Daily Times

I remember the days when I was just a 13- or 14-year-old boy in Murree. While scanning through my uncle’s book-shelf, I found a book titled Phundnay, a collection of short stories by Saadat Hasan Manto, whose name was not familiar to me at the time. From the very beginning I felt the writer making inroads into my teenage fancies, by rekindling my early romantic yearnings, since his stories revolved around perennially love-struck characters. It was a fascinating read, with the bold narrations invoking a voyeuristic feeling within me. However, in my desperation to not get caught with it in my possession, I instead kept it hidden under my pillow, only taking it out when no else was around.

I spent a large part of my childhood with my siblings, at my grandfather’s house in Murree. It was a beautiful little place, surrounded on three sides by fruit-bearing trees. So my first tryst with Manto was in the salubrious and cool environment of Murree, where I read him in my adolescent years with loving interest, tinged with a sense of guilt – which was more due to my own ignorance than any true understanding of the great writer.

After more than half a century, I revisited Manto once again with a completely renewed perspective. Contrary to my earlier understanding of the great man, the primary theme in his writing is not love; instead, love appears as a fleeting impulse shared between two people, without ever leading to serious relationships. His characters are merely agents of their society who are assigned defined roles within which they are supposed to act. They mostly belong to the lower strata of this society, and have no lofty ideals of life or any high ambitions for the future. They are content with the social status quo and have no plans to fight it.

In an essay, Maen Afsana Kiyon Likhta Hoon he says that he writes under the sheer compulsion of his nature and without any design or planning, and that his urge to write is as strong as hunger or thirst. His diction is simple and colloquial, and he makes the maximum impact through minimum application of words. His style is casual and without formalities of speech or narration.

The trouble with Manto was that he was brutally honest, and perhaps society was not yet ready to accept him for who he was. Strangely enough, he would have met with an even stronger opposition today than what he faced back then. People are far less tolerant now than they were during Manto’s lifetime. That time allowed him space to lift the veil from the dark underworld of our society, resulting in six court cases, each one of which he managed to survive. Today, even his publishers would have turned him away for fear of retribution from conservative circles in our country. No writer has captured the underbelly of our culture with such vividness and insight.

The trouble with Manto was that he was brutally honest, and perhaps society was not yet ready to accept him for who he was. Strangely enough, he would have met even stronger opposition if he been writing today

The year 2012 marked a hundred years since Manto’s birth, back on May 11, 1912. However, no one in Pakistan thought to remember this remarkable writer, even though across the border he was greatly celebrated. The two countries share a unique history, one that Manto encapsulated beautifully with his writings on the horrors of the partition, and its longterm adverse effects on humanity. He also commented on the exploitation of women in both societies, especially prostitutes, and many of his stories revolved around these two themes.

Due to his excessive alcoholism, he died prematurely at the age of 42. But in his 16 years as a professional writer, he wrote over three hundred short stories, as well as numerous essays, plays and sketches. He was always a prominent literary figure; however, his controversial writings and subsequent arrests for indecency by the government became his main cause for fame. His boldness and forthright candour put him shoulder-to-shoulder with the likes of Maupassant, Chekov, Oscar Wilde and D.H. Lawrence.

What makes Manto universally admired was his refusal to choose sides based on religion, caste or creed. He only believed in the basic human right of equality for every member of society, which is why he was so incensed by the way women were treated around the world, especially during the Partition.

Recently, there has been a resurgence of good English translations of Manto’s short stories. In the sixties and seventies it was Khalid Hasan and Hamid Jalal who produced some great pieces of work; while more recently, Mohammad Umar Memon, a Pakistani scholar (and a former Professor Emeritus from the University of Wisconsin) has translated his works as well. Other significant translations of Manto’s work have been written by luminaries like Khushwant Singh, Alok Bhalla, Aatish Taseer, Tahira Naqvi, and Mushirul Hasan etc.

Manto’s work has been becoming increasingly more popular in India, and many people have also been found bemoaning the fact that the writings are in Urdu, and as such, inaccessible to the majority. However, Urdu speakers themselves have been ignoring the great literary heritage that writers like Manto helped create.

With interest dying out, it is time that competent and experienced writers take up the mantle of spreading Manto’s word across the world, and best medium to do that is by translating his works into other languages, starting with English.

I am beholden to my friend Aamir Rizwi, a noted translator of our time, who has recently taken up the gauntlet of translating Manto’s stories, which have so far escaped the attention of other translators. I hope this will prove to be a good leap forward in preserving this great man’s legacy for future generations.

The writer is a former member of the Provincial Civil Service and is currently a freelance writer

Published in Daily Times, June 23^rd 2018.