MY NAME IS RADHA Peary tie MANTO ‘TRANSLATED FROM THE URDU BY MUHAMMAD UMAR MEMON 0 PENGUIN BOOKSPENGUIN BOOKS Published bythe Peoguin Geoup Peguin Books tia Pr Lid, 7h Flr, lainey Tower C, DLF Cxbee City, india 375 Hac Stet, New York, New York 10014, USA 30 Fiton Avene East, Suite 700, Toronto, Penguin Books Led 80 Stand, London WCOR ORL, England Se Sep! Gree, Dali 2, Weland (a dvsion of Fest pablshed by Penguin Books India 2015 Invcodation, election and trnsatioe © Muhammad Umar Memon 2015 All ight reserved 1987654321 acters place and incidents ae ether the prodost resemblance any etal 188 9780670086900 Minion Pro by Manipal Djptal ystems, Manipal Thomson Pres fea Ltd New Delhi this book Contents Preamble ix My Name Is Radha Babu Gopinath Yazeed 15Ram Khilawan 135 Sahae 43 Khushia 150 ‘Toba Tek Singh 157 ‘The Testament of Gurmukkh Singh A Tale ofthe Year 1919 202 Frozen 210 Open It 216 Empty Bettles, Empty Cans 219 ‘A Progressive 226 Pleasure of Losing 235 God-Man. 240 T'm Ne Good for You! 254 ‘The Revolt of Monkeys 260 Gilgit Khan 267 Martyr-Maker 272 Recite the Kalima! 279 Barren 287 Behind the Reed Stalks 302 Smelly, 313 Kingdom's End 319 By the Roadside 329 Tassels 2 920 335 - Hindi-Urdu 343 Upper, Lower, Middle 346 In this Maelstrom (A Melodrama) 367 ‘The Fifth Trial 396Manto and I (by Mehdi Ali Siddiqi) 406 ‘gmat-Fardsht (Prostitution) 412 ‘The Short Story Writer and Matters of Sex 22 1 Too Have Something To Say 26 Afterword 435 Foreword 442 How | Write Stories 446 ‘Marginotions (by Muhammad Hasan Askari) 448 Communal Riss and Our Literature (by Muhammad Hasan Askari) 454 Recounting Irregular Verbs and Counting She-Goats: Manto and His Alleged Obscenity (by Muhammad Umar Memon) 462 Preamble ‘Any literary work that aspires tothe condition of art m politics, religion, and, ultimately, mor By common consensus of most Urdu critics and readers of fiction, Sadat Hasan Manto (1912-35) is unquestionably the pre-eminent Urdu short story writer ofthe first half of the previous century. And even now the popularity of this iconic writer has not waned. He is avidly read and admired across the South Asian subcontinent and is also well [known overseas, thanks to the many translations of his choicest work into English and other European languages. A prolific writer and, in his early years, a translator and journalist, he managed to produce in his short life of only forty-three years an enormous literary corpus, mostly short stories, but also plays and works of non-ficton, collected in five fat tomes of roughly a thousand pages each—an amazing testimony to the astonishing range ofthe author's thematic reach! Born in Ludhiana in British India, Manto started work as amember of the editorial staff of Masdwat, an Urdu daily published from his native Ludhiana. In 1936 he moved to Bombay to work asa scriptwriter for films before moving on to Delhi in 1941. Here, he joined the Urdu Service of All India Radio and wrote radio plays. The following year saw him back in Bombay, where he resumed his earlier work for the film industry.7 Sadat Hasan Manto “This will give your, what's her name, a chance to escape. No one will bother her inthis tunic?” ‘rilochan quickly explained the situation to Kirpal Kaur. ‘Morel raised a frightening scream, threw open the door and rushed out, tripping over the men outside who had no time to react and made way for her. She righted herself and ran up the stairs, with Trilochan close on her heels. Mozel was climbing the stairs blindly, still in her clogs. The men who'd been trying to break down the door ran after the two of them Suddenly her foot slipped ard she tumbled down the stairsall the way to the stone landing, her body knocking against the steps and the wrought- iron balustrade. ‘Trilochan rushed down the stairs only to find her lying there, blood oozing out of her nose, mouth, even her ears. The men who had stormed the door quicily gathered around. Someone asked what happened. They were looking silently at her fair-skinned, naked body covered with bruises. Trilochan shook her arm and called out, ‘Mozell Mozel!” She opened her large Jewish eyes, now blood red, and smiled. Trilochan quickly remcved his turban, undid it, and spread it out over her naked body. She smiled again and winked at him. Spewing tiny red bubbles from her mouth, she said, ‘Go . .. see whether my underwear is stil there ....Imean...” Trilochan got her drift, but he didn’t want to leave her. Which angered her. ‘Damn it, you're a Sikh afterall. Go and see. He rose and went to Kirpal Kaus flat. Through her dimmed eyes Mozel looked at the men githered around her and sai, ‘He's a miyan bhai... so crazy that I always call him a Sikh ‘Meanwhile, Trilochan returned. He let her know with his eyes that Kirpal Kaur had made her escape. She sighed in relief, but more blood bubbled out of her mouth from the effort. ‘Damn it,’ she said, wiping iton her arm. Then she said to Triloch ight, darling, bye-bye!” ‘He wanted to say something, but choked on his words. ‘Mozel pushed his turban cloth off her body. “Take this with you this scrap of your religion,’ she said, as her arm fell limp over her plump, round breast. The Black Shalwar Before moving to Delhi she had lived in Ambala Cantonment where she'd had several goras among her clients. Through them she had ‘which she didn’t use in to pick up in Delhi, 1¢ day, “This lef—very ‘enough to make she said, ends meet. She'd done quite well for herselfin Ambala. The cantonment goras came to her drunk. She would be done with eight or ten of them in three or four hours and make twenty to thirty rupees. They treated hher much better than her own countrymen did, True, they spoke in a language Sultana couldn't understand, but this ignorance only worked toher advantage. If they tried to bargain fora lowes rat, she just shook her head uncomprehendingly and said, ‘Sahib, I don't understand what you're saying.” And if they tried to get fresh with her, she broke into a round of profanities in her own language. When they gawked at her ‘onplussed, she'd say to them, ‘Sahib, you're a bloody fool, a bastard understand?’ She didn't utter these words brusquely, but in a tone fall of affection and geniality. The goras would laugh, and when they laughed they did look like bloody fools to her. “Here in Delhi, though, nota single gora had visited her since her arrival, Shehad now been here for three months, in hi ity of Hindustan ‘where, she had heard, the Big Lord Sahib lived, who customarily spent his summers in Simla, So far only six people had visited her, only six— thats, two a month—and she could swear by Godshe had made a total nn Soudht Hasan Manto of eighteen and a half rupees from them. None of them wanted to pay hree rupees, Sultans had quoted her rate as ten rupees to five , strangely, every one of them said, “Not more than three.” thinking," ighteen and a half rupe twenty a month. This flat hada the chain was pulled, water gushed out noisily and carried al the waste toan underground drain, Initially, the noise of the torrential water had 38 out of her. On her frst day in the flat when she had er back was hurting badly. As she was getting up he grabbed the chain for support. The sight ofthe chain had made her think tha: since the fats were built especially for important people, the chains were provided for their convenience. But the instant she grabbed the cain to rise, she heard a clanking sound and suddenly water was releosed with such force that she shrieked, frightened out of her wits Khuda Bakhsh was in the other room busy with his photographic material and pouring hydrocuinone into a bottle. When he heard Sultana scream, he stepped ou: of the room and asked her, ‘What's the ‘matter? Was that you screamit ‘Isthisa toilet or what?’ she replied, her heart pounding with fright. “What's this chain hanging down like the ones ina train carriage? My back was aching, so I took hold of it for support. The instant I grabbed it there was this horrible explosion... Khuda Bakhsh laughed uproariously. He explained, ‘I'sa new-style toilet. sends the filth to an underground How Khuda Bakhsh and Sultana got hitched together He hailed from Rawalpindi, After passing hi to drive lorries. For four yeers he ran a lorry between Rawalpindi TN TTA “he Black Shabwar 2B and Kashmir. In Kashmir he had an affair with a woman, whom he persuaded to abscond with him. They went to Lahore where, since he couldn't find work, he set her up as.a prostitute. This went on for two or three years until the woman ran away with another man. When ‘Khuda Bakhsh found out that she was in Ambala, he went looking for het. There he met Sultana, who liked him, and so they decided to band together. ‘Her business picked up after Khuda Bakhsh got together with her. A superstitious woman, she attributed her success to Khuda Bakhsh’s presence, She took him to be someone blessed by God. This faith jacked up his stature in her eyes. Khuda Bakhsh was a hard-working man who didn't like to lie around and while away his time. He struck up a friendshi photographer who took phot thereafter he established himself in Ambala Cantonment where he photographed goras and, within a month, came to know several of them rather wel, So he moved Sultana to the cantonment area too and ‘many goras became her regular clients through him, Sultana bought herself @ pair of earrings, had eight gold bangles ‘made, each weighing five and a half tolas, and also collected an assortment of some fifteen fine saris. The house also get some furniture. In short, she was quite well off in Ambala Cantonment. Then, suddenly, God knows how, Khuda Bakhsh got it into his head to move to Delhi. How could she refuse? Afterall he was a gedsend, her lucky break. She gladly agreed to go with him. In fact, she even thought her business would prosper further in such a large city where the Big Lord Sahib lived and which a friend of hers had praised to high heaven, Besides, the shrine of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya, for which she felt a special reverence, was also in Delhi. She quickly sold. her heavier household goods and came to the city with Khuda Bakinsh, who rented this place for twenty rupees a month and both settled in. prostitutes to stop them from setting up businesses al over the city. The