Manto: Selected Stories

Ten Rupees

She was playing with the little girls at the far end of the alley. Inside the chawl, her mother hunted for her everywhere. Kishori sat waiting in their room; someone had been told to bring him tea. Sarita’s mother now began searching for her on all three floors of the chawl. Who knew which hole Sarita had gone and died in? She even went into the bathrooms, yelling, ‘Sarita… Sarita!’ But Sarita, as her mother was beginning to realise, was not in the chawl. She was outside on the corner of the alley, near a heap of garbage, playing with the little girls, utterly carefree.

Her mother was in a panic. Kishori sat waiting in the room; the men he’d brought — as promised, two rich men, with a motor car — waited in the main market; but where had her daughter vanished to? She couldn’t even use the excuse of dysentery anymore; she was well now. And rich men with motor cars didn’t come every day. It was Kishori’s benevolence that once or twice a month, he managed to bring clients with motor cars. Normally he was nervous of neighbourhoods like this, with their compound stench of paan and stale bidis. How could he bring rich men here? But because he was smart, Kishori never brought the men to the chawl. Instead, he brought Sarita, bathed and clothed, to them, explaining that ‘these are uncertain times; the place is crawling with police spies; they’ve taken away nearly a hundred working girls; there’s even a case against me in the courts; one has to tread very carefully.’

Sarita’s mother had by now become very angry. When she came down, Ramdi was sitting at the bottom of the stairs, cutting leaves for the bidis as usual. ‘Have you seen Sarita anywhere?’ Sarita’s mother demanded, ‘God knows which hole she’s gone and died in. And today of all days! Wait till I find her! I’ll give her a thrashing she’ll remember in every joint of her body. She’s a full grown woman, you know, and all she ever does is waste the day fooling around with kids.’

Ramdi said nothing and continued to cut the bidi leaves. But Sarita’s mother wasn’t really speaking to her; she was just ranting as usual as she walked past. Every few days, she would go off in search of Sarita, and repeat the same words to Ramdi.

Sarita’s mother would also tell the chawl’s women that she wanted Sarita to marry a clerk some day. This was why she had always impressed upon Sarita the importance of education. The municipality had opened a school nearby and Sarita’s mother wondered if she should admit her daughter there. ‘Sister, you know, her father had such a desire that his daughter should be educated!’ At this point she would sigh, and repeat the story of her dead husband, which every woman in the chawl knew by heart. If you were to say to Ramdi, ‘Alright, when Sarita’s father worked in the railways and the big sahib insulted him, what happened?’ she would immediately reply, ‘Sarita’s father foamed at the mouth and said to the sahib, “I’m not your servant; I’m the government’s servant. You have no right to throw your weight round here. And careful — you insult me again and I’ll rip your jaws out and shove them down your throat.” Then, what? What was bound to happen happened! The sahib was livid and insulted Sarita’s father again. Sarita’s father came forward and delivered such a powerful blow to the sahib’s neck that his hat flew off his head and landed ten paces away and he saw stars in the daytime! But the sahib was not a small man either. He retaliated by kicking Sarita’s father on the back with his army boot, and with such force that his spleen burst, and there and then, by the railway lines, he fell to the floor and breathed his last. The government ran a court case against the sahib and extracted a full five hundred rupees in compensation from him for Sarita’s mother. But her luck was bad. She developed a taste for the lottery, and within five months, she had squandered the money.’

This story was always ready on Sarita’s mother’s lips, but nobody was sure whether or not it was true. In any case, it didn’t evoke any compassion for her in the chawl, perhaps because everyone there was also deserving of compassion. And no one was anyone’s friend. The men, by and large, slept during the day and were awake at night as many worked the night shift at the nearby mill. They lived together, but they showed no interest in each other’s lives.

In the chawl, virtually everyone knew that Sarita’s mother had sent her young daughter into prostitution. But since these were people who treated each other neither well nor badly, they felt no need to expose her when she’d say, ‘My daughter knows nothing of this world.’

One morning, when Tukaram made an advance on Sarita, her mother began to screech and yell, ‘For God’s sake, why doesn’t anyone control this wretched baldy? May the lord make him blind in both the eyes with which he ogles my virgin daughter! I swear, one day, there’ll be such a brawl that I’ll take this darling of yours and beat his head to a pulp with the heel of my shoe. Outside, he can do whatever he wants, but in here he’d better learn to behave like a decent human being, do you hear?’

Hearing this, Tukaram’s cross-eyed wife appeared, knotting her dhoti as she approached. ‘You wretched witch, don’t you dare let one more word escape your lips! This virginal daughter of yours even makes eyes at the boys who hang around the hotel… Do you think we’re all blind? You think we don’t know of the clerks who come to your house? This daughter of yours, Sarita, why does she get all made up and go out? You really have some nerve, coming in here with airs of respectability. Go get lost, somewhere far away, go on!’

There were many well-known stories about Tukaram’s cross-eyed wife. Everyone knew that when the kerosene oil dealer would come with his kerosene, she would take him into her quarter and lock the door. Sarita’s mother loved to draw attention to this. In a voice brimming with hatred, she would repeat, ‘And your lover, the kerosene oil dealer… Two hours at a time, you keep him locked up in your quarter, what are you doing? Sniffing his kerosene oil?’

The spats between Tukaram’s wife and Sarita’s mother never lasted long because one night Sarita’s mother had caught her neighbour exchanging sweet nothings with someone in pitch darkness. And the very next night, Tukaram’s wife had seen Sarita with a ‘gentleman man’ in a motor car. As a result, the two women had made a pact between themselves, which is why Sarita’s mother now said to Tukaram’s wife, ‘Have you seen Sarita anywhere?’

Tukaram wife’s turned her squinting eye in the direction of the street corner, ‘There, near the dump. She’s playing with the manager’s girls.’ Then in a lower voice, she added, ‘Kishori’s just gone upstairs. Did you see him?’

Sarita’s mother looked around her and in a still lower voice said, ‘He’s sitting inside… But Sarita’s never to be found at such times. She doesn’t think, she understands nothing, all she does is spend the day running around.’ With this, Sarita’s mother walked towards the dump. Sarita jumped up when she saw her mother approaching the cemented urinal, the laughter leaving her eyes… Her mother grabbed her arm roughly and said, ‘Come on, come into the house, come in and die… Do you have nothing better to do than play these rowdy games?’ On the way in, in a softer voice, she said, ‘Kishori’s here. He’s been waiting a long time. He’s brought men with motor cars. Go on, run upstairs and get dressed. And wear that blue georgette sari of yours. Oh and listen, your hair’s a terrible mess, get dressed quickly and I’ll come up and comb it.’

Sarita was very happy to hear that rich men with motor cars had come for her, granted she was more interested in the motor cars than in the rich men who drove them. She loved riding in motor cars. When the car would roar down the open streets and the wind would slap her face, then everything would become a whirlwind and she would feel like a tornado tearing down empty streets.

Sarita was no older than fifteen, but with the interests of a girl of thirteen. She didn’t like spending time with grown women at all. Her entire day was taken up, playing silly games with the younger girls. They liked especially to draw chalk lines on the street’s black tar surface, and remained so absorbed in this game that one might almost believe that the street’s traffic depended on them drawing their crooked little lines. Sometimes Sarita would bring out old pieces of sackcloth from her room. And for hours she and her young friends, would remain immersed in the singularly monotonous business of dusting them and laying them out on the footpath to sit on.

Sarita was not beautiful. Her skin was a dusky wheat colour, its texture smooth and glistening in Bombay’s humid climate. Her thin lips, like sapodilla skins, also blackish, were always quivering faintly and a few tiny beads of sweat trembled on her upper lip. She looked robust despite living in squalor; her body was short, pleasing and well-proportioned. She gave the impression that the sheer vitality of her youth had subdued all contrary forces. Men on the streets gazed at her calves whenever her dirty skirt flew up in the wind. Youth had bestowed on them the shine of polished teak. These calves, entirely unacquainted with hair, had small marks on them that recalled orange skins with tiny, juice-filled pores, ready to erupt like fountains at the slightest pressure.

Her arms were also pleasing. The attractive roundness of her shoulders made itself apparent through the baggy, badly stitched blouse she wore. Her hair was thick and long, with the smell of coconut oil rising from it. Her plait, thick like a whip, would thump against her back. But the length of her hair made her unhappy as it got in the way of the games she played; she had invented various ways of keeping it under control.

Sarita was free of all worry and anxiety. She had enough to eat twice a day. Her mother handled all their household affairs. Every morning Sarita filled buckets of water and took them inside; every evening she filled the lamp with one paisa’s worth of oil. Her hand reached habitually every evening for the cup with the money, and taking the lamp, she’d make her way downstairs.

Sarita had come to think of her visits to hotels and dimly lit places with rich men, which Kishori organised four or five times a month, as jaunts. She never gave any thought to the other aspects of these jaunts. She might even have believed that men like Kishori came to all the other girls’ houses too and that they also went on outings with rich men. And what happened on Worli’s cold benches and Juhu’s wet beaches, perhaps happened to all the other girls as well. On one occasion she even said to her mother: ‘Ma, Shanta’s quite old now. Why not send her along with me too? The rich men who just came took me to eat eggs and Shanta loves eggs.’ Sarita’s mother parried the question. ‘Yes, yes, some day I’ll send her along with you. Let her mother return from Pune, no?’ Sarita relayed the good news to Shanta the next day, when she saw her coming out of the bathroom. ‘When your mother returns from Pune, everything will be alright. You’re going to come with me to Worli too!’ Sarita began to recount the night’s activities as if she was reliving a beautiful dream. Shanta, two years younger than Sarita, felt little bells ring through her body as she listened to Sarita. Even when she’d heard all Sarita had to say, she was unsatisfied. She grabbed her by the arm and said, ‘Come on, let’s go downstairs where we can talk.’ There, near the urinal where Girdhari the merchant had laid out dirty coconut husks to dry on gunny sacks, the two girls spoke till late about subjects that made them tingle with excitement.

Now, as she changed hurriedly into her blue georgette sari behind a makeshift curtain, she was aware of the cloth tickling her skin, and her thoughts, like the fluttering of a bird’s wings, returned to riding in the motor car. What would the rich men be like this time; where would they take her? These, and other such questions, didn’t enter her mind. She worried instead that the motor would run only for a few short minutes before their arrival at the door of some hotel. She didn’t like to be confined to the four walls of hotel rooms, with their two metal beds, which were not really meant for her to fall asleep on.

She put on the georgette sari, and smoothing its creases, came and stood for a moment in front of Kishori. ‘Take a look, Kishori, it’s alright from the back, no?’ Without waiting for a reply, she moved towards the broken wooden suitcase in which the Japanese powder and rouge were kept. She took a dusty mirror, wedged it between the window rods, and bending down, put a mixture of rouge and powder on her cheeks. When she was completely ready, she smiled and looked at Kishori, her eyes seeking appreciation.

She resembled one of those painted clay figures that appear during Diwali as the showpiece in a toy shop, with her bright blue sari, lipstick carelessly smudged on her lips, onion pink powder on her dark cheeks.

In the meantime, her mother arrived. She did Sarita’s hair quickly and said, ‘Listen, darling, speak nicely to the men and do whatever they ask. They are important; they’ve come in a motor car.’ Then addressing Kishori, she said, ‘Now, hurry up, take her to them. Poor fellows, I don’t know how long they’ve been left waiting.’

In the main market, a yellow car was parked outside a long factory wall, near a small board that read, ‘It is forbidden to urinate here’. Inside, the three young Hyderabadi men waiting for Kishori held their handkerchiefs to their noses. They would have liked to park the car ahead somewhere, but the factory wall was long and the stench of urine drifted down its entire stretch. When the young man who sat at the wheel caught sight of Kishori at the street corner, he said to his two other friends, ‘Well, brothers, he’s come. It’s Kishori and… and…’ He fixed his gaze on the street corner. ‘And… and… well, she’s just a little girl! You take a look… that one, man… the one in the blue sari.’

When Kishori and Sarita approached, the two young men sitting in the back removed their hats and made room for her in the middle. Kishori reached forward, opened the door and swiftly installed Sarita in the back. Closing the door, he said to the young man at the wheel, ‘Forgive me, we were delayed; she was at one of her friends’ places. Well, so?’

The young man turned around and looked at Sarita, then said to Kishori: ‘Alright, but listen…’ He slid across the seat and appeared at the other window. Whispering in Kishori’s ear, he said, ‘She’s not going to kick up a fuss, is she?’

Kishori placed his hand over his chest in reply. ‘Sir! You must have faith in me.’ Hearing this, the young man took two rupees out of his pocket and handed them to Kishori. ‘Go, have fun!’

Kishori waved them off and Kafayat started the engine.

It was five in the evening. Bombay’s bazaars were clogging with traffic from cars, buses, trams and pedestrians. Sarita was lost between the two young men. She would keep her thighs clamped tightly together, place her hands over them and start to say something, then mid-sentence, fall into silence. What she would have liked to say to the young man driving was, ‘For God’s sake, let it rip. I’m suffocating in here.’

For a long time, no one said anything. The young man at the wheel continued to drive and the two young Hyderabadis in the back, under their long, dark coats, suppressed their nervousness at being so close to a young girl for the first time, a young girl whom, for at least a while, they could call their own and touch without fear or danger.

The young man at the wheel had been living in Bombay for the past two years and had seen many girls like Sarita, both in daylight and at night. His yellow car had hosted girls of various shade and quality and so he felt no great nervousness now. Of his two friends who had come from Hyderabad, one, who went by the name of Shahab, wanted a full tour of Bombay. And it was with this in mind that Kafayat — the young owner of the car — out of friendship, asked Kishori to organise Sarita. To his other friend, Anwar, Kafayat said, ‘Listen, man, if there ends up being one for you too, what harm is there?’ But, Anwar, less assertive, never overcame his shyness enough to say, ‘Yes, get one for me too.’

Kafayat had never seen Sarita before — it had been a while since Kishori had brought a new girl. Despite this, Kafayat showed no interest in her, perhaps because a man can only do one thing at a time and he couldn’t drive as well as turn his attention to her. Once they’d left the city and the car came on to a country road, Sarita jumped up. The car’s sudden speed and the gusts of cold air that came in lifted the restraints she had put on herself until now. Bursts of electricity ran though her entire body. Her legs throbbed, her arms seemed to dance, her fingers trembled and she watched the trees race past her on both sides.

Anwar and Shahab were now at ease. Shahab, who felt he had first rights to Sarita, gently moved his arm forward, wanting to place it around her back. The movement tickled her; she jumped up and landed on Anwar with a thump. Her laughter flowed out of the windows of the yellow car and carried into the distance. When Shahab tried again to place his hand on her back, she bent double with laughter. Anwar, hidden in one corner of the car, sat in silence, his mouth dry.

Shahab’s mind filled with bright colours. He said to Kafayat, ‘My God, man, she’s a little minx.’ With this, he violently pinched Sarita’s thigh. In reply, and because he was closest to her, Sarita gently twisted Anwar’s ear. The car erupted in laughter.

Kafayat kept turning around even though everything was visible to him in his rearview mirror. He added to the growing commotion in the back by speeding up the car.

Sarita wished she could climb out and ride on the bonnet of the car where the flying iron fairy was. She moved forward. Shahab reached for her and to steady herself, she wrapped her arms around Kafayat’s neck. Without meaning to, he kissed them. A shiver went through her entire body and she leapt into the front seat of the car and began to play with Kafayat’s tie. ‘What is your name,’ she asked Kafayat.

‘My name!’ he said. ‘My name is Kafayat.’ With this, he put a ten rupee note in her hand. She paid no further attention to his name, but squeezed the note into her blouse, brimming with childish happiness. ‘You’re a very nice man. And this tie of yours is also very nice.’

In that instant, Sarita saw goodness in everything and wished that all that was bad would also turn to good… and… and… then it would happen… the motor would continue to race and everything around her would become part of the whirlwind.

She suddenly felt the urge to sing. So she stopped playing with Kafayat’s tie and began: ‘You taught me how to love, and stirred a sleeping heart.’

For some time, the film song continued and then Sarita turned to Anwar who was sitting in silence. ‘Why are you so quiet, say something, sing something!’ With this, she jumped into the back seat again and began running her fingers through Shahab’s hair. ‘Come on, both of you, sing. You remember that song that Devika Rani used to sing? “I’m a sparrow in the heart’s jungle, singing my little song…” Devika Rani is so good, isn’t she?’

Then she put both her hands under her thighs, and fluttering her eyelids, said, ‘Ashok Kumar and Devika Rani stood close to each other. Devika Rani would say, “I’m a sparrow in the forest, singing my little song.” And Ashok Kumar would say, “Sing it then.” ’

Sarita began the song. ‘I’m a sparrow in the forest, singing my little song.’

Shahab in a loud, coarse voice answered, ‘I’ll become a forest bird and sing from forest to forest.’

And all of a sudden, a duet began. Kafayat provided accompaniment on the car horn. Sarita began to clap. Her thin soprano, Shahab’s coarse singing, the horn’s honking, the blasts of wind and the roar of the engine, came together to form an orchestra.

Sarita was happy; Shahab was happy; Kafayat was happy, and seeing them all happy, Anwar was forced to be happy. He regretted his earlier restraint. His arms began to move. His sleeping heart had stirred and he was ready now to be a part of Sarita, Shahab and Kafayat’s boisterous happiness.

As they sang, Sarita removed Anwar’s hat from his head and put it on her own. She leapt into the front seat again and gazed at herself in the small mirror to see how it looked. Had he really been wearing his hat all this time? Anwar thought.

Sarita slapped Kafayat’s fat thigh and said, ‘If I wear your trousers and your shirt and put on a tie like this one, will I become a pukka gentleman too?’

Hearing this, Shahab couldn’t decide what he should do. He yanked Anwar’s arm: ‘You’ve been a complete idiot.’ And for a moment, Anwar believed he was right.

Kafayat asked Sarita, ‘What is your name?’

‘My name!’ Sarita replied, slipping the hat’s strap under her chin. ‘My name is Sarita.’

‘Sarita,’ Shahab said from the back seat, ‘you’re not a woman; you’re a livewire.’

Anwar wanted to say something too but Sarita began to sing in a high voice.

‘In love town, I’ll build my house… forgoing all the worrrrrrld.’

And bits of that world flew around them. Sarita’s hair, no longer bound by her plait, broke free and scattered like dark smoke dispersed by wind; she was happy.

Shahab was happy; Kafayat was happy and now Anwar, too, was ready to be happy. The song ended; for a few moments everyone felt that it had just been raining hard and had now abruptly stopped.

‘Any more songs?’ Kafayat asked Sarita.

‘Yes, yes,’ Shahab said from the back, ‘let’s have one more. One that even these film people won’t forget!’

Sarita began again. ‘Spring came to my house. And I, I hit the road, a little drunkenly.’

The car also wove drunkenly. Then the road straightened and the seashore came in sight. The sun was setting and the sea wind brought a chill in the air.

The car stopped. Sarita opened the door, jumped out and began to run along the shore. Kafayat and Shahab ran behind her. In the open air, on the edge of the vast ocean, with the great palms rising up from the wet sand, Sarita didn’t know what it was that she wanted. She wished she could melt into the sky; spread through the ocean; fly so high that she could see the palm canopies from above; for all the wetness of the shore to seep from the sand into her feet and then… and then for that same racing engine, that same speed, those blasts of wind, the car honking — she was very happy.

The three young Hyderabadi men sat down on the wet sand and opened their beers. Sarita snatched the bottle from Kafayat’s hand. ‘Wait, I’ll pour it.’

She poured it so that the glass filled with foam. The spectacle of it excited her. She put her finger into the brownish foam, then into her mouth. She made a face when she tasted its bitterness. Kafayat and Shahab laughed uncontrollably. Still laughing, Kafayat looked over at Anwar and saw that he was laughing too.

They went through six bottles of beer; some entered their stomachs; some turned to foam and was absorbed by the sand. Sarita continued to sing. Anwar looked in her direction and thought for a moment that she was made of beer. In the sea’s moist air, her dark cheeks had become wet. She felt a deep contentment. Anwar now, was happy too. He wanted the sea to turn to beer; to go diving in it; and for Sarita to join him.

Sarita took two empty bottles and banged them together. They made a clatter and she laughed. Kafayat, Anwar and Shahab laughed too.

Still laughing, Sarita said to Kafayat, ‘Come on, let’s drive the car now.’

Everyone rose. Empty beer bottles lay strewn on the wet sand. The party ran to the car. Once again, the wind began to blast, the horn honked, and Sarita’s hair scattered like dark smoke. The singing resumed.

The car plowed through the wind. Sarita continued to sing. She sat in the back between Anwar and Shahab. Anwar’s head dropped from side to side. Sarita mischievously began to comb Shahab’s hair with her fingers and he fell asleep. When she turned back to Anwar, she saw that he was also fast asleep. She lifted herself from in between them and lowered herself into the front seat.

In a whisper, she said, ‘I’ve just put both your friends to bed. Now, I’ll put you to bed too.’

Kafayat smiled. ‘Who’ll drive the car then?’

Sarita, smiling as well, replied, ‘It’ll keep running.’

For a long time, they spoke among themselves. The bazaar reappeared. When they drove past the wall with the small board that read, ‘It is forbidden to urinate here’, Sarita said, ‘Just here is fine.’

The car stopped. Sarita jumped out before Kafayat was able to do or say anything. She waved and walked away. Kafayat sat with one hand on the wheel, perhaps thinking back on the day’s events.

Then Sarita stopped, turned around, walked back, and from her blouse, removed a ten rupee note and placed it next to him.

Kafayat stared at it in amazement. ‘Sarita, what’s this?’

‘This… why should I take this money?’ she replied and ran off, leaving Kafayat still staring at the limp note.

He turned around eventually. Anwar and Shahab, like the note itself, lay slumped in the back seat, asleep.