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

[Kshmendra Kaul]

(Thanks are due to Anupam Chakravartty who brought to attention these letters)
 
Two other pieces credited to Manto, followed by the "Fourth Letter to Uncle Sam"
 
Kshmendra 
 
 
1. PRAYER BY MANTO:
 
“Dear God, Compassionate and Merciful, Master of the Universe, we who are steeped in sin, kneel in supplication before Your throne and beseech You to recall from this world Saadat Hasan Manto, son of Ghulam Hasan Manto, who was a man of great piety. Take him away, O Lord, for he runs off from fragrance, chasing filth. He hates the bright sun, preferring dark labyrinths. He has nothing but contempt for modesty but is fascinated by the naked and the shameless. He hates what is sweet, but will give his life to sample what is bitter. He does not so much as look at housewives but is entranced by the company of whores. He will not go near running waters, but loves to wade through slush. Where others weep, he laughs; where they laugh, he weeps. Evil-blackened faces he loves to wash with tender care to highlight their features. He never thinks about You, preferring to follow Satan everywhere, the same fallen angel who once disobeyed You”.
 
2. MANTO's POSTSCRIPT FOR ONE OF HIS COLLECTIONS
 
“You the reader know me as a story writer and the courts of this country know me as a pornographer. The government sometimes calls me a communist, at other times, a great writer. Most of the time, I am denied all means of livelihood, only to be offered opportunities of gainful work on other occasions. I have been called an expendable appendage to society and accordingly expelled. And sometimes I am told that my name has been placed on the state-approved list. As in the past, so today, I have tried to understand what I am. I want to know what is my place in this country that is called the largest Islamic state in the world. What use am I here? You may call it my imagination, but the bitter truth is that so far I have failed to find a place for myself in this country called Pakistan which I greatly love. That is why I am always restless. That’s why sometimes I am to be found in a lunatic asylum, other times in a hospital. I have yet to find a niche in
 Pakistan”. http://www.aparnaonline.com/manto.html
 
 
3. Fourth Letter to Uncle Sam
Khalid Hasan May 27, 2005
 
Saadat Hasan Manto’s Letters to Uncle Sam Translated by Khalid Hasan
31 Laxmi Mansions,
Hall Road, Lahore

21 February 1954

Dear Uncle, 

I wrote to you only a few days ago and here I am writing again. My admiration and respect for you are going up at about the same rate as your progress towards a decision to grant military aid to Pakistan. I tell you I feel like writing a letter a day to you. 

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 Russian communism. Once military aid starts flowing, the first people you should arm are these mullahs. They would also need American-made rosaries and prayer mats, not to forget small stones that they use to soak up the after-drops following a call of nature. Cutthroat razors and scissors should be top of the list, as well as American hair color lotions. That should keep these fellows happy and in business. 

If this gang of mullahs is armed in the American style, the Soviet Union that hawks communism and socialism in our country will have to shut shop. I can visualize the mullahs, their hair trimmed with American scissors and their pajamas stitched by American machines in strict conformity with the Sharia. The stone they use for their after-drops of you know what will be American, untouched by human hand, and their prayer mats would be American too. Everyone will then become your camp follower, owing allegiance to you and none else. 

It is obvious that you will do your best to uplift the lower and the lower-middle class in this country and those you need for your work will be recruited from these ranks. Even the clerks and peons employed in various offices would come from this source. The salaries paid would conform to American standards and once they find themselves in money, communism will vanish like a perished soul. 

Recruitment of personnel I have no problem with but what I don’t want here are your soldiers as I would not like to see our girls turning their backs on our young men for yours. I have no doubt the young men you send over would be healthy and handsome. I would also like you to know that our upper class has no qualms about anything anymore, having divested itself of its inhibitions at your American laundry. As for the lower classes, they do continue to have certain reservations when it comes to such things. 

You may like to send out American girls adept at providing first aid and teaching our young men how to dance and kiss in public so as to make them less self-conscious. It can only be to your benefit. If you can show hundreds of bare legs in the movie Bathing Beauty, why cant we take a leaf out of your book and replicate those legs here so that we are able to use our only movie studio Shahnoor to make a movie that we can show to members of APWA in order to bring them pleasure. 

Yes, a strange thing called APWA has taken birth here which keeps the wives and daughters of important men suitably amused. APWA is short for the All Pakistan Women’s Association. I can’t make it any shorter, but what is getting shorter are the blouses its members wear, short enough for people to see their bare midriffs. What is funny is that these itsy-bitsy things are sported by women over the age of forty. The years have not been too kind to their midriffs, as is to be expected. I have a confession. I cannot stand the sight of midriffs lined by age, be their owners American or Pakistani. 

APWA members are always ready for ideas relating to scanty attire as long as someone can provide them with the right know-how. Women in your country can be sixty-five years of age and yet their midriffs look taut. It only makes you wonder how exactly they give birth to children. Maybe they know of a technique that can ensure both the birth of the baby and the skin over their middle being spared the ravages of childbirth.

It may not be a bad idea to dispatch a couple of Hollywood experts here who know everything there is to know about skimpy outfits. Plastic surgery in your country has been turned into a fine art. We need at least six of your plastic surgeons who could rejuvenate some of our women so that their modish ways remain consistent with their looks. 

In our traditional poetry, the beloved was supposed to have no waist. Our new poetry is otherwise where the beloved’s waist is like a solid tree trunk. Uncle, why don’t you pay us a visit before you sign that military pact so that it could finally be decided whether the beloved should or should not have a waist. 

One more thing. Your moviemakers are taking a great deal of interest in the Indian film industry. We cannot tolerate this. Recently, when Gregory Peck was in India, he had himself photographed with the film star Surayya whose beauty he went on record to admire. Another American moviemaker put his arms around our star Nargis and kissed her. This is not right. Have all Pakistani actresses croaked that they should be ignored!

We have Gulshan Ara. She may be black as a pot but she has appeared as the lead in many movies. She also is said to have a big heart. As for Sabiha, while it is true that she is slightly cross-eyed, a little attention from you can take care of that.[1]

We have also heard that you are providing financial assistance to Indian moviemakers. Uncle what is the meaning of this? It seems anyone, just anyone, who comes to call on you gets what he wants. 

Let your Gregory Peck go to hell (I am sorry I am getting angry). I suggest that you send two or three of your actresses because our lone hero Santosh Kumar is lonely. Recently he went to Karachi, where he drank a thousand bottles of Coca Cola and dreamt of Rita Hayworth all night. 

There is something about lipstick that I need to mention to you. The kiss-proof lipstick that you sent over did not gain much popularity with our upper-class ladies. Both young girls and older women swear that by no means is it kiss-proof. My own view is that the problem lies with the way they kiss which is all wrong. Some people kiss as if they were eating watermelon. A book published in your country called The Art of Kissing is quite useless here because one can learn nothing from it. You may instead like to fly an American girl over who can teach our upper classes that there is a difference between kissing and eating watermelon. There is no need to explain the difference to lower and lower-middle class people because they have no interest in such matters and will remain the way they are. 

You will be pleased to know that my stomach by now is quite used to American wheat. Your wheat and our eating habits seem to be compatible because we turn your wheat into chapattis. As a gesture of goodwill, you should also import some Pakistani wheat. Your soil being fertile, this new variety of Pakistani-American wheat will take root easily. It may even result in the birth of a new man whose progeny may be different from ours. 

I would like to ask you in confidence if it is true (I have read this somewhere) that in Delhi, young women have been seen walking about at night with tiny lights twinkling in their hair. The report said that some of them tucked these tiny lights inside their blouses. If this was your idea, you have my compliments. Why not prepare a powder that when rubbed would light up the entire body, making it leap out of clothes. 

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru is an old-fashioned man. After all, he is the disciple of the man who told young men to cover their eyes so that they were not able to look at women. The other day, he told the women of India to take care how they dressed and to give up the use of makeup. But who is going to listen to him! Hollywood, women are always willing to listen to. So I ask you to rush this powder to India. Pandit Nehru’s reaction would be most amusing. 

Enclosed in this envelope is the picture of a Pakistani woman who is dressed like a fisherwoman from Bombay. Her bare midriff is visible. It is a little teaser from our Pakistani women to yours. 

I hope you will accept it. 

Your obedient nephew, 

Saadat Hasan Manto 

http://www.chowk.com/articles/9175