[Reader-list] Saadat Hasan Manto’s Letters to Uncle Sam

[anupam chakravartty]

Saadat Hasan Manto’s Letters to Uncle Sam

*Foreword by Khalid Hasan

Between 1951 and 1954, Saadat Hasan Manto wrote nine letters to Uncle Sam …
These letters not only tell us a good deal about Manto and his concerns but
even more about his political views. The man who speaks through these
letters is well informed about international* *affairs and critical of
American **policy* <http://www.chowk.com/tag/policy>*. We also see Manto’s
lighter side at play, enlivened by his caustic, at times savage, wit. We
also learn a good deal about his friends and foes. He makes fun of Pakistani
communists whom he always considers somewhat fake because they looked for a
signal from their political gurus abroad before taking a position on any
issue. A man with independent temperament of Manto found such conduct
pathetic and made no bones about it.

I had long wanted to translate these letters into English for not so much of
their intrinsic literary and historical value but on account of their
readability.


About Saadat Hasan Manto:

Saadat Hasan Manto, the most widely read and most controversial short story
writer in Urdu, was born on May 11, 1912 at Sambrala in Punjab’s Ludhiana
district. In a literary, journalistic, radio scripting and
film-writing *<http://www.chowk.com/tag/career>
*career* <http://www.chowk.com/tag/career>* spread over more than two
decades, he produced 22 collections of short stories, one novel, five
collections of radio plays, three collections of essays, two collections of
personal sketches, and many scripts for films. He was tried for obscenity
half a dozen times, thrice before and thrice after independence. Manto’s
greatest work was produced in the last seven years of his life, a time of
great financial and emotional hardship for him. He died several months short
of his 43rd birthday in January 1955 in
**Lahore*<http://www.chowk.com/tag/Lahore>
*.*


*First Letter to Uncle Sam *

*
31 Laxmi Mansions,
Hall Road, **Lahore* <http://www.chowk.com/tag/Lahore>*
*

16 December 1951

*Dear Uncle, *

Greetings,

This letter comes to you from your Pakistani nephew whom you do not know,
nor does anyone else in your land of seven freedoms.

You should know why my country, sliced away from
India<http://www.chowk.com/tag/India>,
came into being and gained independence, which is why I am taking the
liberty of writing to you. Like my country, I too have become independent
and in exactly the same way. Uncle, I will not labour the point since an
all-knowing seer like you can well imagine the freedom a bird whose wings
have been clipped can enjoy.

My name is Saadat Hasan Manto and I was born in a place that is now in
India<http://www.chowk.com/tag/India>.
My mother is buried there. My father is buried there my first-born is also
resting in that bit of earth. However, that place is no longer my country.
My country now is Pakistan <http://www.chowk.com/tag/Pakistan> which I had
only seen five or six times before as a British subject.

I used to be the All India <http://www.chowk.com/tag/India>’s Great Short
Story Writer. Now I am Pakistan <http://www.chowk.com/tag/Pakistan>’s Great
Short Story Writer. Several collections of my stories have been published
and the people respect me. In undivided India<http://www.chowk.com/tag/India>,
I was tried thrice, in Pakistan <http://www.chowk.com/tag/Pakistan> so far
once. But then Pakistan <http://www.chowk.com/tag/Pakistan> is still young.


The government <http://www.chowk.com/tag/government> of the British
considered my writings pornographic. My own
government<http://www.chowk.com/tag/government>has the same opinion.
The
government <http://www.chowk.com/tag/government> of the British let me off
but I do not expect my own government
<http://www.chowk.com/tag/government>to do so. A lower court sentenced
me to three months hard labour and a Rs.
300 fine. My appeal to the higher court won me an acquittal but my
government <http://www.chowk.com/tag/government> believes that
justice<http://www.chowk.com/tag/justice>has not been done and so it
has now filed an appeal in the High Court,
praying that the judgment acquitting me be quashed and I be punished. We
will have to see what the high Court decides.

My country is not your country which I regret. If the High Court were to
punish me, there is no newspaper in my country that would print my picture
or the details of all my trial.

My country is poor. It has no art <http://www.chowk.com/tag/art> paper, nor
proper printing presses. I am living evidence of this
poverty<http://www.chowk.com/tag/poverty>.
You will not believe it, uncle, but despite being the author of twenty-two
books, I do not have my own house to live in. and you will be astonished to
know that I have no means of getting myself from one place to the other. I
neither have a Packard nor a Dodge; I do not even have a used car.

If I need to go somewhere, I rent a bike. If a piece of mine appears in a
newspaper and I earn twenty to twenty-five rupees at the rate of seven
rupees a column, I hire a tonga and go buy locally distilled whiskey. Had
this whiskey been distilled in your country, you would have destroyed that
distillery with an atom bomb because it is the sort of stuff guaranteed to
send its user to kingdom come within one year.

But I am disgressing. All I really wanted to do was to convey my good wishes
to brother Erskine Caldwell. You will no
doubt<http://www.chowk.com/tag/doubt>recall that you tried him for his
novel ‘
God <http://www.chowk.com/tag/God>’s Little Acre’ on the same charge that I
have faced here: pornography.

Believe me, uncle, when I hear that this novel was tried on an obscenity
charge in the land of seven freedoms, I was extremely surprised. In your
country, after all, everything is divested of its outer covering so that it
can be displayed in the show window, be it fresh fruit or woman, machine or
animal, book or calendar. You are the king of bare things so I am at a
loss<http://www.chowk.com/tag/loss>to understand, uncle, why you tried
brother Erskine Caldwell.

Had it not been for my quick reading of the court judgment I would have
drunk myself to death <http://www.chowk.com/tag/death> by downing large
quantities of our locally distilled whiskey because of the shock I received
when I came to know of the Caldwell case. In a way, it was unfortunate that
my country missed an opportunity to rid itself of a man like me, but then
had I croaked, I would not have been writing to you, uncle. I am dutiful by
nature. I love <http://www.chowk.com/tag/love> my country. In a few days, by
the Grace of God <http://www.chowk.com/tag/God> I will die and if I do not
kill myself, I will die anyway because where flour sells at the price at
which it sells here, only a shamefaced person can complete his ordained time
on earth.

So, I read the Caldwell judgment and decided not to drink myself to
death<http://www.chowk.com/tag/death>with large quantities of the
local hooch. Uncle, out there in your country,
everything has an artificial fa�ade but the judge who acquitted brother
Erskine was certainly without such fa�ade if this judge- I’m sorry I don’t
know his name- is alive, kindly convey my respectful regards to him.

The last lines of his judgment point to the intellectual reach of his mind.
He writes: “I personally feel that if such books were suppressed, it would
create an unnecessary sense of curiosity among people which could induce
them to seek salaciousness, though that is not the purpose of this book. I
am absolutely certain that the author has chosen to write truthfully about a
certain segment of American society. It is my opinion that truth is always
consistent with literature <http://www.chowk.com/tag/literature> and should
be so declared.”

That is what I told the court that sentenced me, but it went ahead anyway
and gave me three months in prison with hard labour and a fine of three
hundred rupees. My judge thought that truth and
literature<http://www.chowk.com/tag/literature>should be kept far
apart. Everyone has his opinion.

I am ready to serve my three-month term but this fine of three hundred
rupees I am unable to pay. Uncle, you do not know that I am poor. Hard work
I am used to, but money I am unused to. I am about thirty-nine and all my
life I have worked hard. Just think about it. Despite being such a famous
writer, I have no Packard.

I am poor because my country is poor. Two meals a day I can somehow manage
but many of my brothers are not so fortunate.

My country is poor. But why is it ignorant? I am sure, uncle, you know why
because you and your brother John Bull together are a subject I do not want
to touch because it will not be exactly <http://www.chowk.com/tag/music>
music <http://www.chowk.com/tag/music> to your ears. Since I write to you as
a respectful youngster, I should remain that way from start to finish.

You will certainly ask me out of astonishment why my country is poor when it
boasts of so many Packards, Buicks, and Max Factor cosmetics. That is indeed
so, uncle, but I will not answer your question because if you look into your
heart, you will find the answer (unless you have had your heart taken out by
one of your brilliant surgeons.)

That section of my country’s
population<http://www.chowk.com/tag/population>which rides in Packards
and Buicks is really not of my country. Where poor
people like me and those even poorer live, that is my country.

There are bitter things, but there is a shortage of sugar here otherwise I
would have coated my words appropriately. But what of it! Recently, I read
Evelyn Waugh’s book ‘The Loved One’. He of course comes from the country of
your friends. Believe me, I was so impressed by that book that I sat down to
write to you.

I was always convinced of the individual genius found in your part of the
world but after reading this book, I have become a fan of his for life. What
a performance, I say! Some truly vibrant people do indeed live out there.

Evelyn Waugh tells us that in your California, the dead can be beautified
and there are large organizations that undertake the task. No matter how
unattractive the dear departed in life, after
death<http://www.chowk.com/tag/death>he can be given the look desired.
There are forms you fill where you are
asked to indicate your preference. The excellence of the finished product is
guaranteed. The dead can be beautified to the extent desired, as long as you
pay the price. There are experts who can perform this delicate task to
perfection. The jaw of the loved one can be operated upon and a beatific
smile implanted on the face. The eyes can be lit up and the forehead can be
made to appear luminous. And all this work is done so marvelously that it
can befool the two angles who are assigned to do a reckoning once a person
is in the grave.

Uncle, by God <http://www.chowk.com/tag/God> you people are matchless.

One had heard of the living being operated on and beautified with the help
of plastic surgery- there was much talk of it here- but one had not heard
that the death <http://www.chowk.com/tag/death> can be beautified as well.

Recently one of your citizens <http://www.chowk.com/tag/citizens> was here
and some friends introduced me to him. By then I had read brother Evelyn
Waugh’s book and I read an Urdu couplet to your countryman that he did not
follow. However, the fact is, uncle, that we have so distorted our faces
that they have become unrecognizable, even to us. And there we have you who
can even make the dead look more beautiful than they ever were in life. The
truth is that only you have a right to live on this earth: the rest of us
are wasting our time.

Our great Urdu poet Ghalib wrote about a hundred years ago:

*If disgrace after **death* <http://www.chowk.com/tag/death>* was to be my *
*fate* <http://www.chowk.com/tag/fate>*,
I should have met my end through drowning
It would have spared me a funeral and no headstone would have marked my last
resting place *

Ghalib was not afraid of being disgraced while he was alive because from
beginning to the end that remained his lot. What he feared was disgrace
after death <http://www.chowk.com/tag/death>. He was a graceful man and not
only was he afraid of what would happen after he died, he was certain what
would happen to him after he was gone. And that is why he expressed a wish
to meet his end through drowning so that he should neither have funeral nor
grave.

How I wish he had been born in your country. He would have been carried to
his grave with great fanfare and over his resting place a skyscraper would
have been built. Or were his own wish to be granted, his dead body would
have been placed in a pool of glass and people would have gone to view it as
they go to a zoo.

Brother Evelyn Waugh writes that not only are there in your country
establishments that can beautify dead humans but dead animals as well. If a
dog loses its tail in an accident, he can have a new one.

Whatever physical defects the dead one had in life are duly repaired after
death <http://www.chowk.com/tag/death>. He is then buried ceremoniously and
floral wreaths are placed on his grave. Every year on the pet’s
death<http://www.chowk.com/tag/death>anniversary, a card is sent to
the owner with an inscription that reads
something like this: In paradise, your Tammy (or Jeffie) is wagging his tail
(or his ears) while thinking of you.

What it adds up to is that your dogs are better off than us. Die here today,
you are forgotten tomorrow. If someone in the
family<http://www.chowk.com/tag/family>dies, it is a disaster for
those left behind who often can be heard wailing,
“why did the wretch die? I should’ve gone instead.” The truth is, uncle,
that we neither know how to live nor how to die.

I heard of one of your citizens <http://www.chowk.com/tag/citizens> who
wasn’t sure what sort of funeral he would be given, so he staged a grand
“funeral” for himself while he was very much alive. He deserved that
certainly because he had lived a stylish and opulent life where nothing
happened unless he wished it to. He wanted to rule out the possibility of
things not being done right at his funeral; as such, he was justified in
personally observing his last rites while alive. What happens after
death<http://www.chowk.com/tag/death>is neither here nor there.

I have just seen the new issue of ‘Life’ (5 November 1951, international
edition) and learnt of the most instructive facet of American life. Spread
across two pages is an account of the funeral of the greatest gangster of
your country. I saw a picture of Willie Moretti (may his soul rest in
peace<http://www.chowk.com/tag/peace>)
and his magnificent home which he had recently sold for $55,000. I also
viewed his five-acre estate where he wanted to live in
peace<http://www.chowk.com/tag/peace>,
anyway from the distractions of the world. There was also a pictures of his
$5,000 casket and his funeral procession made up of seventy-five cars.
God<http://www.chowk.com/tag/God>is my witness, it brought tears to my
eyes.

May there be dust in my mouth, but in case you were to die, may you have a
grander farewell than Willie Moretti. This is the ardent prayer of a poor
Pakistani writer who doesn’t even have a cycle to ride on. May I beg you
that like the more farsighted ones in your country, you should make
arrangements to witness your funeral while you are alive. You can’t leave it
to others; they can always make mistakes, being fallible. It is possible
that your physical appearance may not receive the attention it deserves
after you have passed away. It is also possible that you may already have
witnessed your funeral by the time this letter reaches you. I say this
because you are not only wiser, you are also my uncle.

Convey my good wishes to brother Erskine Caldwell and to the judge who
acquitted him of the pornography charge. If I have caused you offense, I beg
your forgiveness. With the utmost respect,

Your poor nephew,

Saadat Hasan Manto,
Resident of Pakistan <http://www.chowk.com/tag/Pakistan>