My Name Is Radha

Siraj

Dhondo stood leaning against the lamp post outside the Irani teahouse near the park across from the Nagpara Police Station. He came there regularly, normally around sundown, and conducted his business until four in the morning.

No one knew his real name, but everyone called him Dhondo — quite an appropriate appellation considering that his business was procuring suitable girls for his clients, depending on their tastes and dispositions.

He’d been in this business for nearly ten years. Thousands of girls of every colour, religion and disposition had passed through his hands during this time.

And this spot had been his hangout from the day he began this business: across from the Nagpara Police Station, right in front of the park, outside the Irani teahouse, leaning against the lamp post. The lamp post had become his trademark, and to me it was Dhondo himself. Whenever I happened to pass by and my glance fell on this lamp post where countless people had wiped their fingers, leaving lime and catechu stains, I would suddenly feel as though Dhondo was standing there, chewing his paan wrapped around shards of roasted betel nut.

The lamp post was quite tall and so was Dhondo. A network of power lines extended outward from the top: one line running all the way to the next lamp post before getting lost in that post’s maze of similar lines; another went to an adjacent building; still another to a shop. That the reach of this lamp post extended quite far and, along with its mates’, spread over the entire city was beyond question.

The telephone administration had attached a box-shaped terminal to this lamp post. Now and then it was used to check the condition of the telephone wires. I often thought of Dhondo as a similar box, attached to the lamp post to help maintain the sexual health of people. He knew all the seths living in the area who needed their sexual wires, loose or taut, restored to perfect working condition from time to time, or all the time.

He also knew all the girls in the profession, the smallest attribute of their bodies, their temperaments, and who would be best suited for a particular client at a particular time — all the girls, that is, except Siraj. He hadn’t been able to get a handle on her so far, or delve down to her depths.

He often told me, ‘Saali, she’s gone cuckoo. I just can’t make her out, Manto Sahib. What kind of girl is she? Now this, now that — refuses to make up her mind. One minute she’s fire, next minute water. She’ll be laughing her head off one moment, then suddenly break into sobs the next. She can’t get along with anyone, saali! Very bitchy. Fights with every “passenger”. I’ve told her repeatedly, “Look, get your head examined, or else go back to where you came from. You have no clothes on your body, nothing to fill your stomach. Fighting won’t work, dearie.” But does she listen, the pighead!’

I’d seen Siraj a couple of times. She looked skinny, but rather beautiful. Her eyes were much too large for her oval face, looming menacingly, as if bent on extracting from everyone an admission of her superiority. I was quite disconcerted when I first saw her on Clare Road. The desire to ask those eyes to step aside so that I could look at the real Siraj stirred in me, but they didn’t budge, though I’m sure they understood my meaning.

She had a slight but compact frame, like a goblet filled beyond capacity with watered-down spirits that thrashed and spilled out from the pressure.

I say ‘watered-down spirits’ because she had the bitter taste of strong liquors, but it seemed as if some crook had added water to increase the volume. Whatever amount of femininity she had was still there, not an atom less. Her irritation oozed out of her thick hair, pointy nose, tightly pressed lips and her fingers, which reminded me of the sharpened pencils of draughtsmen. It gave me the impression that she was perpetually cross with everything and everyone: Dhondo, the lamp post against which he always leaned, the clients he propositioned for her, and even the exceptionally big eyes that dominated her entire face. But most especially she was angry at her sharp-pointed draughtsmen’s pencils because they had failed to draw the map of her life the way she wanted it to be.

These, at any rate, are the impressions of a short story writer who can ascribe to the softest of moles the rigidity of a black stone. Dhondo, of course, had his own views. He said to me one day: ‘Manto Sahib, saali got me into trouble again. Fortunately, the recompense for some good deed I may have once done came in handy and I was saved. Thanks to your blessings, all the officers of the Nagpara Police Station are soft on me, otherwise I’d have been in the slammer yesterday. She raised such hell, baap re baap!’

‘What happened?’ I asked.

‘The same thing that always happens. I cursed my seven generations up and down. I said to myself, “Bastard, why do you keep finding clients for her? Is she your mother or your sister that you’re so concerned about her? Why?” Manto Sahib, I’m at my wits’ end.’

We were sitting in the Irani teahouse. Dhondo poured his coffee — tea mixture into the saucer and started slurping it.

‘Why?’ I asked.

He threw his head back, saying, ‘Don’t know why. I wish I did. Maybe this daily misery would end then.’ All of a sudden he turned his cup upside down on the saucer and said, ‘Did you know, she’s still a virgin!’

Believe me, that unsettled me for a moment. ‘Virgin — how so?’

‘I swear by your life.’

‘No, Dhondo, that can’t be,’ I said as though I wanted to edit my earlier comment.

He didn’t appreciate my doubting his word. ‘I’m not lying to you, Manto Sahib. One hundred per cent virgin. You can bet on it.’

‘How can that be,’ was all I was able to say.

‘Why not?’ he demanded with conviction. ‘A girl like Siraj can keep her virginity intact all her life, even in this profession. She won’t let anyone touch her. I don’t know her full history, but I do know this: She’s a Punjaban. She worked with a madam on Lamington Road for two or three months. The madam threw her out; she had quarrelled with every passenger. The madam had other girls, ten, maybe twenty, but Manto Sahib, how long can one just keep feeding someone. The madam threw her out; she had nothing but the clothes she was wearing. Then she went to another madam on Faras Road. There too she remained as much of a nutcase as ever. She bit one passenger. She only lasted a couple of months. A real fireball! Who’d want to cool her down? Then — so help me God! — she hung out at a hotel in Khetwadi, where she raised the same hell all over again. The manager got fed up and packed her off. What can I say, Manto Sahib! She doesn’t care about food or drink. Her clothes are infested with lice, head unwashed for months. Loves to smoke joints when she can lay her hands on any. And stand in front of some restaurant, listening to film songs on the radio.’

This was more than enough detail for me. How I reacted to it is my concern, not something I should tell you, not as a short story writer anyway.

Just to keep the conversation rolling, I asked, ‘It doesn’t look as though she’s interested in this business; why don’t you send her back home to Punjab? I’ll give you her train fare.’

Dhondo was put off by my offer. ‘Manto Sahib, train fare isn’t the problem. Do you think I can’t pay for it myself?’

‘So why don’t you?’ I tried to poke around.

He was quiet for a while. Then he removed the cigarette tucked behind his ear, lit it, and, expelling twin jets of smoke from his nostrils, said only, ‘I don’t want her to go.’

I had the uncanny feeling that I was finally on to something. ‘Are you in love with her?’ I asked.

This had a strange effect on him. ‘What kind of talk is that, Manto Sahib?’ He touched both his ears, and said, ‘I swear by the Qur’an, I wouldn’t even dream of such a filthy thought. I just. .’ he hesitated, ‘just. . kind of like her.’

‘Why?’

I guess I had asked him the right question for Dhondo also gave the right answer: ‘Because. . because she isn’t like other girls. They crave money! What wouldn’t they do to grab it — those bitches! But this one, she’s something else. When I bring her out to a passenger, she gives the impression that she’s willing, so the deal is struck and she hops into the taxi or the victoria. Now, Manto Sahib, the passenger is out to have a good time, he wants some action, it’s why he’s spending so much money after all. So he tries to feel her with his hand, or just touch her. And that’s when all hell breaks loose. She creates a ruckus and resorts to fisticuffs. Now, if the man is a gentleman, he takes to his heels, but if he’s drunk or a rake, a storm erupts. Every time something like this happens I’m dragged into it and put on the spot. I have to return the money and get on my knees to calm down the enraged client. All for the sake of Siraj, I swear by the Qur’an. . and, Manto Sahib, that saali has wrecked my business, it’s down by half — honestly.’

I would rather not talk about the backstory my mind had woven for Siraj, except to say that it didn’t match whatever Dhondo had told me about her.

The thought that I could meet her without Dhondo’s knowledge crossed my mind one day. She lived near Byculla Railway Station in an atrociously dingy area surrounded by great piles of garbage and refuse. The corporation had put up numerous metal housing units for the poor there. I don’t want to discuss the plush high-rise buildings that loomed just a short distance away from this slimy filth; they have nothing to do with this story. Where is there a world bereft of highs and lows?

Dhondo had once told me about her place. I went there, doing my best not to let my respectable appearance stand out in this ramshackle milieu, but here, of course, it is not I who am the subject.

Anyway, I went there. A she-goat was tethered outside her shack. It bleated the moment it saw me. An old hag came out tapping her walking stick, looking like a witch who had stepped straight out of some moth-eaten pages of ancient dastaans. I was about to turn back when I spotted two inordinately large eyes behind the tattered gunnysack curtain hanging over the entrance, gaping as wide as the holes in the curtain. And then I saw Siraj’s oval face. Anger at those eyes that had so brazenly appropriated most of that face swelled inside me. She saw me. God only knows what she was doing inside the shack. Whatever it was, she stopped and came out immediately. ‘What brings you here?’ she asked, ignoring the old crone.

‘I wanted to see you.’ I gave a brief answer.

‘Come in,’ she said, with equal brevity.

‘No, you come with me.’

‘It will be ten rupees,’ the dastaanesque old witch said in a brusque, businesslike manner.

I pulled out a ten-rupee note from my wallet and gave it to the old hag. ‘Come,’ I said to Siraj.

The penetrating intensity of her unusually large eyes subsided just a little for me to look into hers unhindered for the briefest moment. I again concluded that she was beautiful. A shrivelled, embalmed beauty, preserved and buried for centuries in an underground vault. For a moment I felt I was in Egypt, digging up ancient tombs. I don’t want to go into greater detail.

Siraj and I went to a restaurant. She sat across from me in her filthy clothes, her eyes crowding her oval face, and not just her face but her entire being, so mercilessly that I couldn’t discern even an atom of her being.

I had already handed over the ten rupees the old hag had quoted to me. I now gave Siraj forty more. I wanted her to quarrel with me, just as she did with the others, with the same vehemence. That’s why I didn’t say anything that might have seemed loving or sincere in the least. I was also apprehensive about her big eyes — big enough to see not just me but the whole world around me as well.

She was absolutely silent. To touch her in a provocative manner required that I feel aroused not just in my body but also in my thoughts, so I downed four pegs of whisky and groped her like any old passenger. She didn’t resist. Then I did something totally atrocious, which I thought would be the spark needed to ignite the explosives collecting inside of her for ages. Instead — I noticed with not a little amazement — she became much calmer. She got up and, assessing me with her large eyes, said, ‘Get me a joint.’

‘Have some liquor instead.’

‘No. I want pot.’

I ordered a joint. She took a drag in the peculiar manner of seasoned users and looked at me, her eyes having relinquished their relentless possession of her face, though not ungrudgingly. Her face now took on the desolation of an overrun kingdom, a land laid to waste. Its every feature merely traced a line of utter bleakness, of stark despair. What was this desolation. . and why? Often it is the inhabited settlements that cause their own ruination. Was she a habitation that had been stifled in its growth by some invader, leaving its walls, barely a metre high, in ruins?

I was extremely muddled, but I don’t want to drag you into this confusion. What I was thinking and what conclusion I drew is not your business.

Whether or not Siraj was a virgin was not something I wanted to know. But in the curling smoke of the joint I did observe a gleam in her blank, melancholy eyes which even I can’t adequately describe.

I wanted her to talk to me, but she had no interest. I wanted her to argue and squabble with me; here too she disappointed me.

Finally I took her back to her place.

Dhondo was quite offended when he found out about my secret meeting with Siraj. Both his friendly and business feelings were adversely affected. He didn’t let me explain myself and said only, ‘Manto Sahib, I didn’t expect this from you.’ He spoke his mind, stepped away from his lamp-post anchor, and left.

Strangely, I didn’t see him at his haunt at his regular time the next evening, which made me think he might be sick. But he didn’t show up the following day either.

A week went by. I passed this spot every morning and evening. The sight of the lamp post never failed to remind me of Dhondo. I even went to that unspeakably squalid slum near Byculla Station to find out if Siraj was still there, but I only found the crumbly old witch. ‘She left,’ she said when I asked her about Siraj. Then, evoking sexual desires that had lain dormant for aeons in her toothless smile, she added, ‘There are others. . Shall I send for someone?’

‘What does this mean — both of them gone?’ I wondered. ‘And that too in the wake of my secret meeting?’ While I wasn’t at all concerned about my secret meeting — here again I don’t wish to reveal my thoughts — I was quite amazed at their simultaneous disappearance. Nothing like what passes for ‘love’ existed between the two. Dhondo was above such things. He had a wife and children whom he loved dearly. Then what was behind their disappearance?

I thought it likely that Dhondo had suddenly decided it would be best for Siraj to return to her native Punjab. He might have been undecided about it earlier, but then he must have quickly made up his mind.

A whole month passed.

One evening, unexpectedly, I spotted Dhondo glued to the same lamp post. This gave me the unavoidable feeling that the electricity, which had been out for quite a while, had suddenly been restored and had brought the lamp post back to life, the telephone box too. The networks of lines above the post, running every which way, seemed to be whispering among themselves. He looked at me and smiled as I passed by.

We were sitting in the Irani teahouse now. I didn’t ask him anything. He ordered the usual coffee — tea blend for himself, a plain tea for me, and squirmed in his seat a while before settling down in a way that suggested he was about to tell me something very serious. But he only said, ‘So tell me, Manto Sahib, how’s it going?’

‘What’s there to tell, Dhondo, it just plods along.’

He smiled. ‘Absolutely right! It plods along. . and will plod along. But this silly “plodding along” is strange. And if you ask me, just about everything in this world is strange.’

‘You’re right, Dhondo.’

The tea arrived. As was his habit, he poured some in his saucer and said, ‘Manto Sahib, she told me everything. She said, “That seth friend of yours — he’s cuckoo in his head.”’

I laughed. ‘What made her say that?’

‘She said, “He took me to a restaurant. . gave me so much money. . but he had nothing of the usual seths in him.”’

I felt embarrassed at my callowness. ‘Couldn’t be helped. The whole thing was so weird.’

Dhondo laughed his head off. ‘Don’t I know it! Please forgive me for having lost my cool that day.’ His voice inadvertently took on a shade of informality. ‘But that story is over now.’

‘What story?’

‘That saali. . Siraj. . her story, who else’s?’

‘What happened?’ I asked.

Dhondo started twittering: ‘When she came back after meeting you that day, she told me, “I have forty rupees. Come, take me to Lahore.” I said, “Saali, what devil has gotten into your head all of a sudden?” She said, “No, Dhondo, let’s go. I beg you.” As you know, Manto Sahib, it’s not in me to turn her down, because I kind of like her. So I said, “Fine, let’s go.” We bought tickets and boarded the train. At Lahore, we stayed in a hotel. She asked me to get her a burqa so I did. She donned it and started roaming around the streets and alleys all over the city. After a few days, I told myself, “Well, Dhondo, that’s something! She was crazy and now you’ve gone bananas too. No sane person would have come with her to the end of the world.”

‘Then, one day, she suddenly asked the coachman to pull the tonga over. She pointed at a man and told me, “Dhondo, go get him. I’m going back to the hotel. You bring him there.” I lost my wits, Manto Sahib. I got down from the tonga and she took off. There I was, following that man. By the grace of God and your blessings, I kind of guessed what kind of man he was. I exchanged a few words with him and found out that he was the kind that are on the lookout for fun and action, no doubt about it. I told him, “I’ve got a choice piece from Bombay, what do you say?” He said, “Take me to her right away.” I said, “No, first show me the dough.” He pulled out a whole wad of notes. I said to myself, “Dhondo, my man, yes, you’re in business here too.” What puzzled me, though, was why Siraj had singled him out in all of Lahore. “Well,” I said to myself, “here goes.” I hired a tonga, took him straight to the hotel and informed Siraj. She said, “Wait for a while.” We waited for some time, and then I took the man inside. By the way, he was quite good-looking. The minute he saw Siraj he reared up like a horse, but she grabbed him.’

Dhondo paused. He finished his coffee — tea mix, stone cold by now, in one big gulp and lit a biri.

‘So Siraj grabbed him,’ I prompted.

‘Yes, she did, that saala,’ he said in a loud voice. ‘She told him, “Let me see where you’ll escape to now. You made me leave my home — what for? I loved you. You said that you loved me too. But when I eloped with you, leaving behind my home and my parents, leaving Amritsar, we stayed here in this very hotel and you disappeared during the night. You left me all alone. Why did you bring me here? Why did you make me run away? I was ready for everything, but you didn’t care a fig about me. You took off. Come on, it’s me who’s calling you now. My love is still fresh. Come on. .” Manto Sahib, she draped herself around him. That saala started shedding big fat tears. He begged for her forgiveness, saying, “I made a terrible mistake. I panicked. I’ll never leave you again.” He kept swearing to God that he would never do such a thing again. God knows what else he kept babbling! Siraj gave me a sign and I left the room. Next morning as I was sleeping on a cot outside, Siraj woke me up. “Well, Dhondo, let’s go,” she said, “Go where?” I asked. “Back to Bombay,” she answered. “And where is that saala?” I asked. She said, “He’s sleeping. I’ve put my burqa on top of him.”’

Just as Dhondo was ordering another cup of coffee mixed with tea, Siraj came in, her fair, oval face fresh and blossoming, her great big eyes looking like two lowered railway signals.