A woman’s voice called out from inside the inn: ‘Please wait, traveller!’
Govardhan stopped. He saw a woman’s face in the square of the window of the inn that he could glimpse through the thick mango trees surrounding it. Although it was late evening, there was just enough light for him to see that she had made up her face carefully. Govardhan went up to her.
She came out to the veranda. ‘Traveller, can you buy me something to eat?’ she asked. ‘There’s not a soul here, not even a watchman.’
There was no one in the inn and it was situated in a deserted region outside the town. The forest lay just beyond it.
Govardhan said: ‘I will have to go to the town to get something. I’m coming from there.’
She did not reply to that.
‘All right then, give me some money,’ said Govardhan.
He went back to the town and bought rotis and vegetables. She thanked him and he was about to leave when she stopped him. ‘Wait, you good man. My name is Umrao Jan. You must have realized what my profession is. If you do not mind, keep me company. I know you are hungry and there is plenty here.’
They sat down on the floor and she served him like a good housewife. He was so hungry that he began to eat without waiting for the usual formalities. She watched him eat with great enjoyment. After a while, she said: ‘You did not tell me anything about yourself.’
‘Govardhan has nothing to say, he has only things to ask.’
Umrao Jan laughed, then suddenly grew thoughtful. The laughter faded from her face.
‘Umrao Jan never asks anything, she only tells,’ she said. ‘In our profession, we usually sing and our guests listen.’
‘Baiji, when I said I ask questions, I did not mean it is part of my profession,’ said Govardhan with an indifference born of experience, giving all his attention to the food. ‘I was suddenly separated from my profession one day, I do not know how or why. And that is how I began to ask questions. If you begin to ask questions, maybe you too will have to give up your profession. Look, baiji, I asked questions all the way as I came here. Everyone I met was knowledgeable and skilled in their own profession. But none of them could give me an answer. What I learned was that our own professions make us incapable of understanding the problems of others.’
‘I needed you to make me understand this.’ A happiness mingled with pain spread over Umrao Jan’s face. ‘The number of people who have come to me! Nawabs, ustads, lawyers, government officers, even domestic servants! This time it was a highwayman—Faiz Ali. I had run away from my house to escape the dacoits—how was I to know that I had come upon another dacoit? And one who even had a price on his head! When we arrived here, the police arrested him and took him away. Even the palki in which he brought me here was carried away by someone…Do you know why they all came to me, from nawabs to dacoits? To listen to poems about love! It is prostitutes, Govardhan, who have been appointed by our cities to compose and sing poems about love! No one has found this strange or unnatural. I never asked any of these people what brought them to me. The truth is that there were never any questions between us.’
‘You are not eating, baiji. You keep looking at me and talking. At this rate, I will finish all the food.’
Umrao Jan smiled and drew her plate towards her.
‘How strange!’ she remarked, putting a piece of roti into her mouth. ‘In this desolate jungle, in an inn where there is not even a watchman, on an evening when the sun is beginning to set, two people who came from different places and are each going their own way, sit and share a meal together. One has only questions and the other only answers…And yet, there is no connection between your questions and my answers. Deep chasms gape between the words we exchange.’
‘Baiji, you have begun to recite poetry now. But poetry is lies. There is only one question in the world: the question of injustice. No matter how many gaps you feel there are between my question and your answer, they are about the same thing, injustice. Look, though I have done nothing wrong, and though everyone had admitted to this, they have decided to hang me! And the punishment meted out to you was for a fault you certainly did not commit, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said Umrao Jan, the piece of roti still in her hand. ‘While you became a fugitive to escape punishment, I accepted it. I not only accepted it, I made use of it and even enjoyed it in my own fashion. I once tried to take revenge on the dacoit, Dilawar Khan, who had abducted me when I was a child and sold me into this profession. Of course I failed. Imagine, fate, that plays such cruel jokes on us, made me realize that the man whose help I sought to escape from that profession was himself a dacoit! Dilawar Khan now goes around the country tightening the noose around the necks of hundreds of innocent people! My dear Govardhan, while you became a fugitive to escape the noose, this sister who sits beside you is a person who dared to transform nooses into poems! What a game life plays with us, brother! Who will Umrao take revenge on? Who will she run away with? There is no way Umrao can go out. In any case, there are still so many people who wander through the Chowk in search of deceptive poems and songs on love. The long stretch of my life that began and ended with dacoits has taught me that this mural, like the wall on which it is painted, has no end. The wall goes on and on, not allowing the mural that incorporates Govardhan, Umrao, Faiz Ali, Dilawar Khan and Ali Dost to come to an end…I sent away Mirza Ruswa, who wanted to transform my life into a story. Poor Umrao did not realize that her life itself is a huge palace of stories…’
Govardhan got up. Placing his hand on her shoulder, he addressed her by the name she had had as a child. ‘Ameeran didi, I walked out of that wall. Or the painter who drew me peeled me off the wall and made me walk down this road. The fact that you sent your painter away does not mean that you have to stay on the wall. One day you too must come down to the road which, after all, does not need to be different from the wall. This place too is full of fear and pain. Still, to know that both of us are walking along this road, to hope that we may meet someday, is a great blessing.’
Govardhan walked towards the forest as if welcoming the darkness that came down from it. Umrao Jan stood like a painting on the wall watching him.