[Reader-list] Second Letter to Uncle Sam from Saadat Hasan Manto

[anupam chakravartty]

Second Letter to Uncle Sam

Saadat Hasan Manto’s Letters to Uncle Sam *Translated by Khalid Hasan*
*31 Laxmi Mansions,
Hall Road, **Lahore* <http://www.chowk.com/tag/Lahore>*
*
Most respected Uncle,

Greetings,

It has been a while since I wrote to you but while there was no
acknowledgment from you, some days earlier, a gentleman from your embassy
whose name I do not recall right now, dropped in to see me in the company of
a young local. A brief resume of my conversation with these gentlemen
follows.

We introduced ourselves in English. I was surprised that he spoke English,
not American, a language <http://www.chowk.com/tag/language> that I have
been unable to follow my entire life.

We spoke for nearly three-quarters of an hour. He was pleased to meet me as
every Americans pleased to meet a Pakistani or an Indian. I also gave him
the impression that I was pleased to meet him, when the fact is that I do
not derive any pleasure from meeting white Americans.

Please do not take my blunt words to heart. During the last
War<http://www.chowk.com/tag/War>,
when I was living in Bombay <http://www.chowk.com/tag/Bombay>, one day I
found myself at Bombay <http://www.chowk.com/tag/Bombay> Central, the train
terminus. All one could see in the city those days was Americans. Nobody any
longer gave a damn about poor Tommies. All the Anglo-Indian, Jewish and
Parsi girls of Bombay <http://www.chowk.com/tag/Bombay> who slept around by
way of fashion <http://www.chowk.com/tag/fashion> were now to be seen
walking hand in hand with the Americans.

Uncle, believe me when one of your soldiers with a Jewish, Parsi or
Anglo-Indian girl on his arm would walk past these Tommies, they would burn
to a cinder with envy. You truly are different from the rest of the world.
Our soldiers here don’t even make enough to buy half the
food<http://www.chowk.com/tag/food>they need, but you pay even your
office boy so much that he can fill not one
but two bellies, from bottom to top.

Uncle, forgive me for my impertinence, but is it not really something of a
fraud? Where do you get all the money from? I know it is not my place to say
so, but your actions have only one purpose and no other: show off. Maybe I
am wrong, but it is human to make mistakes. I think you are also human and
if you are not, then there is nothing I can do about that.

I am digressing. I was talking about
Bombay<http://www.chowk.com/tag/Bombay>Central where I used to see
many of your soldiers, mostly white, although
one also ran into blacks. If truth be told, these black soldiers looked far
tougher and in much better health <http://www.chowk.com/tag/health> than
white ones.

I can never understand why so many of your people wear glasses. The whites
wore glasses and the blacks, whom you call Negroes, wore them too. Why they
needed glasses, I have no idea. Maybe, it is all part of some grand strategy
of yours because since you favour five freedoms, you want those whom you can
easily put to eternal sleep-and you do- should look at your world through
your glasses.

At Bombay <http://www.chowk.com/tag/Bombay> Central, I saw a Negro soldier
who was so muscular that at his very sight I shrank to half my size. In the
end, I gathered my courage and walked up to him. He was resting his back
against the wall, his kitbag was lying next to him and his eyes were half
closed. I made a noise by rubbing my shoes on the floor which made him open
his eyes. I said to him in English, “I was passing this way when I stopped,
so impressed was I by your personality.” Then I offered him my hand.

The soldier who was wearing glasses took my hand in his vice-like grip and
before he could crush every bone in there, I begged him to let me go. A big
smile appeared on his dark lips and he asked me in his pure American accent,
“Who are you?”

“I live here,” I said, massaging my hand. “I noticed you at the station and
felt like exchanging a word or two with you.”

“There are so many soldiers around, why did you pick me out?” he asked.

It was a tricky question but I answered it quite effortlessly. “I am black,
so are you. I love <http://www.chowk.com/tag/love> black people,” I told
him.

He flashed a big smile at me. His dark lips looked so attractive that I
wanted to kiss them. End of story.

Uncle, your women <http://www.chowk.com/tag/women> are so beautiful. I once
saw one of your movies <http://www.chowk.com/tag/movies> called ‘Bathing
Beauty’. “Where does uncle find such an assemblage of pretty legs?” I asked
my friends later. I think there were about two hundred and fifty of them.
Uncle, is this how women <http://www.chowk.com/tag/women>’s legs look like
in your country? If so, then for God <http://www.chowk.com/tag/God>’s sake
(that’s if you believe in God <http://www.chowk.com/tag/God>) block their
exhibition in Pakistan <http://www.chowk.com/tag/Pakistan> at least.

It is possible that women <http://www.chowk.com/tag/women>’s legs out here
may be better than legs in your country but, uncle, no one flashes them
around. Just think about it. The only legs we see are those of our wives:
the rest of the legs we consider a forbidden sight. We are rather orthodox
you see.

I have digressed again but I will not apologise because this is the sort of
writing you like.

I wanted to tell you that the gentleman who came to see me belonged to your
consulate here. He wanted me to write a story for him. I was taken aback
because I do not know how to write in English, so I said to him, “Sir, I am
an Urdu writer. I do not know how to write in English.”

“We need the story in Urdu because we have a journal that is published in
the Urdu language <http://www.chowk.com/tag/language>,” he replied.

I did not want to probe any further, so I said, “I am willing.”

God <http://www.chowk.com/tag/God> is my witness, I did not know that he had
come to see me at your bidding. Perhaps you made him read the letter I had
sent you.

But let’s drop this. As long as Pakistan
<http://www.chowk.com/tag/Pakistan>needs wheat, I cannot be
impertinent to you. As a Pakistani (though my
government <http://www.chowk.com/tag/government> does not consider me
a law<http://www.chowk.com/tag/law>-abiding
citizen), I pray to God <http://www.chowk.com/tag/God> that a time may come
when you find yourself in need of millet and edible greens and, provided I
am alive, I will send it to you.

This gentleman who asked me for the story wanted to now how much I would
charge for it.

Uncle, it is possible that you lie- and you actually do, having turned it
into an art <http://www.chowk.com/tag/art>- but I don’t know how to.

That day, however I did lie. “I will charge Rs.200 for my story.”

The truth is that the most publishers here pay me is forty to fifty rupees a
story, so when I said I would charge two hundred, I felt bad and quite
ashamed of myself, but it was too late.

But uncle I was really surprised when the gentleman you had sent replied,
sounding equally surprised (real or artificial, I do not know), “Just two
hundred… you should charge at least five hundred for a story.”

I was really thrown because I could not imagine even in my wildest dreams
that I could be offered five hundred for a story. But I was not going to go
back on what I had said, so I repeated, “Look, sir, it will be two hundred
and further discussion on this matter I am not prepared for.”

He left, obviously in the belief that I was drunk. I drink and what I drink
I have described in my first letter.

Uncle, I am surprised that I am still alive, although it is five years since
I have been drinking the poison distilled here. If you ever come here, I
will offer you this vile stuff and hope <http://www.chowk.com/tag/hope> that
like me you will also remain alive, along with your five freedoms.

Anyway, next morning as I was on my veranda shaving, the same gentleman of
yours appeared and said, “Look, don’t insist on two hundred, take three
hundred.”

I said fine and took the three hundred he had offered. After putting the
money in my pocket, I said to him, “I have charged you an extra one hundred
but let me make it clear that what I write will not be to you liking, nor
will I give you the right to make changes.”

He has not shown up since. If you run into him or if he has sent you a
report, please do let your Pakistani nephew know about it.

Those three hundred rupees I have already spent. If you want the money back,
I will pay you at the rate of a rupee a month.

I hope <http://www.chowk.com/tag/hope> you are happy with your five
freedoms.


Your obedient nephew,

Saadat Hasan Manto