A Thousand Yearnings Read online

  What! You here again with your broom? Well? What do you want? Come now! I’ve written down everything about you, haven’t I? What are you still standing there for? Why do you still pester me? For God’s sake go away! Have I forgotten anything? Have I missed anything out? Your name: Kalu Bhangi; Occupation: sweeper. Never left this district. Never married. Never been in love. No momentous events in your life. Nothing to thrill you—as your beloved’s lips, or the kisses of your child, or the poems of Ghalib* thrill you. An absolutely uneventful life. What can I write? What else can I write? Pay: eight rupees. Four rupees atta, four annas spices, one rupee salt, one rupee tobacco, eight annas tea, four annas molasses. That’s seven rupees. And one rupee for the moneylender, eight. But eight rupees don’t make a story. These days even people earning twenty, fifty, even a hundred rupees aren’t interesting enough to write stories about, so it’s quite certain that you can’t write about someone who only earns eight. So what can I write about you? Now take Khilji. He’s the compounder at the hospital. He gets thirty-two rupees a month. He was born in a lower middle-class family and his parents gave him a fair education up to middle.†Then he passed the qualifying examination to be a compounder. He is young and full of life, with all that that implies. He can wear a clean white shalwar, have his shirt starched, use brilliantine on his hair and keep it well combed. The government provides him with quarters, like a little bungalow. If the doctor makes a slip he can pocket the fees, and he can make love to the good-looking patients. Remember that business about Nuran? Nuran came from Bhita. A silly young creature of about sixteen to seventeen. She’d be sure to catch your eyes even if she were four miles away, like a cinema poster. She was a complete fool. She had accepted the attentions of two young men of her village. When the headman’s son was with her she was his. And when the patwari’s* boy turned up she would feel attracted to him. And she couldn’t decide between them. Generally people think of love as being a very clear-cut, certain, definite thing; but the fact is that it is usually a very unstable, vacillating, uncertain sort of condition. You feel that you love one person and also another person, or perhaps no one at all. And even if you are in love, it’s such a temporary, fickle, passing feeling, that no sooner is the object of your affection out of sight than it evaporates. Your feeling is quite sincere, but it doesn’t last. And that’s why Nuran couldn’t make up her mind. Her heart throbbed for the headman’s son, and yet no sooner had she looked into the eyes of the patwari’s boy than her heart would begin to beat fast and she would feel as though she were alone in a little boat in the midst of a vast ocean, and rolling waves on all sides, holding a fragile oar in her hand; and the boat would begin to rock, and go on gently rocking, and she would grab the fragile oar with her fragile hands just as it was slipping from her grasp, and gently catch her breath, and slowly lower her eyes, and let her hair fall in disorder; and the sea would seem to whirl around her, and ever-widening circles would spread over its surface and a deathly stillness would descend on all sides and her heart would suddenly stop beating in alarm, and then someone would hold her tight in his arms. Ah! When she gazed at the patwari’s boy that was just how she felt. And she just couldn’t decide between the two. Headman’s son, patwari’s son... patwari’s son, headman’s son... She had pledged herself to both of them, promised to marry both of them, was dying of love for both of them. The result was that they fought each other till the blood streamed down, and when enough young blood had been let, they got angry with themselves for being such fools. And first of all the headman’s son arrived on the scene with a knife and tried to kill Nuran, and she was wounded in the arm. And then the patwari’s boy came, determined to take her life, and she was wounded in the foot. But she survived because she was taken to hospital in time and got proper treatment.

  Well, even hospital people are human. Beauty affects the heart—like an injection. The effect may be slight or it may be considerable, but there will certainly be some effect. In this case the effect on the doctor was slight; on the compounder it was considerable. Khilji gave himself up heart and soul to looking after Nuran. Exactly the same thing had happened before. Before Nuran it had been Beguman, and before her, Reshman, and before her, Janaki. But these were Khilji’s unsuccessful love affairs, because these three were all married women. In fact Reshman was the mother of a child too. Yes, there were not only children, but parents, and husbands and the husbands’ hostile glares which seemed to Khilji to pierce right into his heart, seeking to find out and explore every corner of his hidden desires. What could poor Khilji do? Circumstances had defeated him. He loved them all in turn—Beguman,and Reshman, and Janaki too. He used to give sweets to Beguman’s brother every day; he used to carry Reshman’s little boy about with him all day long. Janaki was very fond of flowers; Khilji would get up and go out very early every morning, before it was properly light, and pick bunches of beautiful red poppies to bring her. He gave them the very best medicine, the very best food, and the very best of his attention. But when the time came and Beguman was cured she went away with her husband, weeping; and when Reshman was cured she took her son and departed. And when Janaki was cured and it was time to go, she took the flowers which Khilji had given her and pressed them to her heart, and her eyes were brimming with tears as she gave her husband her hand and went off with him, until they at last disappeared beneath the crest of the hill. When they reached the farthest edge of the valley, she turned and looked in Khilji’s direction, and Khilji turned his face to the wall and began to weep. When Reshman had left he had wept too, and when Beguman went he again wept, in the same unrestrained way, with the same sincerity, overwhelmed by the same agonized feelings. But neither Reshman nor Beguman nor Janaki stayed for him. And now, after I don’t know how many years, Nuran had come, and his heart had begun to beat faster, in just the same way; and every day it throbbed for her more and more. At first Nuran’s condition was critical, and there was very little hope for her, but as a result of Khilji’s unflagging efforts, her wounds gradually began to heal; they began to discharge less, and the bad smell went away, and the swelling subsided. The lustre gradually returned to her eyes and the healthy colour to her wan face; and on the day when Khilji removed the bandages from her arm, then Nuran on a sudden impulse of gratitude threw herself into his arms and burst into tears. And when the bandages were removed from her foot she put henna on her feet and hands and lampblack on her eyelids, and arranged the long tresses of her hair. And Khilji’s heart leapt for joy to see her. Now Nuran had given her heart to him and promised to marry him. The headman’s son and the patwari’s son had on several occasions come to see her, and to ask her forgiveness and to promise to marry her; every time they came Nuran would take fright and begin to tremble, and look this way and that to avoid their glances; and she would not feel at ease until they had gone and Khilji would take her hand in his. And when she was quite recovered the whole village turned out to see her. Thanks to the kindness of the Doctor Sahib and the Compounder Sahib, their lass was better, and her mother’s and father’s gratitude knew no bounds. Today even the headman had come, and the patwari too, and those two conceited asses—their sons, who every time they looked at Nuran felt sorry for what they had done; then Nuran went to her mother and leaning upon her, looked towards Khilji, her eyes swimming with tears and lampblack, and without a word left for her village. The whole village had come to meet her, and the headman’s son and the patwari’s son were following at her heels. Khilji felt their steps, and more steps, and more steps—hundreds of steps passing across his breast as they went on their way taking Nuran with them, and leaving behind them a cloud of dust hanging over the road. And turning his face to the wall of one of the wards he began to sob.

  Yes, Khilji’s life was a beautiful and romantic one—Khilji, who had passed his middle, whose pay was thirty-two rupees a month and who could earn fifteen to twenty rupees over and above; Khilji who was young, who knew what it is to love, who lived in a little bungalow, read the stories of reputabl
e authors, and wept for his love. What an interesting, and romantic, and imaginative life Khilji’s was! But what can you say about Kalu Bhangi? Except the following:

  1. That Kalu Bhangi washed the blood and pus from Beguman’s bandages.

  2. That Kalu Bhangi emptied Beguman’s commode.

  3. That Kalu Bhangi cleaned Reshman’s dirty bandages.

  4. That Kalu Bhangi used to give Reshman’s boy corn-onthe-cob to eat.

  5. That Kalu Bhangi washed Janaki’s dirty bandages and every day sprinkled disinfectant in her room, and every day towards evening closed the window of the ward and lit the wood in the fireplace so that Janaki shouldn’t feel cold.

  6. That Kalu Bhangi for three months and ten days regularly emptied Nuran’s commode.

  Kalu Bhangi saw Reshman departing; he saw Beguman departing; he saw Janaki departing; he saw Nuran departing. But he never turned his face to the wall and wept. At first he would look a bit perplexed for a minute or two and would scratch his head. And then when he couldn’t account for what was going on, he would go off into the fields below the hospital and let the cow lick his bald head. But I’ve already told you about that.

  Well, what more am I to write about you, Kalu Bhangi? I’ve said all there is to say, told all there is to tell about you. If your pay had been thirty-two rupees, if you’d passed your middle—or even failed it—if you had inherited a little culture, a little refinement, a little human joy and the exaltation which it brings, I’d have written something about you. But as it is what can I write about your eight rupees? Time and again I pick up your eight rupees and study them from all angles—four rupees atta, one rupee salt, one rupee tobacco, eight annas tea, four annas molasses, four annas spices—that’s seven—and one rupee for the moneylender—that makes eight. How can I make a story out of that, Kalu Bhangi? No, it can’t be done. Go away. Please go away. See, I implore you with folded hands. But he still stands there, showing his dirty yellow, uneven teeth and laughing his cracked laugh.

  I see I can’t get rid of you so easily. Very well, then. Let me rake over the embers of my memory once more. Perhaps for your benefit I’ll have to come down a bit below the thirty-two rupees level. Let’s see what help I can get from Bakhtyar the orderly. Bakhtyar the orderly gets fifteen rupees a month. And whenever he goes out on tour with the doctor or the compounder or the vaccinator he gets double allowance and travelling expenses too. Then he has some land of his own in the village, and a small house, surrounded on three sides by lofty pine trees, and with a beautiful little garden on the fourth side laid out by his wife. He has sown it with all sorts of vegetables—spinach and radishes, and turnips and green chillies, and pumpkins, which are dried in the summer sun and eaten in the winter when snow falls and there are no greens to be had. Bakhtyar’s wife knows all about these things. Bakhtyar has three children, and his old mother, who is always quarrelling with her daughter-in-law. Once Bakhtyar’s mother quarrelled with her daughter-in-law and left home. The sky was overcast with thick clouds and the bitter cold made your teeth chatter. Bakhtyar’s eldest boy came running to the hospital to tell him what had happened, and Bakhtyar set out there and then to bring his mother back, taking Kalu Bhangi with him. They spent the whole day in the forest looking for her—Bakhtyar and Kalu Bhangi, and Bakhtyar’s wife, who was now sorry for what she had done and kept on weeping and calling out to her mother-in-law. Their hands and feet were getting numb with the cold, and the dry pine twigs were slippery underfoot; and then it began to rain. And the rain turned to sleet and a deep stillness descended all round, as though the gate to the abyss of death had opened. The snowflakes kept falling, still, silent, voiceless, and a layer of white velvet spread over valley and hill and dale.

  ‘Mother!’ shouted Bakhtyar’s wife at the top of her voice.

  ‘Mother!’ shouted Bakhtyar.

  ‘Mother!’ called Kalu Bhangi.

  The forest re-echoed and was quiet.

  Then Kalu Bhangi said, ‘I think she must have gone to your uncle’s at Nakkar.’

  Four miles this side of Nakkar they found her. Snow was falling, and she was making her way along falling and stumbling, panting and out of breath. When Bakhtyar caught hold of her, for a moment she resisted, and then fell senseless into his arms, and Bakhtyar’s wife held her up. All the way back Bakhtyar and Kalu Bhangi carried her turn by turn and by the time they reached home it was pitch dark and when the children saw them coming they began to cry. Kalu Bhangi withdrew to one side, and looking about him, began to scratch his head. Then he quietly opened the door and came away.

  Well, after all this rummaging around in my memory I’m at a loss. What can I do? Go away now, for God’s sake. You’ve pestered me too much already.

  But I know that he won’t go. I shan’t be able to get him out of my mind, and in all my stories he’ll be standing there with his filthy broom in his hand. Now I know what it is you want. You want to hear the story of something which never happened, but which could have happened. I will begin with your feet. Listen. You want your dirty rough feet to be washed clean, washed until all the filth has been washed away. You want ointment to be rubbed on their cracks. You want your bony knees to be covered with flesh, your thighs to be strong and firm, the creases on your withered belly to disappear, the dust and grime to be washed from the hair on your weak chest. You want your thin lips to become full and to receive the power of speech. You want someone to put lustre in your eyes, blood in your cheeks, give you clean clothes to wear, to raise the four walls of a little home about you, pretty and neat and clean, a home over which your wife will rule and in which your laughing children will run about.

  I cannot do what you want. I know your broken teeth and your half-weeping laugh. I know that when you get the cow to lick your head, in your imagination you see your wife passing her fingers through your hair and stroking your head until your eyes close and your head nods and you fall asleep in her kindly embrace. And when you roast the cob for me so gently over the fire and look at me so kindly and affectionately as you give it to me to eat, in your mind’s eye you are seeing that little boy who is not your son, who has not yet come into the world, and while you live never will come, and yet whom you have fondled like a loving father, and held in your lap while he played, and kissed on the face, and carried about on your shoulder saying,‘Look! This is my son!’And when you could have none of these things, then you stood aside and scratched your head in perplexity and all unconsciously began to count on your fingers: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight—eight rupees. I know the story of what could have happened. But it didn’t happen. I am a writer, and I can fashion a new story, but not a new man. For that I alone am not enough. For that the writer, and his reader, and the doctor, and the compounder, and Bakhtyar and the village patwari and headman, and the shopkeeper, and the man in authority, and the politician, and the worker, and the peasant toiling in his fields, are all needed—the united efforts of every one of those thousands and millions and hundreds of millions of people. Until all of us join hands to help one another, this task cannot be carried out and you will go on standing there on the threshold of my mind, just the same with your broom in your hand; and I shall not be able to write a really great story, in which the splendour of the complete happiness of the human spirit will shine; and the builders will not be able to build that great building in which the greatness of our people will reach its highest achievement; and no one will be able to sing a song in whose depths will be mirrored all the greatness of the universe.

  * The man who made up the medicine from the prescriptions.

  * A celebrated Indian scholar of Sanskrit and Pali.

  * Ghalib was a celebrated Urdu poet of the nineteenth century. See section on Love Poetry.

  †i.e. education such as an English child received to the age of 14.

  * Patwari:The village official responsible for keeping the records relating to land tenure etc.

  The Black Shalwar

  SAADAT HASAN MANTO


  Before they came to Delhi she had lived in Ambala Cantonment, where she had several whites among her clients. From being with them she’d learnt ten to fifteen sentences of English. She didn’t use them in ordinary conversation with them. But when after coming here to Delhi she couldn’t make a go of things she said to her neighbour Tamancha Jan one day,‘This life...very bad,’ adding that you couldn’t earn enough even for your food.

  In Ambala Cantonment she’d done very well. The British Tommies used to come to her when they were drunk, and within three to four hours she could handle nine or ten of them and make twenty to thirty rupees. These Tommies were better than her own countrymen. True, they spoke a language Sultana didn’t understand, but her ignorance of their language proved very useful to her. If any of them wanted anything extra from her she would say, ‘Sahib, I don’t understand what you’re saying.’ And if they pestered her too much she would begin to swear at them in her own language. They would stare at her, completely nonplussed, and she would say in Urdu,‘Sahib, you’re a real bloody fool, a real bastard. Do you understand?’ And when she said this she would not speak harshly, but on the contrary in a very affectionate tone. The Tommies would laugh, and when they laughed they did look real bloody fools.

  But since she’d been in Delhi not a single Tommy had visited her. She’d been three months now in this city, a city where she’d heard that the Big Lord Sahib* lived. But only six men had visited her—only six; that is two a month. And as God was her witness she’d made only eighteen and a half rupees out of these six customers. No one would pay more than three rupees. She’d told five of them that her charge was ten rupees—and was surprised when every one of them said,‘Not a penny more than three.’ God knows why, but not one of them thought her worth more than three. So when the sixth one came she herself said,‘Listen, I charge three rupees a time. Not a farthing less. Now it’s up to you. You can stay or you can go.’ He didn’t argue, and stayed. When they went into the other room and he took off his coat she said, ‘And one rupee for milk.’ He didn’t give her one rupee, but took a shiny new four-anna piece out of his pocket, with the head of the new king†on it, and gave it to her. She too didn’t argue and took it without saying anything, thinking,‘Well, it’s better than nothing.’