Saadat Hasan Manto
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A brief biography
A brief biography goes as follows: Manto was of Kashmiri origin but raised in Punjab, and moved to Bombay (as it was then called) in his 20s. He had dropped out of college, having failed, of all subjects, in Urdu. He was a journalist for a film magazine and for radio. He dabbled at writing scripts, but none of his movies did that well.
It is clear that he was not particularly accomplished in a city that does not have much respect for average people. But it is also true that he was able to attract towards himself some of the most famous people in Bollywood (it wasn’t called that then), including one of its biggest stars, Ashok Kumar. Why was this?
It was his writing of the short story, an art of which he was a true master. Like Maupassant, he needed very little space to be able to create a world. And in the best traditions of literature, Manto did not run away from difficult subjects. He examined sex work and religion, in a period when India was even more prudish than it is today, and unfortunately, just as communal.
Sigmund Freud said humans had the narcissism of small differences. Meaning that one hated those people whom one most resembled, barring minor and almost indiscernible differences. The writer Christopher Hitchens wrote an essay in which he explored this to understand why there was such hatred and violence between Irish Catholic and Irish Protestant, between Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot, between Serb and Croat, between Kyrgyz and Uzbek and, of course, between Indian and Pakistani.
Manto understood this and wrote about it much before Hitchens. He was totally above religion, like so few of us can be even in our time. This gave him the ability to put us all under a microscope and record our failings. He loved Indianness because it was the only identity he had. His record of Bombay during Partition, in two short essays, is a masterpiece that should be required reading in all our schools. Manto had three little daughters, not much money and a wife whose brother had moved to Karachi.
Fearful for the safety of his young family, he moved to Pakistan. He was given a refugee flat in a building called Lakshmi Mansion in Lahore (where, it will interest readers to know, Mani Shankar Aiyar was born). He had not much work in Pakistan, a place he disliked, and he was fond of his drink. He died in his early 40s in 1955 and was forgotten. India forgot him because he wrote in Urdu, the enemy’s language. Pakistan forgot him because his material was essentially anti-Pakistan. His daughter Nighat told me that till she was in her 30s, she did not know how famous her father had been. And she had no idea then how famous he was again to become.
About 35 years ago, Debonair magazine published a short story by Manto, translated by Khushwant Singh, that caused a sensation. It was called ‘Bu’ (the odour). It is the story of a man, Randhir, standing in the balcony of his Mumbai flat in the rain. He sees a peasant woman under a tree getting drenched. He invites her into his place. They become intimate (the narrative is flat, direct and not at all contrived). He becomes intoxicated by the odour of her armpits. The story ends with him in bed, newly married, to a beautiful woman, still thinking of that afternoon and of that odour.
I was 13 when I read it and it affected and disturbed me. I read it again recently, this time in the original Urdu, and my hair stood on end. It is one of literature’s great works. This story and this translation brought Manto back into fashion in Mumbai and Bollywood. Writers and actors began using his material, and Naseeruddin Shah’s troupe has a superb theatre series around Manto.
Manto was tried five times for obscenity, being convicted the fifth time, and fined, in Karachi, just before his death. He is a writer for the ages, relevant in his time and in ours and I hope Nawazuddin Siddiqui will bring him to life again.
Views of Mobin Mirza in Saadat Hasan Manto: Fun Aur Shakhsiyat
Reviewed By Saba Ekram
Saadat Hasan Manto occupies a conspicuous place among the fiction writers of Urdu. His many admirers remember him as a playwright, a translator and an essayist.
In his latest book on Manto titled Saadat Hasan Manto: Fun Aur Shakhsiyat, Mobin Mirza has devoted separate chapters to discuss Manto’s contributions in various areas apart from his achievements as a short story writer.
Yet another chapter has been added to discuss the issue of his nationality, which remains a controversial subject due to faulty interpretation by some Indian writers like Musharraf Alam Zauqui and Khem Chand. Mobin Mirza is very critical of both of them and has tried to prove that Manto was not opposed to the idea of partition. He has referred to Dr Fateh Mohammad Malik’s interpretation of Toba Tek Singh which supports his contention.
India’s official TV channel too seems to be affected by the same prejudice in this regard. In Doordarshan’s dramatisation of Toba Tek Singh a few years back, Manto was badly misinterpreted. The point of view of the main character (Bishan Singh) on Partition, as presented in the play, was altogether different from what was actually portrayed in the original story.
It is immaterial whether a writer is Pakistani or Indian, more so when he is a humanist and his creative pieces aim to foster brotherhood between the peoples of the two neighbouring countries.
Like our classical writers — Meer, Ghalib, Zauq and even Iqbal, progressive writers too should be regarded as the joint heritage of both Pakistan and India. What globalisation is trying to do today in the economic sphere, literature did much earlier. Centuries ago it broke all geographical boundaries for art and literature.
In the chapter titled Manto Ke Afsanay, the writer has made an in-depth study of some of his stories and in certain cases he has even reinterpreted them. He differs with Waris Alvi’s views with particular reference to his analysis of Zard Kutta.
Discussing Manto’s art of story-telling, Mirza thinks that he assimilated the complexities of the themes and the characters before turning them into art.
However, he has praised Mumtaz Sheerin and Dr Fateh Mohammad Malik’s assessment of Manto as carried out in their books Manto Nari Na Noori and Manto Ek Mutalia, respectively. Mirza also differs with yet another literary giant, Syed Hasan Askari, on the evaluation of Siyah Hashiay. He says Askari has overrated the pieces that, in fact, are of purely journalistic in nature and lack any creative touch.
Mirza maintains that controversies surrounding Manto’s personality lifted him to a height where no other Urdu short story writer had reached before. He is of the view that Manto is still controversial and will remain so in the years to come. There are two camps of his admirers — one hails him as a unique storyteller while the other criticises him for his ruthlessness as a realist.
Discussing Manto’s art of story-telling, Mirza thinks that he assi-milated the complexities of the themes and the characters before turning them into art.
Howsoever complex the themes and characters, in the hands of Manto they became simple and highly communicative. Another reason that his stories were not nebulous is that he used the vocabulary used by people around him.
Like other progressive fiction writers Manto too practiced realism, but in the making of a short story he developed his own creative method. Thematically too his realism goes far beyond the social inequality and social injustice and focuses on the complex problem of sex.
To the writer, Manto was a realist in the true sense. The characters he shaped are quite natural and free from any kind of artificiality. This shows that he was honest in their portrayal. However, some people did not admire this particular aspect of his work and they accused him of indulging in obscenity.
This is a research-based and insightful book.
Saadat Hasan Manto: Shakhsiyat Aur Fan By Mobin Mirza Printed by Pakistan Academy of Letters, Islamabad. ISBN: 978-969-472-164-4 228pp. Rs220
Writings on partition of India and Pakistan, 1947
The Hindu, September 18, 2016
Saadat Hasan Manto is largely known for his stories on the Partition but his empathy for those on the margins is what makes him equally relevant today
Saadat Hasan Manto’s works have always been in vogue, with Partition stories such as ‘Toba Tek Singh’, ‘Thanda Gosht’ and ‘Khol Do’ forming a bulk of literary discourse not just in Pakistan and India but across the world. That the icon has such a fan following is not without reason, for no other writer comes close to describing so vividly, and with a brutal honesty, the horrors of that rupture the way Manto did. His stories, contentious and daring, are masterpieces of literature.
A prolific writer
However, the greatness of Manto’s writing on the Partition eclipses his other works; their long stay in the limelight has robbed them of their surprises. These stories, which only form a small part of his writings, have often skewed assessment of his work. Manto was a prolific, determined writer who produced nearly two dozen collections of short stories, five collections of radio plays, three collections of essays, two collections of personal sketches, and one novel.
Shahid Anwar, whose play Ghair Zaroori Log (persona non-grata) was based on six of Manto’s stories, said during an interaction with me in 2014: “The principal problem with Manto’s literary work was that somehow he got confined to the Partition and its framework.” No wonder that most of the stories that Anwar chose for his play, including ‘Hatak’, ‘Pairan’ and ‘Mummy’, are those that often go unnoticed in Manto’s body of work. So impressed was Habib Tanvir by Anwar’s pick that he wrote a rare foreword to the play.
Stories about the nameless
Manto was a fearless champion of the truth and was disdainful of any kind of hypocrisy. He wrote for marginalised peoples, openly mocking orthodoxy that sought to suppress some voices. Manto’s critics got louder, angrier, but he produced one story after another that showed empathy for those on the periphery. Manto’s characters are prostitutes and pimps, writers, even madmen. They are often nameless people whose human essence and relentless quest for identity and dignity he sought to explore.
‘Mummy’is about an ageing and compassionate matron of a brothel. Although she is seen as a nuisance and is harassed by outsiders, Mummy cares for her clients. She is furious when her favourite client seduces a minor and beats him mercilessly. Yet, when the same client falls sick, she is the one who takes care of him. Despite her kind-heartedness, Mummy is compelled to leave town while those who visit her mehfils, the well-off and the so-called respected people, continue to enjoy their status in society. Manto brings out this irony beautifully. The story shows his respect for women who are ostracised by society, but who nevertheless retain their dignity and humanness and expose society’s hypocrisy. Manto believed that if given an opportunity, the marginalised could challenge the unjust mores of the times.
What Manto constantly tries to point out through his stories is that society has failed to provide succour to those who are most in need. It’s a dog-eat-dog world; only the fittest survive. But even in those circumstances, love flourishes and dies, and small human deeds stand out for their poignancy. Manto’s stories shock the reader with their graphic yet humane descriptions.
‘Hatak’ is another such story where a fille de joie, Saugandhi, falls in love with a policeman. One night, he warns her that no other man can come close to her. A constant game of betrayal and lies plays out with the human body as its site.
“Manto not only profiles his times but reflects unforgivingly on our collective consciousness. He clearly visualises the politics of marginalisation which disowns the very people that are the real constituents of a civic order,” Anwar had said.
In fact, Manto thought of himself as uncared for, long before he migrated reluctantly to Pakistan. He was tried thrice for obscenity before he moved to the new country. He saw what lay in store for him in India and in Pakistan. He understood that people like him would never get their due. And while he lived, he was acutely conscious of his predicament.
“What drew me to the writer was his free spirit and courage to stand up against orthodoxy of all kinds,” Nandita Das said, responding to a question on why she chose Manto for her next directorial venture. “He wrote with a rare sensitivity and empathy for his characters.”
The sacred and the filth
Manto never wrote from a distance. What society considered filth, he considered sacred. He always walked hand-in-hand with his characters. He is present in every scene that he depicts — he is the invisible ethereal form, assessing, empathising, dissecting. His stories are up close and personal, giving us the feeling that they are not fictional accounts but personal anecdotes. This is also perhaps why Manto carried throughout his life the accusation of being vulgar. But he never apologised. For his detractors, Manto had this to say: “If you find my stories dirty, the society you are living in is dirty. With my stories, I only expose the truth.” It is perhaps this faith in what he believed in that makes Manto as relevant today.
Manto’s women
Raza Rumi | Manto’s women| February 13, 2015 | Vol. XXVI, No. 53 | The Friday Times
Perhaps the most well-known and also controversial Urdu writer of the twentieth century happens to be Saadat Hasan Manto. He left us with a stupendous literary output, which continues to remain relevant decades after his death. Manto, not unlike other ‘greats’ died young and lived through the greatest upheaval in the Indian subcontinent i.e. the Partition. As a sensitive writer, he was influenced and traumatized by political turmoil during 1947 and beyond. His stories reflect his repeated attempts to come to terms with this cataclysmic event especially for millions in North India. For Manto, partition remained a mystery but he did not keep himself in a state of denial about it. He always used the word ‘batwara’, never partition.i Manto felt that it was the ripping apart of one whole and would lead to greater divisions among the people of the subcontinent. This coming to terms with the ‘batwara’, is experienced in his works by unusual characters driven by plain ambitions, mixed emotions and above all sheer humanity.
Like Nazeer AkabarAbadi, Manto’s characters are universal and often it is difficult to condemn or dislike them since their humanity remains overarching. Manto raised the slogan of humanism at a time when the subcontinent presented the picture of a boiling cauldron of religious riots and protests, of acts of misogyny committed in the name of communal honour and ‘nationalism’. For example, in the story Sahai, Manto writes, “Don’t say that one lakh Hindus and one lakh Muslims have died. Say that two lakh human beings have perished.” Manto uses his characters as metaphors to highlight the prevalent abuse of humanity in those times.
The construction and treatment of female characters by Manto turns them into complex, and sometimes ambiguous metaphors for humanity. This is why the story of suffering during 1947 is often a tale of women surviving the horrors of crimes against humanity, rescuing and salvaging life when men turn into communal butchers and not giving up even in the face of greatest adversities. Other than the Partition stories, women characters in much of Manto’s fiction are strong and unique contrary to the trends in Urdu fiction that patronized women and rearticulated the prevailing mores of a conservative, colonial society. Manto’s female characters appear as defiant and righteous, even when their circumstances are mired in taboo and social marginalization.
Women in Manto stories come from diverse backgrounds and form a clear conduit for his humanism. According to noted Urdu poet and writer Fahmida Riaz, Manto “saw women the way he saw men.” Like most of his characters, women exhibit a conviction that happiness does not lie in winning conflicts on religious or nationalist lines, but in fostering human ties based on feminist threads of love, care, respect and tolerance.
In the story Hattak (meaning insult), Saugandhi, a prostitute is awakened from her slumber late at night to attend to a client. She gets all dressed up and puts on makeup but when her Seth client meets her, he rejects her and drives away. The rejection proves devastating for Saugandhi. She gets enraged and her wrath frees her of all her illusions. She resolves to put an end to her recurring exploitation. The next day her lover visits her, a cunning man who professes love for her but actually is an extortionist who meets her for money. Saugandhi kicks him out of the house and vows to not be victimized anymore. She returns to her huge empty Sagwan bed and tries to sleep, hugging her dog, the only living creature from whom she can expect love and companionship. This is how the story ends:
“This roused Saugandhi. She found herself surrounded by a terrifying silence. Never before had she experienced this sort of dead stillness in her room. Everything seemed to be empty, like a train that has been shunted into a shed after all its passengers have alighted. She had an uneasy feeling that there was a sort of vacuum sucking at her from within. She tried her best to fill this void somehow, but failed. She would crowd a number of thoughts in her head, but her mind was like a sieve. It remained empty.
For a long time, Saugandhi sat in the cane chair and could think of no way of distracting herself. Suddenly, she picked up her dog and lying down in her spacious bed, went to sleep, with the mange stricken animal in her arms.”(Translation by Hamid Jalal)
Saugandhi’s character is more powerful than that of many virtuous wives, a character that has the ambition and intelligence to understand her own exploitation
Saugandhi’s character emerges as a self-aware woman who gets determined to put an end to exploitation and live her own life. She prefers the company of a harmless dog over continuin to bear subjugation and falsehood. In many ways, Saugandhi’s character is more powerful than that of many virtuous wives, a character that has the ambition and intelligence to understand her own exploitation. This is why Manto’s writings invited criticism from conservative readers, bigots and later the state apparatus, who were not used to such provocative portrayal of women.
Mozel, a memorable story by Manto is about a gutsy and beautiful Jewish woman, who lives in Bombay. Mozel is named after the Jewish woman in the story whose beauty Manto describes in great detail. The story proceeds to an unsettling conclusion to reveal what a women’s beauty is used for in society. It is set at a time of communal carnage in Bombay between the Hindu, Muslim and Sikh communities. A Sardarji falls in love with Mozel but she refuses him on the pretext of being too religious and conservative. The Sardar later gets engaged to another girl and Mozel is happy for the two’s future.
One day Mozel gets to know that the Sardar’s fiancé is in danger and the religious rioters plan to attack her. She forces Sardar to disguise himself as a Muslim and makes him rush to the building where the Sikh girl is stationed. Mozel gives up her Jewish robe and asks the girl to wear it so that the two can escape the religious protestors safely. She is herself left stark naked and as she descends the building’s stairs, Mozel is confronted by an angry crowd of protestors. The bloodthirsty mob gets distracted and fascinated by Mozel’s beauty. Mozel slips her foot and comes tumbling to the ground. The beauty that Manto had praised so heavily is now reduced to shambles on the ground. As one protestor proceeds to cover her body with a sheet, Mozel shrugs it off saying: “Off with it, your blasted religion.” Mozel is a free-spirited woman who has control over her life. She overruns her religious leanings to save lives of two individuals of a different faith. She is intelligent, independent and far sighted – unlike several men that surround her.
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Another of Manto’s stories, Khol do, translated as She is alive, typifies what the traumatic partition did to ordinary people. In recounting the stories of nameless and faceless millions, Manto chooses the metaphor of a woman to highlight the ‘gang rape’ of humanity that was a hallmark of 1947. This is a story of a girl abducted from East Punjab, who is finally discovered by her father in a hospital where she lies in a traumatised state, raped by her abductors as well as rescuers. The ending of the story is what makes the reader shudder at the extent of barbarity unleashed during the tumult of 1947:
“The doctor glanced at the body lying on the stretcher. He felt the pulse and, pointing at the window, told Sirajuddin, “Open it!” Sakina’s body stirred ever so faintly on the stretcher. With lifeless hands, she slowly undid the knot of her waistband and lowered her shalwar. “She’s alive! My daughter is alive! Old Sirajuddin screamed with unbounded joy.
The doctor broke into a cold sweat.”
According to Khalid Hasan, Manto is said to have cited Khol-do as his greatest story.
In Dus Rupay (Ten Rupees), Manto describes the story of an innocent young girl named Sarita who works as a part-time prostitute. Grinding poverty has forced her widowed mother to send her daughter, barely in her teens, for ‘outings’ with men in exchange for money. Personally, Sarita loves these adventures as they mostly involve visits to the beach and she enjoys the car rides. One day, two young boys visiting Bombay pick her up and take her to the beach. The trio enjoys as they laugh, play and sing together. Sarita has never seen such happiness before. When she is dropped back home, she returns the ‘dus rupay’ or ten rupees, which she is given at the beginning of the meeting. She was used to taking money from clients in the past, but this time she had only enjoyed herself.
In describing Sarita’s character, Manto emphasizes her innocence and delicacy. She is playful, fun-loving and cheery, like all young girls in their teenage. The character description tends to break away from stereotypical imagery of sex-workers and the reader shares Sarita’s joy.
The story Sharifan comments on how violence begets violence. A Muslim father avenges the rape and murder of his daughter by committing the same atrocity on a Hindu girl, whose father then stumbles out to the house just like the Muslim father to rape a girl from another religion. Manto often ends his stories on a running note as if to suggest that violence and revenge cannot have an end and continue in a vicious cycle. In Sharifan, he begins with the Muslim father shouting his daughter’s name “Sharifan, Sharifan”, and ends with the Hindu father’s shouts of “Bimla, Bimla”.
The epic story, ‘Thanda Gosht’, translated as Colder than ice, illustrates the episode of a Sikh named Isher Singh who abducts a Muslim girl during the riots and rapes her, only to realize that she had been dead all the time. His jealous partner Kulwant Kaur, rebukes him after she finds him unable to give her sexual pleasure. She is suspicious that he has been going to bed with another woman. Isher Singh pants for breath as he narrates the chilling encounter (of attempting to rape the dead girl) that rendered him impotent. In this story, the dead Muslim girl is far more symbolic than either Singh’s impotence or Kaur’s desire.
Manto’s work reiterates that true morality is not silent, nor hidden under tradition, rules or a white veil of religiosity
Manto’s work reiterates that true morality is not silent, nor hidden under tradition, rules or a white veil of religiosity. In discussing sex workers, Manto regards them as legitimate economic workers (Khurram A Shafique in his study on Female characters of Manto has elaborated this argument). Manto rejects the idea that sex-workers lead to a rise in immorality and sees them as providing an outlet to society and essential service to the people. He, however, accepts that these workers are often underpaid and are not meted out equal respect as compared to non-workers. Intizar Hussain, the great Urdu writer has correctly noted that prostitutes, “who figure prominently in his stories, are not of the Umrao Jan Ada type.” Husain adds that “they are downtrodden prostitutes.” Manto had even said that they were his favourite characters: “I accept them with all their vices, their disease, their abusiveness, their peevishness”. (Daily DAWN, 6th May, 2012 issue )
Manto rejects the idea that sex-workers lead to a rise in immorality and sees them as providing an outlet to society and essential service to the people
Of relevance here is the question of feminism in his works since the notion of a feminist in the 1940s was different from that of today. Additionally, since Manto portrays the abuse to his female characters, his work redefines long held patriarchal notions of vulgarity and taboo through teaming up humanism with taboo. Here taboo is just a man-made convention that cannot stain the humanity of the character. The notion that Manto used the female as a “sex exhibit” needs to be discarded. Feminism has no unanimously agreed upon definition except that a feminist viewpoint emerges out of an awareness of institutional exploitation and inequality, and a willingness to do something to improve the entire system.
An insightful Urdu essay by Najma Manzoor entitled ‘Manto, Aurat Aur Waris Alvi’ states: “…Manto’s artistry is such that he never preaches but continues to enlighten your mind and stir your conscience. Women have been subjected to humiliation and Manto through his stories has empathized with their plight and shown solidarity with their cause…this is why we women consider him to be a mature feminist. He raised the character of a prostitute…and familiarizes the reader with the humanity of women. His portrayals of domesticated women and prostitutes are unique for he associates unconventional attributes – for example, determination, will, not being content in every situation and above all the ability to laugh. But Manto also showed ‘real’ men who were unconventional and sensitive…” (“Adab ki Nisai Rad-e-Tashkeel”, edited by Fahmida Riaz, Feb 2006).
While the homemaker may be a paragon of conservative security, she has never been free
In Manto’s literary oeuvre, as Fahmida Riaz says, no two women are alike. The notion of the prostitute as the feminist works because in the subcontinental society, it was these women that could claim to be free. While the homemaker may be a paragon of conservative security, she has never been free. The sex worker is free, even though the choices she has to exercise her liberty are constrained, and constrained by the same rules that keep the homemaker’s freedom in check.
Sharda, a memorable story illustrates this concept. The story focuses on the physical lust of its protagonist Nazeer and the excitement he finds in infidelity. Sharda, a matter-of-fact prostitute however is more than a sex object. She turns out to be a sensitive woman capable of loving and also taking decisions. Nazeer cannot bring himself to appreciate Sharda given his patriarchal and stereotypical attitudes. But even in this state he cannot help admire attributes of women. One such passage in the story relates to Nazeer’s reflection on how women were endowed with the capacity to nurture and give life to children through breastfeeding. This thought comes in a state of semi-arousal. Sharda leaves Nazeer sensing his guilt (of cheating on his wife) and burden (of responding to Sharda’s love). However, Sharda repays him by providing his favourite brand of cigarettes when he has no money. There is a deeply ironical tone, which clearly vindicates Sharda and shows Nazeer in a poor light.
Manto’s stories are testaments of fallen humans who somehow end up lifting themselves and others out of darkness. Women and their stories become literary devices for Manto to reaffirm and reiterate his humanistic vision. This vision, it should be noted, is more expressly stated in the wide corpus of Manto’s non-fiction work that is yet to be fully appreciated.
Our great feminist poet and political activist Fahmida Riaz has summed it all up: “It is strange that other writers, especially in Urdu, are so blind to the reality of women. They would not even notice bravery or intelligence in their female subjects. On the contrary, they are capable of giving the most perverse “psychological” twist to the most remarkable traits in a woman. Even today, Manto stands more or less alone in the position that he takes on women. After Manto, there is none like Manto.” (May 6, 2012, The News).
This is an abridged version of a longer essay that appeared in a special issue of ‘Social Scientist”, India, marking Manto’s centenary celebrations
