[Reader-list] Manto's fiftieth death anniversary observed

[Shivam Vij]

  Remembering Manto
  Manto, like Bhagat Singh and Mirza Abrahim, was disowned for his
anti-imperialism

  By Farooq Sulehria
  The News International (Pakistan) | 17 January 2005
  http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/jan2005-daily/17-01-2005/oped/o1.htm


[The writer is a freelance journalist based in Sweden. Email:
mfsulehria at hotmail.com ]

"Here lies buried Saadat Hasan Manto in whose bosom are enshrined all
the secrets and art of short story writing. Buried under mounds of
earth, even now he is contemplating whether he is a greater short
story writer or God".

His own epitaph. If one goes by it, January 18 will mark fifty years
since Manto set out on his contemplation. The 50th death anniversary
of, in Tariq Ali's words, Pakistan's 'most gifted Urdu short-story
writer' will come and go unnoticed. A 100-page 'Manto Number' by
minuscule weekly Mazdoor Jeddojuhd may be the humble exception. No
state institution will mark January 18 as Manto Day. No government
dignitary will grace any seminar at some five star hotel. The
mainstream press will run no commentaries. Nor will any 'official'
floral wreath be laid on Manto's grave at Lahore's Miani Saab
graveyard. But that is not because his epitaph would embarrass the
faithful -- Manto's own sister removed it long ago.

"Phuppo was religious minded. She found Manto's epitaph provocative
and replaced it," says Nighat Patel, Manto's eldest daughter now
living in Manto's Lakshmi Mansions' apartment close to Regal Chowk, in
an interview for Jeddojuhd's Manto Number. Like her sisters Nusrat and
Nuzhat, Nighat is not upset by the official apathy. "Thousands of
Manto- lovers have visited me since I have moved from Defence to this
place," says Nighat. "Manto used to say that his spirit will not find
peace if his grave becomes Iqbal's tomb,"

Manto's grave became no tomb, and so perhaps he does rest in peace.
The grave was not converted into an 'Iqbal's tomb' because Manto was
disowned - but not because he was 'obscene'. Manto, like Bhagat Singh
and Mirza Abrahim, was disowned for his anti-imperialism. He was
disowned, like Ustad Daman, for not endorsing the Partition. Like
Sibte Hassan and Sajjad Zahir, he never conformed to the official
ideology. Therefore he was disowned by the establishment.

His Jurat-e-Tahkeek (courage to know) and Lab Azad (courage to speak)
pitch him against a confessional state born out of a bloody Partition.
Manto rejected both. The confessional state contradicts his
secularism. Partition negates his humanism. And the oppressive ruling
class of the new state infuriates Manto when it exploits people hand
in hand with imperialism. Manto stands for people: the clerks,
tonga-wallas, jobless, petty thieves, prostitutes, pimps, pickpockets,
peasants, factory workers.

"That section of my country's population, which rides in Packards and
Buicks, is really not my country. Where poor people like me and those
even poorer live, that is my country" (First Letter to Uncle Sam,
1951).

No wonder the establishment refuses to own him.

But the state having disowned Manto, and the likes of him, is not at
ease with itself. In pursuit of heroes, the state creates the Father
of the Bomb as an idol for its ideological laboratories. The trouble
with state heroes arises when a September 11 compels the undoing of a
hero. Meanwhile, Manto's far-sighted 'Letters to Uncle Sam' provide an
interesting insight into this post- September 11 era. Coincidentally,
Alhamra published an excellent English translation, by Khalid Hasan,
of Manto's nine letters few weeks prior to 9/11.

"Regardless of India and the fuss it is making, you must sign a
military pact with Pakistan because you are seriously concerned about
the stability of the world's largest Islamic state, since our mullah
is the best antidote to the Russian communism. Once military aid
starts flowing, the first people you should arm are these mullahs.
They will also need American-made rosaries and prayer-mats, not to
forget the small stones that they use to soak up the after-drops
following a call of nature. Cut-throat razors and scissors should be
top of the list, as well as American hair colour lotions. That should
keep these fellows happy and in business. I think the only purpose of
military aid is to arm these mullahs." (Fourth Letter to Uncle Sam,
1954)

"American topcoats are also excellent and without them our Landa Bazar
would be quite barren. But why don't you send us trousers as well?
Don't you ever take off your trousers? If you do, you probably ship
them to India. There has to be a strategy to this because you send us
jackets but no trousers, which you send to India. When there is a war,
it will be your jackets and your trousers. These two will fight each
other using arms supplied by you." (Third Letter to Uncle Sam, 1954)

His devastating wit and famous sense of irony go particularly berserk
when it comes to communal passions:

"The mob suddenly veered to the left, its wrath now directed at the
marble statue of Sir Ganga Ram, the great philanthropist of Lahore.
One man smeared the statue's face with coal tar. Another strung
together a garland of shoes and was about to place it around the great
man's neck when the police moved in, guns blazing. The man with the
garland of shoes was shot, then taken to the nearby Sir Ganga Ram
Hospital" (The Garland).

Manto died young, a few months short of 43. Born on 11 May 1912, he
breathed his last on 18 January 1955 - but he was a prolific writer
during his short life. In a literary, journalistic, radio scripting
and film-writing career spread over two decades, he produced 22
collections of short stories, a novel, five collections of radio
plays, three collections of essays, two collections of personal
sketches, and many scripts for films.

During World War II, he worked for All India Radio in Delhi, but the
best years of his life were spent in Bombay where he was associated
with some of the leading film studios, including Imperial Film
Company, Bombay Talkies and Filmistan. He wrote over a dozen films,
including Eight Days, Chal Chal Re Naujawan and Mirza Ghalib, which
was shot after Manto moved to Pakistan in January 1948. Sang-e-Meel,
Lahore, have published a series of Manto's works. Manto has been
translated in Punjabi and Hindi in India where he is widely read. His
plays have been adapted for stage plays in Pakistan and abroad.

It was Partition that inspired Manto's greatest works -- Toba Tek
Singh, to mention just one, which gained him much posthumous fame.
India's Doordarshan television, as well as Channel Four, UK, adapted
this play as a telefilm, and it has been staged several times,
including in faraway Norway. And yet, during his lifetime, he had to
deal with much infamy. His unflinching realism and uncompromising
observations of life as he saw it led to Manto being tried for
obscenity half-a-dozen times, thrice before and thrice after
Partition.

Partition also brought him great financial and emotional stress. In
the post-Partition period, his motive to write did not solely emanate
from the creative urge. He wrote for money, to look after his family -
and also to his habitual drinking which ate up last couple of years of
his eventful life. But perhaps it was not this that cost him his life.
More than this habit, it was a society-turned -drunk that drove him to
death. And on his 50th death anniversary, the epitaph approved by his
sister also makes for good reading: Yahan Manto dafan hay jo aaj bhi
ye samajhta hay kay wo loh-e-Jahan per harf-e-muqarar nahi tha (Here
lies buried Manto who still believes that he was not the final word on
the face of the earth).