WHY I WRITE: ESSAYS BY SAADAT HASAN MANTO (5 page)

Beautiful Girls will be Harassed

Trust Manto to take up a subject as unusual as the forcible interaction between sexes — what we call eve-teasing and molestation in India — and write a long essay on it. What strikes one on reading this essay written during pre-Independence is how playful Manto was before Partition. His title is a reference to Ghalib’s couplet: “Yaar se chhed chali jaye ‘Asad
*
,
Gar nahin vasl to hasrat hee sahi”. Manto uses the Indian word chhed, meaning to annoy. It does not have the fully negative sentiment of “molest”, and retains some of the playfulness of “tease”.

If not the ecstasy of union, then the sorrow of unrequited love. And so, till men have no access to union with women, they will continue to harass and tease women, and to molest them.

So how did all this actually begin? Who was the first man to have teased a woman? History books are silent on this for some reason. It’s possible that in some thicket of Eden’s garden, or in the shade of one of its trees, Adam began this tradition. It cannot be for nothing that he was booted out of that paradise.

But even if we were to assume that it was Adam who began this pleasant tradition, it’s not easy to figure out how it happened. His attempt could have been crude, or he must have been extremely elegant in his approach — it’s difficult for us to say which. We have little knowledge of those times.

We can’t even guess what reaction this produced in Eve and how she must have responded to the masculine overture. Many things come to my mind while imagining it. It resembles something like a scene from a nudist club in America. Adam as a white man and Eve, his madam.

If not the ecstasy of union, then the sorrow of unrequited love.

In Europe, which is living out an age of civilization and culture, there is more union and fewer sighs of unrequited love. But even so, teasing and harassment is commonly found there too.

Their women, uncovered of face and often of body, are stared and ogled at just as we stare in India at whatever bit of our women is on display. And Europeans are bolder in their approach than us. This is counter-intuitive, but the hunger for flesh cannot be sated just by having one’s fill.

As long as men are put next to women, this harassment will happen. There might come a time when women’s existence is no longer necessary for men and this will stop by itself. But not before that time is this going to end.

The other day Gandhiji wrote of the educated girls of India saying, ‘Each of these Juliets has a hundred Romeos behind her.’ At this there was such an extreme reaction in Lahore that the heavens trembled.
Ms Mumtaz Shahnawaz and other girls gave a strong response to Gandhiji. For many days, even veiled women wrote essays in Indian papers against this half-covered man. But Gandhiji did not soften his opinion. He wrote another piece, addressing boys and targeted them with his ahimsa-tipped arrows. He said to them: ‘When you walk in the bazaar, keep your gaze down. Wear a hood so that your eyes don’t light upon the faces of young girls. Thus you’ll hold on to your virtue.’

Gandhiji’s hold on India is intact. But alas, his essay had little effect on India’s young men. Pretty women continued to be teased and molested. The censor could not control the young men’s eyes. Their horny selves remained intact. Gandhiji’s attempt was as much of a failure, in fact, as that of the Congress’ to impose prohibition in Bombay.

But if it had succeeded, think of what a change Gandhiji’s advice would have brought to this country. We would have seen our young men walk around the streets with hoods on their heads and with their gazes lowered. There would have been chaotic traffic: accidents caused by this every day. And the victims would all be men. Hood on head, eyes down, directly in the path of cars coming at them. With young girls, ungazed at, walking about here and there. Horns being sounded even louder than they are now. The hospitals would soon be filled up with wounded young men. And there too the poor fellows would presumably be hooded so as to not accidentally catch sight of the young nurses.

Anyway, let’s put this
hood-wood
business behind us. It would have made life immensely boring. Passions, like still water, would not stir. All excitement would come to an end if men were physically stopped from engaging with women. No spark would be produced between two strangers. The intoxication of youth would sober up. The world all around would turn serious and grim. Faces would become longer. Their glow would vanish. Deprived of an essential motivation, men would turn sluggish.

We would also destroy our culture of poetry and literature.

This didn’t happen because it is impossible for it to happen.

Every adult man, each adult woman knows why this sort of teasing happens. It happens because it isn’t unnatural. Here, it won’t be out of place for me to reveal the information I got from interviewing some young men on this subject.

These are the questions I asked the men:

Why do you tease girls and women? Can you tell me a reason you do this?

What particular type of girl or woman do you target?

How do you go about it?

Do you think the girls and women like to be teased in this manner?

Tell me an episode of teasing that has stayed on in your mind.

I put these five questions to twelve boys who were between the ages of sixteen and twenty-four. Seven of them could not give me a coherent reply to the first question. The other five answered similarly. They more or less said: we harass girls and women because we enjoy the act of doing so.

In particular, harassing those who cannot or do not protest, who keep their anger silent. It’s impossible to describe the joy in engaging with them.

We tease them because we are driven to doing this, at times unconsciously. Often the most gorgeous girl passes by and we do nothing. It’s a question of mood. If we are in that space, no girl can pass without being engaged by us.

At times we have to listen to abuse, and sometimes we are in a position of danger. After this, for a while, our passions are subdued. But then again they stir.

There’s no question of exploiting the helplessness of a woman. But we don’t think of it as helplessness, because she’s not within our reach. Her thoughts and feelings are not known to us so we just see her as some unreachable object that we want. Like a kite on a branch that we throw pebbles at.

You ask why we tease girls, we ask why shouldn’t we? If we don’t, who will? Our relations with them have always been such that a little teasing is required every now and then.

Of these five boys, one was twenty-four. He was sharp. His ability to think and respond was better than the others. He said to me — ‘You’ll get the answer to why we tease girls soon enough. But tell me this, I passed a dog in the market the other day and winked at it. If you asked me why I did this, I’d have no reply. Why do you think I did this instinctively?’

To the second question, eight of the boys answered as follows: ‘We like teasing girls who appeal to us all of a sudden. Often they are ordinary looking, often extraordinarily beautiful. It all depends on what is it that excites us. We believe those girls generate this feeling in us. The sentiment is always within us — it is she who does something to stir it.’

Two other boys said: ‘We only tease plump and overweight girls. We’ve never gone after the slim ones. It’s great to tease girls who are heavy of body.’

One of them said: ‘In the bazaar or on the street, when I see a fatty I always wink at her. It brings a special feeling. It feels like my wink has darted into and penetrated her soft body. Fat girls are in any case shy and self-conscious. When they flare up in embarrassment at my actions, a surge of pleasure goes through me.’

To the third question, ten boys gave more or less the same answer. That while there were many ways of teasing girls, what they preferred to do was to wink at them. This was not particularly dangerous to do, and one didn’t have to be close to do it. It could be done effectively even from a distance. It also gave satisfaction because it was a complete act. It was mischievous more than anything else, but the act held within it the question – ‘So, what do you say?’

That split second’s act communicates the message of a thousand questions. It produces either anger or fear or shame that is immediately broadcast by the girl’s entire body. Winking is not dangerous because it leaves no evidence and is difficult to prove one did it. Just do it, watch her face brighten up in reaction and move on. Sometimes they even smile.

And her smile stays with them for a long time. It contains within it a fleeting emotion, touching you like the wings of a butterfly, briefly, and then it’s gone. If you left the eyes aside, other than the voice only the hands remained as instruments of engaging with girls. The boys said they used them, but rarely.

‘Because hands can’t be controlled once they’re in contact. And then there’s trouble to be had. Of course, when there’s a big crowd and much confusion, it’s fine to feel a girl up. Or places where they are concentrating on something, for instance, a man riding in the well of death. There it’s easy to do something to her and not even be noticed. Sometimes we rub ourselves against them and walk on. Sometimes just put our shoulder into them as they walk past. These are the ways in which we do it.’

Of the other two boys, one said: ‘I’ve never winked at a girl. I know this is done, and I’ve seen other boys do it. But I can never do it right. When I tried, the other eye would also shut itself and that ruined it. I’ve never molested anyone with my hands either. My style is different and actually unique. I always walk up to a girl and ask for the time. It is only girls with watches on their wrist whom I approach. No girl has ever refused to reply. But very few actually consult their watches before telling me the “time”. This is because they’re quite jumpy when suddenly approached with this question. They can’t refuse an answer because it’s impolite. I also put on an air of urgency, as if I have to be somewhere and am running late. In five years, I’ve done this 157 times.’

The other boy said: ‘I only do it verbally. I’ve tried winking but it gives me little pleasure. I call out such a line that only the targeted girl understands that I’m making a pass. To be able to do it in a manner that nobody else figures out is an art. But such lines cannot be composed all the time. Only when the mind is alive and alert. And when it is, the pleasure I get is indescribably good.’

To the fourth question, nine of the boys answered almost exactly the same way: ‘We don’t think girls like our teasing them. This is because a man and a woman can never have a comfortable relationship unless they are man and wife. A woman looks at a man as a lamb looks at the butcher. In the man’s imagination, she stands on a taut rope of chastity. Even when we think of the teasing as harmless entertainment, they weigh it in a delicate balance of sin and virtue. Truth be told, we only think of the girls, not the punishment for our actions.

‘If they don’t like it, so be it, and if they’re angered, that’s fine too. But we’ll continue to harass them.’

Two of the boys answered the question in this
manner
: ‘Women
both like
and dislike being tormented by us. A woman is an interesting creature, a bearer of ambiguous “yes” and “no”. This is why we like them. In fact, if they didn’t have this
trait,
we wouldn’t enjoy harassing them. Yes and no are so deeply mingled in their character that often their “No!” is a “Yes”. This is what gets us excited.’

One boy answered differently from the others. ‘The truth is that girls love being hit on. Why should they approach their youth differently from us? They grow up in their shalwar-qameez while we grow up in our trousers and shirts. What other difference is there? I go after girls because they like it. When they’re teased, they immediately share the details with their friends. This produces feelings — perhaps jealousy — in other girls. I know this and you don’t but not being attached to a man produces something in them that makes them yearn. If I hadn’t come to this realization, I would not be harassing them.’

Now let’s turn to the answer they gave for the final question. Each boy narrated an episode where he had picked on a girl. Only a few of them are the sort that I can reproduce here. Many were of this type – “I molested this girl, she screamed, I was caught and humiliated” and so on.

The most interesting story came from the boy who had whistled at the dog. He said: ‘This happened four years ago. In Amritsar, many people were being arrested over a Congress agitation. Jallianwala Bagh was festive and full of students and others. I’d slip out of home on the excuse of studying and head there. One day, when I was going through the bazaar, all of a sudden, my gaze turned up.

‘I saw a head in a white turban in a balcony. For a moment I thought it was a Sikh gent. Then the face came into view and I was amazed to see a dusky, gorgeous girl. I could see her churidar and qameez through the railings. The clothes fitted her closely.

‘When she noticed me, I said to her loudly, in greeting: “
Tasleem arz
karti hoon
,” as if I were a girl. She was startled. She let out an embarrassed cough-smile and, under pressure from my direct and unrelenting gaze, fled into the room.

‘At the students’ union camp in Jallianwala Bagh, I recounted this to a few of my friends. I learnt from them that she was the wife of a Congress worker who had been arrested a few days ago. She was underground, hence the disguise. They had been married for only four or five months. And now she was alone in that house. After I heard all this, I left for my house, which wasn’t too far away.