Bagh broke with the thunder of applause. Shahzada Ghulam Ali became emotional. His fair Kashmiri face filled with colour. In a surge of feeling he turned to Nigar and addressed her in a loud voice: ‘Nigar! Are you willing to mother a slave child? Would that please you?’

Nigar, already unsettled, in part from becoming so recently married, and in part from hearing Babaji’s speech, became still more perturbed when she heard this bolt from the blue. She was only able to say, ‘Sorry? No, no, of course not.’

The crowd applauded again and Ghulam Ali became still more emotional. He was so overjoyed at having saved Nigar from the shame of mothering slave children that he strayed from the subject at hand and launched into a tirade on attaining independence. For more than an hour, he spoke in a voice filled with emotion. Then, all of a sudden, his gaze fell on Nigar, and for some reason, his charge drained out of him. Like a drunk man forking out note after note and finding his wallet suddenly empty, Ghulam Ali found his power of speech exhausted. It left him in some turmoil, but then he looked immediately at Babaji, and lowering his head in reverence, said, ‘Babaji, we both ask your blessings that we may remain steadfast in the oath we have taken tonight.’

The next day, at six in the morning, Ghulam Ali was arrested because in the speech he made after taking his oath, he had also threatened to overthrow the British government.

A few days after his arrest, Ghulam Ali was sentenced to eight months in prison and sent to Multan jail. He was Amritsar’s forty first dictator and perhaps its forty thousand and first political prisoner. Forty thousand, as far as I can remember, was what the newspapers were quoting as the number arrested in the movement. The general view was that independence was now just a few steps away. But it had been the foreign politicians who had allowed the milk of this movement to reach its boiling point. And when they found they couldn’t come to an agreement with the major Indian leaders, it turned quickly to cold lassi.

When the zealots were released from jail, they were forced to put the hardships of prison behind them, and set to work repairing their damaged businesses. Shahzada Ghulam Ali was released after only seven months. Though their former passion had fizzled out, people still gathered at Amritsar station to welcome him back. There were three or four dinners and meetings in his honour. I was present at all of them, but these gatherings were totally insipid. A strange fatigue prevailed, as if a man in the middle of a long distance run had suddenly been told, ‘Stop, this race has to be run again.’ And now, after catching their breath a while, it was as if the runners were reluctantly making their way back to the starting line.

Many years passed. That joyless fatigue didn’t leave India. In my own world, many big and small revolutions occurred: my facial hair grew; I was admitted to college; I failed the FA examinations twice; my father died; I wandered about in search of employment. I was employed as a translator in a third rate newspaper. When I tired of this, I thought again of education. I was admitted to Aligarh University, but became a TB patient within only three months and went off to wander the Kashmiri countryside. Returning, I made for Bombay. Here, I saw three Hindu — Muslim riots in two years. When my nerves played up again, I went to Delhi. Compared to Bombay, I found everything there slowpaced. If there was movement here, it felt somehow effete. I felt Bombay was better. What did it matter that my next door neighbour didn’t even find the time to ask me my name? Besides, all kinds of sicknesses grew in places where people have too much time on their hands. And so after two cold years spent in Delhi, I went back to ever-moving Bombay.

It had been some eight years since I had left home. I had had no news of friends or acquaintances, knew nothing of what state Amritsar’s streets and alleys were in. I had written no letters, kept up no correspondence. Truth be told, in those eight years, I had become somewhat uncaring of my future and so, didn’t dwell too long on the past. What was the point of accounting for what had been spent eight years before? After all, in life the pennies that are important are the ones you want to spend today or that might gain in value tomorrow.

I speak now of a time six years ago, when neither from life’s rupees nor from silver ones, which carry the stamp of the emperor, had a penny been spent. But I couldn’t have been too broke though because I was on my way at the time to Fort to buy myself an expensive pair of shoes. On one side of the Army and Navy store on Harbani Road, there was a shop whose display windows had attracted me for a while. My memory is weak and so I spent a considerable amount of time looking for the shop.

I had come to buy one pair of expensive shoes, but as is my tendency, I became absorbed by the displays in the other shops. I looked at a cigarette case in one shop, a pipe in another, and in this way, had wandered down the street until I found myself outside a small shoe shop. Standing in front of it, I thought, why not just buy my shoes here? The shopkeeper welcomed me and said, ‘What are you looking for, sir?

I thought for a moment about what I wanted, and said, ‘Yes, crepe rubber sole shoes.’

‘We don’t stock them here.’

The monsoon was approaching and so I thought that maybe I should buy some gumboots.

‘In the next door shop,’ the man replied. ‘We don’t stock any items made of rubber in this shop.’

‘Why?’ I asked absentmindedly.

‘The owner’s wish.’

Receiving this brief but faultless reply, I was about to leave the shop when I caught sight of a well dressed man standing on the pavement outside, carrying a child and buying oranges. I stepped outside and walked towards the fruit seller.

‘Arre! Ghulam Ali!’

‘Saadat!’ he said, and with the child still in his arms, pressed me against his chest. The child didn’t like this at all, and began to bawl. Ghulam Ali called over the man who a moment ago had told me that the shop didn’t stock anything made of rubber, and handed him the child. ‘Go and take him home,’ he said, then turning to me: ‘God, it’s been a long time!’

I looked closely at his face. That playfulness, that rakish charm that had been his distinctive feature was gone. In place of the khadi clad young man, the fiery orator, there stood a domestic, ordinary sort of man. I remembered that last speech of his when he had set the still air of Jallianwala Bagh alight with the words, ‘Nigar! Are you willing to mother a slave child? Would that please you?’ Then, suddenly, I thought of the child he had been carrying a moment before. ‘Whose child was that?’ I asked. Without any hesitation, he replied, ‘Mine. And there’s one older than him as well. And you? How many have you produced?’

For an instant I felt that someone other than Ghulam Ali was speaking. All kinds of thoughts arose in my mind. Had Ghulam Ali completely forgotten his oath? Had he broken entirely with his political past? That passion to win India its independence, that temerity, where had it gone? What had happened to the boyish timbre of that voice? Where was Nigar? Had it pleased her in the end to mother two slave children? Perhaps she’d died. Perhaps Ghulam Ali had married again?

‘What are you thinking? Speak to me, man. We’re meeting after such a long time,’ Ghulam Ali said, slapping me hard on the shoulders.

I had fallen into silence. ‘Yes,’ I said with a start, still wondering how to initiate conversation. But without waiting for me, Ghulam Ali began, ‘This shop is mine. I’ve been in Bombay for the past two years. The business is going really well. I end up saving some three, four hundred every month. What are you up to? I hear you’ve become a famous short story writer. Do you remember we once ran away from home and came here? But it’s a strange thing, man, that Bombay and this Bombay seem so different. It feels as though that was smaller, and this bigger, somehow.’

In the meantime, a customer appeared, wanting tennis shoes. Ghulam told him, ‘We don’t stock anything made of rubber here. Try the shop next door.’ When he’d gone, I said to Ghulam Ali, ‘Why don’t you stock anything made of rubber? In fact, I myself was just in there, looking for crepe rubber soled shoes.’

I’d asked the question casually, but Ghulam Ali’s face all of a sudden became expressionless. In a low voice, he said no more than, ‘I don’t like it.’

‘Don’t like what?’

‘Just that, rubber; things made from rubber.’

Saying this, he feigned a smile, but failing, cackled mirthlessly. ‘I’ll tell you,’ he continued, ‘I have a horror of it, but it has a very deep connection to my life.’

An expression of profound anxiety appeared on Ghulam Ali’s face. His eyes, which still had some sparkle, dimmed for a moment, then brightened again. ‘It was rubbish, man, that life. To tell the truth, Saadat, I’ve forgotten those days completely, when I had politics on the brain. For four or five years now, I’ve been living in great peace. I have a wife, kids… God’s been kind.’

Moved still by God’s kindness, Ghulam Ali began talking shop, about how much capital he’d begun with, his annual profit, how much he now had in the bank. I stopped him mid-sentence. ‘You were saying that you had a horror of something and that it had a deep connection to your life.’

Once again his face became expressionless. He emitted a loud ‘yes’ and replied, ‘There was a deep connection. Fortunately, there no longer is. But I’ll have to tell you the whole story.’

In the meantime, his servant reappeared. Ghulam Ali put him in charge of the shop, and took me inside to his room. There, he sat me down and recounted at length the story of how his hatred of rubber had come to him.

‘I don’t need to tell you how my political life began, you know the story well. There’s no need to tell you what my character was, you know that too. We were very alike in many ways. I mean to say that neither of our parents was in a position to say, “Our sons are perfect.” I don’t know why I’m telling you this, perhaps only to say, as you probably already know, that I was not a man of particularly firm character. But what I did have was the urge to do something. This is what drew me to politics. And I can say with all honesty that I wasn’t a liar. I was prepared to give my life for my country. Even now, I’m prepared. But I’ve come to the conclusion, after much thought and consideration, that India’s politics and its leaders are all, to a man, unready, just as I was. A wave rises, it is provoked, as far as I can tell, for waves don’t rise by themselves, but perhaps I’m not explaining it very well…’

Ghulam Ali’s thoughts were confused. I handed him a cigarette. He lit it, took three large drags and said, ‘What do you think? Don’t you feel that our every effort towards independence has been unnatural, not the effort I mean, but that its result has been unnatural every time? Why haven’t we attained independence? Are we all in some way unmanly? No, we’re all man enough. But we’re in a climate in which our good, strong hand is not even allowed to reach near independence.’

‘Do you mean to say that there’s something standing in the way of us and independence?’ I asked.

Ghulam Ali’s eyes brightened. ‘Absolutely. But this is not some solid wall, not a real barrier. It’s a thin membrane: our own politics, our false existence, in which we not only deceive others, but ourselves as well.’

As before, his thoughts were scattered. My feeling was that he was trying to refresh in his mind, his own past experiences. He put out the cigarette and looking directly at me, said in a loud voice, ‘Men must stay as they are. Is it necessary that someone doing good works should shave his head, don ascetic robes or rub ash over his body? You might say it’s a matter of choice, of will. But I say that it’s from this will itself, from this strange thing man possesses, that they become unmoored. The ones who rise above these things become oblivious to the natural weakness of men. They forget that their strength of character, their views, their principles, all blow away and are forgotten, and all that remain stamped on the minds of naive human beings are their shaved heads, their ash-covered bodies and their ascetic’s clothes.’ Ghulam Ali became still more impassioned. ‘So many spiritual teachers have been born into the world. And though people have forgotten their teachings, their crucifixes, religious threads, beards, steel bangles and armpit hair endure. We, today, are more experienced than the people who lived here a thousand years before. And yet I can’t understand how the spiritual leaders of today don’t see that they are disfiguring people. I’ve felt the urge many times to start screaming, “For God’s sake let men remain men! You’ve defaced them already, fine, now have mercy on their condition. While you’re busy trying to make gods out of them, those poor wretches are losing whatever humanity they do have!” Saadat, I swear to God, this is my soul speaking, I’m telling you what I’ve experienced myself. If what I’m saying is wrong, then nothing is good or right. Two years, two full years, I spent wrestling with my mind. I fought with my heart, my conscience, my body, with every tiny hair on it, but each time I arrived at this conclusion: men must remain men. One in a thousand might kill his appetites, but if everyone was to kill their appetites, one has to ask: where is this mass killing getting us?’ With this, he reached for another cigarette. He burned the matchstick to the end trying to light it, then gave his neck a light jerk. ‘Nothing, Saadat! You don’t know the spiritual and physical misery I’ve had to bear. But anyone who goes against nature is bound to know misery. That day, you’ll recall, when in Jallianwala Bagh, I announced that Nigar and I would not give birth to slave children, I felt a strange kind of electric happiness. I felt, after this announcement, that my head had risen to touch the sky. But when I got out of jail, I began slowly to feel the pain of it… It was a source of torment to realise that I had paralysed a vital part of my soul and body. I took the most beautiful flower from the garden of my life and crushed it in my fingers. In the beginning, I derived a satisfaction from this realisation, knowing that I had done something others couldn’t do. But slowly, reality, with all its bitterness, began to sink in.

‘On returning from jail, I met Nigar. She had left the hospital and had gone to Babaji’s ashram. I felt my eyes deceived me when I saw her changed complexion, her altered physical and mental state. Then, after living with her for a year, I discovered that her sorrow had been the same as mine. But neither she nor I were willing to express it. We were both enchained by our oath. Over the past year, our political passions had cooled. Khadi clothes and tricolour flags now no longer held the same appeal. If “Long Live the Revolution” was still to be heard, it no longer had the same ring to it. And in Jallianwala Bagh, not a single tent remained. The pegs of the old camps could still be seen in places, rooted in the ground. Political passion had drained out of everyone’s blood. I, myself, spent much more time at home with my wife.’ Once again, that wounded smile appeared on Ghulam Ali’s lips and mid-sentence, he fell into silence. Not wanting to break his chain of thought, I said nothing.

A moment later, he wiped the sweat from his forehead and put out his cigarette. ‘We were both in the grip of a strange curse. You know how much I love Nigar. But, I began thinking, what is the nature of this love? I can hold it and yet I won’t allow it to reach its natural climax? Why am I afraid that I might commit a crime without meaning to? You know, I love Nigar’s eyes. And so one morning when I was feeling very fine, not even fine, just normal really, as any man should be, I kissed them. I held her in my arms and a shudder went through me. It could be said that my soul broke free, spreading its wings, ready to make for the open sky, when I… when I seized it again and imprisoned it. Then for many days, I tried to convince myself that from this action of mine, from this heroic achievement, my soul knew a contentment that few others had known. But I failed to convince myself of this, and the knowledge of my failure, which I had tried to think of as a great success, made me — God is my witness — the most unhappy man in the world. But, as you know, men find their excuses. And, I, too, carved out a way.’

‘We were rotting. Inside us, a kind of crust seemed to harden over our finer sensibilities. We became strangers to one another! I thought, after many days of consideration, that even if we stayed true to our oath, I mean that Nigar remained “unwilling to mother a slave child…” ’ As he said this, for the third time, that wounded smile appeared on Ghulam Ali’s lips, but was changed instantly into an aimless cackle, in which his anguish was visible. Then, becoming serious, he said, ‘A strange period began in our married life. Like a blind man granted a single eye, I was able, suddenly, to see. But after only a short while, this vision began to grow dim. In the beginning, we just thought that…’ Ghulam Ali seemed to search for the right words. ‘In the beginning, we were satisfied. I mean, we had no idea that in a short while, we would find ourselves dissatisfied again, that one seeing eye would pressure the other to see as well. In that first stage, we felt ourselves becoming healthy. I could feel our vigour returning. Nigar’s face had a flush to it. A sparkle showed in her eyes. The tension in my body melted away. But then slowly, we became like two rubber figurines. I felt it with greater force. You won’t believe me, but I swear to God, when I’d pinch the flesh of my arms, it was exactly like rubber. It felt as though there were no veins inside. Nigar’s condition, as far as I could tell, was not the same as mine. Her perspective was different: she wanted to be a mother. Whenever a child was born on our street, she would have to silently keep the longing she felt buried in her breast. In my case, I had no thought of children. So what if we didn’t have any? There are many people in the world who are not blessed with children. Much better that I was true to my oath. This was comfort enough, but when fine strands of rubber began to spread like a web over my mind, my fears increased. I thought about it all the time and the result was that the texture of rubber was branded on my mind. I’d eat a bite of food and it would squelch below my teeth.’ He said this and shuddered. ‘It was an evil, disgusting thing. My fingers constantly felt soapy. I began to hate myself. It felt as though all the juices of my soul had been squeezed out and only the husk remained. Spent… spent.’ Ghulam began to laugh. ‘Thank God that curse has passed, but Saadat, after what anguish! Life became like a shrivelled bit of skin; all its beautiful desires had died. Only the sense of touch had become unnaturally acute, not acute really, one dimensional: in wood, in glass, in metal, in paper and in stone, in everything, the dead, nauseating softness of rubber!!! This affliction only became more forceful whenever I tried to think of its cause. I could have lifted this curse with two fingers and cast it aside, but I lacked the courage. I was looking for a saviour. In this sea of distress, I floundered for anything with which I might reach the shore. For a long time, I thrashed around. And then, one morning, I was reading a religious book in the sun, not really reading, glancing through, when my eyes fell on a hadis. I leapt up with happiness. My saviour was there in front of me. I read those lines again and again. My barren life was fertile once more. It was written that after marriage it is obligatory for husband and wife to produce a child. It was only lawful to prevent its birth if the mother’s life was endangered as a result. And so, with two fingers, I lifted this curse and cast it aside.’

Saying this, he smiled like a child. I also smiled because he’d lifted the cigarette butt with two fingers and flicked it to one side as if it was something vile. Then, his smile vanished and he became serious. ‘I know, Saadat,’ he said, ‘that what I’ve told you right now, you’re going to turn into a story. But listen, don’t mock me in it. I swear to you, whatever I’ve told you is exactly what I experienced. I won’t argue with you on this subject, but what I have learned is that to go against nature is in no way, under no circumstances, bravery. It’s no achievement to kill yourself through abstinence, or to endure it. To dig your grave and get in it, holding your breath for days, to sleep for months on beds of sharp nails, to keep one arm raised over your head for years so that it dries up and becomes like a piece of wood — stunts like these will bring neither God nor freedom. And from what I understand of it, the only reason India is still not free is that we’ve had too few leaders and too many stuntmen. What principles there are go against the nature of men. They’ve found a politics that stifles truth and goodness of character and it’s this same politics that has made the struggle for independence so blinkered.’

Ghulam Ali was going to say more when his servant appeared. He carried Ghulam Ali’s second child, perhaps. The boy held a bright balloon in his hand. Ghulam Ali reached adoringly for him. A noise like a firecracker going off was heard. The balloon exploded and the child was left holding a dangling string, attached to a little bit of rubber. Ghulam Ali snatched it with two fingers and threw it aside as though it was something truly repugnant.