Saadat Hasan Manto – Selected Short Stories, Feb 18, 2019

Manto - Selected Short Stories (MSSS) translated by Aatish Taseer is a good collection covering some of the author's famous stories. He wrote over 250 in his short life of 42 years, the last seven of which were spent in Lahore, after emigrating to Pakistan in Jan 1948.


Manto considered himself a Bombay writer, living and writing in close association with the city’s film industry for which he wrote stories and scripts. He had many close friends among film actors, and became a good friend of Ismat Chugtai, the woman short story writer for whom he had a high regard. She, like him, doubled as a screenplay writer for Bombay films. The amazing talent that the Bombay film industry drew at that time (and still draws) from all over India is the principal reason for its vitality.

Kochi Reading Group (plus one interloper, Gael)

Geetha, Devika, Kavita, Thommo, Hemjit

Hemjit & Sugandhi with KumKum

Manto wrote about everything and was not afraid to describe the seamy side of life, which he saw as intertwined with the normal surface respectability on the outside. He was a wonderful writer of women characters for whom he had a special empathy; in his public life he upheld the tenet of equality for women. The translator, Aatish Taseer, who learned Urdu in order to translate Manto, makes a significant point about the culture in which Manto was at home:


India must now reclaim men like Manto. In Pakistan, Manto’s world, crowded with Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims, would feel very foreign. It is only in India, still plural, still symmetrically Hindu, that it continues to have relevance. His eye could only have been an Indian eye, sensitive to surprising detail, compulsively aware of Indian plurality, sympathetic to people trapped in their circumstances, here pointing to a particular Hindu festival, there imitating Bombay street dialect.

Many have considered it a tragedy that Manto went to Pakistan after Partition. His wife Safia explains the perplexity at the time that led to his decision, in the biographical notes below. The real tragedy was that he went to a country that did not appreciate his gifts, that tormented him with obscenity charges (on one occasion the use of the word ‘breasts’ was cited as obscene). Magazine publishers in Lahore routinely paid him on the cheap with bootlegged liquor. For decades he was persona non grata, until on the centenary of his birth the Government of Pakistan decided it was time to bestow an honour, the Nishan-e-Imtiaz medal.

Hemjit, Zakia, Saras, KumKum with birthday goodies - marble cake, samosas, and round Ferrero Rocher chocolates

Manto raised the issue of which side will own what part of the language and culture of north India. 

“Will Pakistan’s literature be separate from that of India’s? If so, how? Who owns all that was written in undivided India? Will that be partitioned too? Are India’s and Pakistan’s core problems not the same? Will Urdu be totally wiped out in India? What shape will it take in Pakistan? Will our state be a religious one?”

One thing we can assert with confidence. Urdu was never extinguished in India, but perhaps suffered a decline after the decades when poet-writers like Sahir Ludhianvi and Shakeel Badayuni provided lyrics for songs and dialogues for films. Now mushairas are once again alive in the North and even woman shayars like Malka Naseem, are being recognised in the country (see from 2:55 onwards of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILKNHjiofb8). The young college folk are showing renewed interest in listening to Urdu poets at gatherings.  


Here is a group picture of the readers at the end of the session:

(standing) Joe, Arundhaty, Sugandhi, Zakia, Devika, Saras, Gael, Geetha, KumKum, Rachel Thommo (seated) Hemjit

Saadat Hasan Manto

Manto - Selected Short Stories (MSSS) translated by Aatish Taseer  - Full Account and Record of the Reading on Feb 18, 2019

Present: Geetha, Kavita, KumKum, Zakia, Joe, Hemjit, Thommo, Devika, Arundhaty

Virtually Present: Pamela, Shoba

Guests: Rachel (daughter of Joe & KumKum) and her son, Gael (two syllables)

Devika, Kavita, Hemjit, KumKum, Rachel & Gael

Hemjit, KumKum, Gael, Rachel

The dates for the next readings are:

Fri Mar 29, 2019 –  American Pastoral by Philip Roth

[This will be a costume day – women in sarees (or better, kasavu mundu and neryathu) and men in mundu & shirt/jubba]

Fri April 12, 2019 –  Shakespeare celebration (readings from plays). Indira and Talitha have been invited and will attend this session, Deo Volente, in the words of Talitha.

We celebrated the birthday of Saras. She brought a wonderful Marble Cake and Samosas; Thommo & Geetha contributed a delicious Sri Lankan cake from Perera and Sons (https://www.pereraandsons.com/) made of almond paste!

Hemjit, Zakia, Saras, KumKum with birthday goodies - marble cake, samosas, Ferrero Rocher chocolates

Introduction to MSSS 

Preeti and Priya chose this book which substituted for the normal Poetry session that would have taken place in Feb. They advocated the choice of at least one South Asian writer in our six novels for the year. We agreed to accommodate Saadat Hasan Manto’s short stories this year, since a good translation had come out by Aatish Taseer, the Indian writer based in New York.

However neither of the selectors attended on the day. Priya being down with laryngitis for the second time, had no voice even for remote submission of a reading. Preeti has been out of town often. She agreed to stand down from membership and come as a guest if she is in town and has time to prepare a reading. Her place will be taken by Arundhaty Nayar who has often attended in the past and read, but now wishes to commit time and become a regular.

Joe gave a quick background of Manto (pronounced सआदत हसन मन्टो) who lived from 1912-1955. His stories in the original Urdu (and Devnagiri script also) are available at

https://www.rekhta.org/manto/stories

He was born near Ludhiana, Punjab, in undivided India and died in Lahore, Pakistan in 1955. He took to literature only after he met Abdul Bari Alig, a writer, in Amritsar who encouraged him. He did a translation of Victor Hugo’s The Last Day of a Condemned Man and it was published as his first work in Ludhiana.

He entered Aligarh Muslim University to study and while there he joined the Indian Progressive Writers' Association (IPWA), but he did not complete his studies and get a degree. A turning point in his life was when he went to Bombay in 1934 and came in contact with the film industry there. He loved Bombay life and the experiences the city afforded him, which yielded the raw material for many of his stories. For a brief while he left Bombay and got a job at All India Radio in Delhi. There he wrote plays which were produced over the radio and though many are lost, a volume has been published of his AIR plays.

He returned to Bombay and the life of the film industry in 1942. It gave him enough work; many film scripts of the period carry his dialogues. He became friends with leading actors like Ashok Kumar and Shyam, and formed a bond with Ismat Chughtai, the prominent woman writer of short stories, who also worked in films like him. His Bombay days gave rise to a great output of short stories.

He got married in Bombay and had his first child there. Partition caused a great upheaval in the country and many of Manto’s stories concern the sufferings of people who underwent the trauma of those days. He takes no sides, but lays bare the human tragedies that unfolded on both sides. He lost his job in the film industry as a result of ill-feelings that overtook even that otherwise open and welcoming industry, that took in talent from everywhere. He lost heart and decided to emigrate to Pakistan where his wife had gone earlier to visit relatives. 

He regretted forever the parting. But as a writer what else could he do but write and lay bare all that befell people, ordinary humans, as they grappled with the new identity crisis after the artificial separation that sundered long-held relationships and bonds? The drinking into which he descended was one sign of the crisis within himself. With no patron, and only exploitative publishers who paid him in cheap booze he sank into darkness and died of cirrhosis of the liver in Jan 1955.

Manto poster - film directed by Nandita Das

Nandita Das, the actor, has directed a film titled Manto. It is reviewed here.

It has clips of several short stories in the selected volume, such as Ten Rupees (which opens the film), Khol Do, and Toba Tek Singh. Thanda Gosht, the story for which Manto was prosecuted for obscenity in Lahore plays a major role, also figures in the film, but it is unfortunately not included in our volume. You can read a translation here.

The irony is that a non-controversial film like Manto was not allowed to be shown in Pakistan. It is now seventy years after the writer was prosecuted for obscenity, first in India and then in Pakistan. The film did not have any scenes shot in Pakistan as originally planned – the locations and sets were all in India.

Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Manto, and Rasika Dugal as Manto's wife Safiyah, with director Nandita Das at left, during one of the script reading sessions for Manto

Nawazuddin Siddiqui delivers a strong performance as Manto; Nandita Das’s directorial debut has resulted in a wonderful picture, available on Netflix. She and the actor field questions from an interviewer in this session of 50 min (in Hindustani) and the director describes how she became familiar with Manto through his stories and essays, and how she later went to meet his daughter in Lahore. Through Manto’s legacy she met many wonderful people. Siddiqui explains why he needed to get Manto out of his system quickly when the film was over. (“Ek bar Manto ghus jay tho woh nikal nahin sakthey,” says Nandita Das).

Discussing

Quotes from Manto:

I am a walking Bombay. Wherever go, I will make my own little world.

Here [in Bombay] you may do what you want to. Nobody will find fault with you, none will counsel you on what you ought to do. Every difficult task you will have to accomplish yourself.

Women can grind mills and fill their stomachs. Women can carry rubble in baskets on their heads and make a living. Women can work in mines, sifting through pieces of coal to earn their daily bread. Why can't I drive a coach? [from Licence]

There, behind barbed wire, was Hindustan. Here, behind the same kind of wire, was Pakistan. In between, on that piece of ground that had no name, lay Toba Tek Singh. [from Toba Tek Singh]

If you cannot bear these stories then the society is unbearable. Who am I to remove the clothes of this society, which itself is naked. I don't even try to cover it, because it is not my job, that's the job of dressmakers.

I’ve always been focussed on today. Yesterday and tomorrow hold no interest for me. What had to happen, did, and what will happen, will.

A man remains a man no matter how poor his conduct. A woman, even if she were to deviate for one instance, from the role given to her by men, is branded a whore. 

If you find my stories dirty, the society you are living in is dirty. With my stories, I only expose the truth.

Hindustan had become free. Pakistan had become independent soon after its inception but man was still slave in both these countries — slave of prejudice … slave of religious fanaticism … slave of barbarity and inhumanity.

Zakia, Hemjit, Saras

1. Kavita 

Khol Do - the ending

The ending of Khol Do is heart-rending. Sirajuddin has been searching frantically for his daughter who went missing in the flight across the border. Four young men assure him they will find his daughter, Sakina, the one with the beauty spot on her right cheek. The men do indeed find her alive and at first save her. But as the story progresses it is clear that Sakina is not restored alive to her father. She arrives at the hospital finally as a corpse. He doctor says nothing after taking her pulse except to open the window, and then the terse sentence: ‘Her dead hands undid her salwar and lowered it.’ In a flash the whole narrative changes and the truth stands revealed.

Joe said that according to KumKum many stories of Manto have a clue to a mystery underlying the story which the diligent reader has to search for and discover. She will provide a Diligent Reader Exercise, or at least one for the story, My Name is Radha.

Hemjit, KumKum, Gael, Rachel

2.  Pamela - Khaled Mian

The ending where his child Khaled dies as Mumtaz fears the worst will happen

Hemjit, Arundhaty, Geetha, Devika

Tragedy happens to Mumtaz, the father of the child Khaled, who is expecting the worst in a foreboding way. The reader expects it too, but the author keeps our hopes alive that the child may be saved by the expert doctors at the hospital after the quacks who prescribe aspirin for every affliction are done with. But no:

Khaled lay there with his eyes closed. Death's peacefulness was apparent on his face.

Pamela Voice file

One feature of Manto is that he deals with common people and their stories. Yet each story tugs at the heart and worms its way into your deeper consciousness.

3. Shoba - Licence

The beginning where Abu the coachman, Chinni the horse, and the girl Nesti who will become his bride are introduced in one go.

Shoba Voice file

What Shoba liked about Manto’s stories is the way in which he describes the characters in a few words and how quickly the reader gets to know them. This economy and rapidity of description is important for short stories where there  is not much time to elaborate, she said. The author shows his skill in making the characters come alive from the beginning. For instance in the story, both Abu and the girl Nesti, who will become his wife, are introduced in 300 words of dialogue, and the reader feels an instant connect to them.

Devika, Kavita, Saras, Hemjit, Zakia

4. Saras - Licence

The ending where Nesti is forced out of the coachwoman’s trade

In Shoba’s reading Abu the coachman and the smart girl Nesti are introduced; soon we plunge into the happy part of the story: their romance and wedded life. Then comes the ending which Saras took as a signal piece in which Manto displays his understanding of women and the injustice that is dealt to them. Society perpetually undervalues their individual capability and their capacity to contribute equally to the economic life of society. Nesti who knew to drive the coach, takes over the reins and goes about her work just as proudly as Abu, with a well-kept carriage and her horse, Chinni, in fine fettle.

But forces combine to oust her from her profession: jealousy by other coachmen, prejudice by the municipal authorities, and finally the ultimate degradation to be handed a licence only to sell her body. Working honestly and doing a good job reaps no rewards for her. Instead she faces the demeaning attitude of the male overseers of municipal matters who think she is only fit to be a prostitute. 

Joe said nothing much has changed. Men still expect women to sell their bodies in the workplace. KumKum said Bombay was willing to buy her body, but not her expert coach and horse skills, providing transport services in the city, and allowing her to gain an honest living.

Thommo, Geetha, Devika, Kavita

5. Devika - For Freedom

On how people are turned to political ends by leaders in the name of a noble cause; but they soon forget all this and get on with life.

Devika reading

The story is set in Jallianwalla Bagh where Gen Dyer’s infamous slaughter of unarmed civilians with machine guns drenched the garden in blood. It is an episode of the freedom struggle everyone has read in school.

Devika underscored the ease with which people can be inspired and manipulated when there is a larger cause that is sold with fevered propaganda. People are ready to do extreme things; in this case the newly-wed couple Ghulam Ali and Nigar, resolve to remain chaste though married, and abstain from meat and so on. The Babaji who has a hold on Ghulam Ali probably stands for Gandhiji, we suppose.

But once the emotional appeal to nobility and self-sacrifice wears out, reality sets in and those ideals are forgotten. The couple don’t go through with their brave resolutions. It is all a farce said, Saras.

Geetha thought Ghulam Ali reverted to being a normal guy. Arundhaty said not quite normal, for he still didn’t wear rubber footwear.

6. Geetha - Ten Rupees

The innocence of a young girl, Sarita, being introduced by a pimp to a life of prostitution

Thommo, Geetha, Devika, Kavita

It is a joyous story, and a short scene from it is the opening of the film Manto by Nandita Das. The girl is totally oblivious of the realities of prostitution and pimping, and only thinks of her outings with men as joy rides in a car. She acts with unrestrained pleasure and happily engages the men who have serious business in mind. She inveigles them into thinking of the event as a picnic and a joyride with the wind and the waves of the sea (Juhu?) adding to their delight. The three men reconcile themselves to the flirtatious and enjoyable company of the girl, who is herself having a jolly good time. Such a good time, that she flings back the ten rupee note that was thrust into her hand at the end as payment. 

It’s an idyll. We know that men force themselves on under-age girls too, and the ugliness of life will overtake Sarita. But meanwhile Manto’s narrative provides a pleasurable scene of almost-normalcy, where a young girl has her fun and enjoys being made-up as a prelude to the wonderful evening. KumKum said Sarita really disarmed the three men and put them to sleep!

Geetha wondered what life will hold for Sarita. That's what a short-story writer wants the reader to muse upon at the end: how will it go from here on? What other events will overtake the characters?

Thommo said Rs 10 was a lot of money in those days and the pimp got only Rs 2. 

7. Zakia - Toba Tek Singh

The loony fruitcakes of India and Pakistan don’t know which side they belong – which Manto seems to suggest is the predicament of the wider populace also.

(Translation by Frances W. Pritchett http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00urdu/tobateksingh/translation.html). There is an award winning short film by Ajay Kannaujiya on Youtube on the story:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7&v=KQP1VIZ1oMo

Zakia reading

It is one of Manto’s well-known stories, and its appeal is the allegory of the partition of India, following which people had to rediscover their identities. As Manto wrote in the magazine Imroz: 

Though I tried hard, I could not separate India from Pakistan and Pakistan from India. 

This is the very conundrum that Bishan Singh, alias Toba Tek Singh, faces. He is dragged from Pakistan to Hindustan. At the border:

When they tried to drag him to the other side by force, he stopped in the middle and stood there on his swollen legs as if now no power could move him from that place.

…

In the pre-dawn peace and quiet, from Bishan Singh's throat there came a shriek that pierced the sky.... From here and there a number of officers came running, and they saw that the man who for fifteen years, day and night, had constantly stayed on his feet, lay prostrate. There, behind barbed wire, was Hindustan. Here, behind the same kind of wire, was Pakistan. In between, on that piece of ground that had no name, lay Toba Tek Singh.

Borders between lands still pose problems – between USA and Mexico, between India and Bangladesh, for example. Manto has scuba-dived into life’s realities, said Arundhaty, whereas most people only surf, and skim the surface. Manto tells people the truth. Saras said the story makes us feel awkward all these years later. Imagine then. The line delineating the border at Wagah is a random line drawn by the British, Thommo said. No Man’s Land does not exist at that border.

Arundhaty referred to a book by Rita Chowdhury published by the National Book Trust first, and now available from Pan Macmillan called Chinatown Days:

https://www.amazon.com/Chinatown-Days-Rita-Chowdhury-ebook/dp/B0786T8XKX/

The novel tells the story of the Chinese Indians, a community condemned by intolerance to obscurity and untold sorrow after war breaks out in the Himalayas between India and China in 1962.

The historical area of Chinatown in Calcutta was razed, and the Chinese-origin people who had long been citizens of India were uprooted. Arundhaty says lots of Chinese dentists in Calcutta (it was a common profession among Chinese with shops all over Calcutta) had their teeth pulled out; thus are innocent people tortured.

8. Thommo - Ram Khilawan

The Dhobi implicitly trusted his master for accounts and got the benefit of care by the mistress when he was sick - yet he succumbed to drink from hate-mongers to kill Muslims during the Bombay partition riots.

Thommo reading

Manto had the good luck of a dhobi like Ram Khilawan, who knew no accounts and would gratefully receive whatever was paid because he trusted his clients. The dhobi served Manto through his penury when he could not pay; when things became better and he got married his wife was kind to the dhobi, even having him treated medically at her expense.

The dhobi’s respect for Manto stemmed from having served his elder brother, faithfully; the brother was a man of substance. Then comes partition; trouble-makers were ready to pay ordinary people in free booze to get them to rage and kill Muslims. So, the gentle Ram Khilawan is set into a frenzy by mob agitation. When Manto seeks him out to pay his last bill before leaving for Pakistan, he goes to Ram Khilawan’s neighbourhood searching, and ends up being nearly killed by a mob, with Ram Khilawan participating.

Next day the penitent dhobi returns:

He came in silence. He opened his bundle and put the clothes on the bed. He wiped his eyes with his dhoti, and in a choking voice, said, 'You're leaving, saab?' 

'Yes.' 

He began to cry. 'Saab, please forgive me. It's all the drink's fault... and... and these days it's available for free. The businessmen distribute it and say, "Drink and kill Muslims."

“..  he straightened the folds of his dhoti and hurried out,” taking no payment.

Manto leaves us with the sober implication. The dhobi’s few words and gestures say it all. It’s a wonderful story.

9. Joe - My Name is Radha

Like a feral cat the B-grade starlet attacks the hero of the films, Raj Kishore, and then confesses to Manto, the lowly script-writer.

Saras, Hemjit, Zakia

Raj Kishore is the actor who is the heart-throb of everyone, but he has a weakness: extreme self-love to the point of flexing his biceps in public and showing off his hairy chest. He is also supposed to be a perfect gentleman with women, one who calls them ‘sister’ on the sets and deals with them deferentially.  Manto the scriptwriter of the film they are shooting becomes friends with Ms Neelam, the starlet who will feature opposite Raj Kishore. From the grapevine Manto gathers:

मंटो साहब! राज भाई ही ऐसा ऐक्टर है जो लंगोट का पक्का है।

This opinion of the panwallah is translated by Aatish Taseer as follows:

Rajbhai is one actor who knows to keep his dick in his trousers.

Neither Manto nor Neelam are entirely comfortable with the hero, however. They suspect there is something amiss. And one evening on the set it comes to a climax when Raj Kishore instead of kissing her hand as the scene was written by Manto, 

turned his back to the camera, kissing his own hand and letting go of hers.

Later this gives rise to Raj Kishore coming to get his bag ‘forgotten’ in her house. She puts on heavy makeup and tears into him:

I clung to him like a junglee cat. He clawed at my face; I clawed at his. For a long time, we wrestled with each other. And... he had the strength of a wild cat, but... But, like I once told you, I'm a fierce woman. My weakness, the weakness that the malaria had left—I didn't feel at all. My body was burning up; sparks flew from my eyes; my bones stiffened. I caught him and began fighting him like a cat. I don't know why or for what reason, I attacked him. Nothing passed between us that could be misconstrued. I was shrieking; he was groaning.

Manto narrates the end:

‘Neelam... Neelam.

I called her name many times, but she didn't respond. When at last I called it loudly, and in a frightened voice, she gave a start. Rising to leave, she said only this: 'Saadat, my name is Radha.' 

KumKum states there is a clue to the resolution of the ending. Our Diligent Reader Exercise is: what is the clue and and the resolution?

10. KumKum - The Dog of Tithwal

The Indian and Pakistani soldiers facing each other across the border keep worrying a dog who does not know which side of the border is his home. 

KumKum reading, Rachel listening

Manto once again picks up the identity problem, this time in the guise of a dog that is flung from one side to the other of the line of control along the Indo-Pak border. It too does not know to which side it really belongs; common sense would say India, for in Islamic culture dogs are little valued, and regarded as ritually unclean, not fit as pets. 

However, this dog is an item to be bandied back and forth, representing a loose tie between opposing sides in the not-so-tense border. The dog seems to not mind being sent this way and that, but then the soldiers become vicious and use the dog as a moving target to terrorise it with bullets.

Manto shows how the sheer boredom of soldiers, and their having nothing to do, results in the dog’s ultimate death by bullets from both sides.

It is another allegory of the aimless violence resulting from Partition. No more than Toba Tek Singh, does the dog know to which side it really belongs. Only violence, gratuitous violence, determines the fate of the dog.

Kavita, Saras, Hemjit, Zakia, Rachel

11. Hemjit

Hemjit gave a short biographical background on Manto from the Introduction to the Penguin volume of Selected Stories translated by Khalid Hasan. 

Manto Selected Stories translated by Khalid Hasan

Below is a much expanded version.

It was in Urdu Manto was to produce a powerful and original body of work in the years to come, blooming into one of the language’s great stylists. Manto entered college in Amritsar in 1931 , failed his first-year examination twice, and dropped out. He was also at Aligarh for a short while but ill health forced him to abandon his studies. He neither completed his education nor was he interested in doing so, but under Bari's influence and his own inquiring and sceptical mind, he read a great deal. It is poetic justice that at the very institutions where he could not complete his education, his work is now the textbook they teach.
[From Khalid Hasan’s Introduction]

Hemjit

Aatish Taseer has criticised Khalid Hassan’s translation as being too free:

Khalid Hasan, Manto's Pakistani translator, has done what he can to make Manto available in English, and though exhaustive, his translations not only lack the simplicity, speed and vitality of Manto's prose, they are guilty of the greatest crime any translator can commit: trying to improve upon the original. 

This well-meaning journalist paraphrases Manto; he deletes entire paragraphs in For Freedom ; and rearranges chunks of text in Blouse, even deciding to change the colour of the blouse from purple or violet to 'azure'. The result is that his translations are not really close translations at all; they are synopses. 

Having said this, the challenges of translating Manto are considerable. What is rich, fluent prose in Urdu can appear florid in English; Manto leaves loose ends, his sentences can be mangled. He also becomes a victim of his form, namely the short story's dependence on trick and surprise endings. 

David Coward, in his introduction to Maupassant's stories, writes: 

The short story, while admitted to be extremely difficult to manage successfully, has long been regarded as somehow second rate, not least because it is generally felt to suffer from Cleverness. Perhaps it requires too much control, so that the reader feels manipulated, and because many short stories depend so much on irony or sudden reversals, they may seem over-contrived — like a joke which, once told, loses its tension.

However Khalid Hasan has written a wonderful memoir of Manto titled Saadat Hasan Manto: Not of Blessed Memory, in the University of Chicago's Digital South Asia Library, Annual of Urdu Studies, v. 4, 1984 p. 95. Many of his reminiscences are recounted in what follows.

Ali Sethi has written a very readable article in the New Yorker issue of August 30, 2012: Manto - The Seer of Pakistan - Bombay was his favourite city where he could be happy … on two pennies a day or on ten thousand rupees a day.

Saadat Hasan Manto, the most widely read and the most controversial short-story writer in Urdu, was born on 11 May 1912 at Samrala in Punjab's Ludhiana district. His father was a judge and he himself of Kashmiri extraction, a heritage he was proud of. At age 21 he met Abdul Bari Alig a literary writer in Amritsar. Bari Alig became his mentor and under his direction he read Russian and French authors. In a literary, journalistic, radio scripting and film-writing career spread over more than two decades, he produced twenty-two 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, three times each before and after Independence. Some of 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 forty-third birthday, on January 18, 1955, in Lahore. [From the Penguin blurb].

Those were heady times. Manto was a boy of seven in 1919 when the horrific Jallianwala Bagh massacre took place in Amritsar, an event that left a deep and bloody imprint on the Raj, one from which it never recovered. Not surprisingly, Manto was greatly inspired by revolutionary ideas. As he later wrote, he and his friends, walking the streets of Amritsar, would pretend that they were in Moscow launching a revolution. He was also much taken with the firebrand Punjabi revolutionary and Indian nationalist Bhagat Singh, who was hanged in Lahore for the murder of a British police officer. There was a smell of revolt in the air and, for the first time, it appeared possible to force the British out of India. 

Manto's first job took him to Lahore where he worked for a magazine, but he kept returning to Amritsar, only a couple of hours away by train. Soon after, he went to Bombay where he worked briefly for a film journal. But he fell out with the owner-editor and left for Delhi where he found work at the All India Radio, already home to writers and poets, including Krishen Chander, Upindar Nath Ashok, Meeraji and Noor Meem Raashed. Manto produced a large number of radio plays for AIR and scripted many other presentations. Only some of his radio plays survive and these have been published in a volume. 

Eventually, it was Bombay where his heart was set and where he settled down. His love affair with Bombay was to last throughout his life, though he left the city twice, once only briefly in 1941 but for good the second time, the year after Partition, in 1948. In his powerful memoir about his friend the actor Shyam, he summed up his feelings about Bombay and the trauma of Partition and his departure for Pakistan. ‘I found it impossible to decide which of the two countries was now my homeland — India or Pakistan?’ 

Manto wrote about his leaving Bombay in January 1948 with sadness. It was a decision he was often to feel wistful about. He had friends in Bombay and work, and he loved the city, its people, its Gujarati-style Urdu, its proletarian culture, the millionaires, the lights along the curve of Marine Drive, and the open gutters which flowed through its slums. With the years, his nostalgia for Bombay deepened. In a postscript to the collection Yazrd, Manto wrote in Lahore: 

“My heart is heavy with grief today. I feel enveloped by a strange listlessness. More than four years ago when I said farewell to my other home, Bombay, I experienced the same kind of sadness. I was sorry to have left the place where I had spent many working days of my life. Bombay had asked me no questions. Had taken me to its generous bosom, me, a man rejected by his family, a gypsy by temperament. And the city had said to me: 'You can live here happily on two paisa a day, or if you wish, on ten thousand rupees. It is up to you. You can also be the most miserable man on earth on the same earnings. Here you may do what you want to. Nobody will find fault with you, none will counsel you on what you ought to do. Every difficult task you will have to accomplish yourself. Whether you live on the footpath or in a palace, it is of no consequence to me. Nor will it matter to me, whether you leave or stay. I am where I am and I will remain where am.’ And so, I am a walking Bombay. Wherever go, I will make my own little world.”

Why did he leave Bombay? Manto himself has not written about it but his wife, Safia, wrote to one of Manto's Indian biographers, Brij Premi, on April 6, 1968: ‘He was treated unjustly by everyone. The truth is that he had no intention of leaving India, but a few months before Partition, [the studio] Filmistan handed him a notice of termination and that, believe me, broke his heart. For a long time, he kept it hidden from me because he was proud of his friendship with Mr Mukherjee and Ashok Kumar. So how could he tell me that he had been served with a notice? That was when he started drinking heavily – which in the end claimed his life. I had come over earlier; he followed in January 1948. While he was alone in Bombay, his drinking got completely out of hand. Here his life was full of worries. You can yourself imagine the state he was in and if it was conducive in any sense. His health had also become poor. But one thing he did: he wrote.’

At Aligarh Muslim University he joined the Indian Progressive Writers' Association (IPWA). He met Ali Sardar Jafri which gave him fresh inspiration. Today Manto is known as a Bombay writer first, and only then as belonging to India or Pakistan, or both. It was in 1934 at the age of 22 he came to Bombay and began to write for magazines and newspapers, and later film-scripts. He became friends with famous actors like Ashok Kumar and Shyam; the great music composer for films, Naushad, was his friend and so too the woman short story writer, Ismat Chugtai. When he was at the All India Radio Urdu Service in 1941 in Delhi he wrote four collections of radio plays. Short story collections and essays followed. He returned to Bombay and to writing screenplays for films and several films have his credits. He stayed in Bombay until Partition and he moved as his wife, Safia, writes because he was hurt when Filmistan terminated his contract. In the midst of occasional communal riots that flared up in Bombay he decided to move to Lahore where his wife had gone earlier to visit relatives.

In Lahore he was associated with intellectuals and poets, including Faiz Ahmad Faiz. They used to gather in a Tea House called Oak Tea House, having political arguments and literary debates in the period 1948-49. It was in Lahore he was accused of obscenity for the short story Thanda Gosht. After a long trial he was acquitted. He gradually gave in to drink and died of cirrhosis of the liver in Jan 1955 at the age of 42. After a half century of neglect Pakistan conferred the Nishan-e-Imtiaz (“Sign of Distinction”) medal on his birth centenary in 2012.

Readings

1. Kavita 

Khol Do - the ending

The young volunteers assured Old Sirajuddin, with great feeling, that if his daughter was alive, she would be by his side within a few days. 

The men made every effort, even putting their lives on the line. They went to Amritsar and rescued men, women and children, and brought them to safety. Ten days passed, but Sakina was not to be found. 

One day, the men were driving to Amritsar in their lorry, engaged in their work when, near Cherat*, they saw a girl on the side Of the road. She gave a start at the sound Of the lorry and began to run. The volunteers turned Off the engine and ran after her, managing to catch her in a field. She was very beautiful, with a large beauty spot on her right cheek. One of the men asked, ' Are you Sakina?'

The girls face became pale. She didn’t reply. It was only after the men had reassured her that her terror left her, and she confessed she was Sirajuddin's daughter, Sakina. 

The eight young volunteers comforted her, sat her in their lorry and gave her food and milk. She was distressed to be without a dupatta, and tried vainly to cover her breasts with her arms until one of the men took off his coat and gave it to her. 

Many days passed. Sirajuddin still had no news of Sakina. He would spend the whole day doing rounds Of the different camps and offices, but received no word about Sakina's whereabouts. At night he would pray for the success Of the young men. They had assured him that if Sakina was alive, they would find her within a few days. 

One day Sirajuddin saw the young volunteers at the camp. They were sitting in the lorry. Sirajuddin ran up to them. The lorry was about to head out when Sirajuddin asked, 'Boys, have you heard anything about my Sakina?' 

They all said in one voice, 'We will, we will.' And the lorry drove away. Sirajuddin prayed once again for their success and his heart was a little lighter. 

Towards evening, there was a disturbance in the camp near where Sirajuddin sat. Four men were bringing something in. He made enquiries and discovered that a girl had been found unconscious near the rail tracks; she was being brought in now. Sirajuddin set off behind them. The people handed her over to the hospital and left. 

Sirajuddin stood still outside the hospital beside a wooden pole. Then slowly, he went in. There was no one in the dark room, just a stretcher with a body on it. Sirajuddin approached, taking small steps. Suddenly, the room lit up. Sirajuddin saw a mole on the pale face Of the body, and cried, 'Sakina! ' 

The doctor who had turned on the lights said to Sirajuddin, 'What is it?' 

Sirajuddin managed only to say, 'Sir, I'm... sir, I'm... I'm her father.' 

The doctor looked at the body on the stretcher. He checked its pulse and said to Sirajuddin, 'The window, open it! ' 

At the sound of the words, Sakina's corpse moved. Her dead hands undid her salwar and lowered it. Old Sirajuddin cried with happiness, ‘She’s alive, my daughter’s alive!’

The doctor was drenched from head to toe in sweat.

2.  Pamela - Khaled Mian

The ending where his child Khaled dies as Mumtaz fears the worst will happen

After paying the bill for the alcohol and the broken glasses, Mumtaz went outside. Everywhere there seemed to be silence and more silence. In his mind alone, there was clamour. He arrived back at the hospital and headed for Khaled 's room, but the voice spoke: 'Don't go there, Mumtaz. Khaled will die.' 

He turned around. There was a bench in a grassy maidan. He lay down on it. It was ten at night. The maidan was dark and silent. Sometimes the horn Of a car would graze the silence as it went past. Up ahead, over a high wall, the illuminated hospital clock could be seen. Mumtaz thought Of Khaled. 'Will he survive? Why are children who are meant to die born in the first place? Why is that life born that has to go so quickly into the mouth Of death? Khaled will definitely... ' 

That instant, he felt a rush Of fear and fell to his knees. The voice ordered him to remain in this position until Khaled recovered. Mumtaz remained prostrate. He wanted to say a prayer, but was told not to. His eyes filled with tears. He prayed not for Khaled, but for himself. 'God, free me from this ordeal! If you want to kill Khaled, then kill Khaled! What torment is this?' 

Then he heard a noise. Some distance away, two men were sitting on chairs, eating and talking amongst themselves. 

'Such a beautiful kid.' 

'I can't bear to see the mother.' 

'The poor thing, she falls at the feet of every doctor. '

'We've done every possible thing on our end. ' 

'It'll be difficult to save him.' 

'I said to the mother, "You have to pray, sister." 

One doctor looked towards Mumtaz, who was still prostrate on his knees. He yelled loudly, 'Hey, what are you doing there? Come here! ' 

Mumtaz rose and approached the doctors. One asked, 'Who are you?' 

Mumtaz, running his tongue over his dry lips, said, 'Sir, I am a patient. ' 

'If you're a patient,' the doctor replied harshly, 'then you must go inside. Why are you in the maidan doing squats?' 

Mumtaz replied, 'Sir, my boy... is in that ward over there ' 

'That's your child who. ' 

'Yes, perhaps it was him you were speaking of. He's my son. Khaled. ' 

'You 're his father?' 

Mumtaz nodded his tormented head, 'Yes, I am his father. '

 The doctor said, 'And you're sitting here? Go upstairs. Your wife is beside herself! ' 

'Yes, sir,' Mumtaz said and went towards the ward. He climbed the stairs and saw his servant outside the room, crying. When the servant saw Mumtaz, he cried even harder. 'Saab, Khaled mian is no more.' 

Mumtaz entered the room. His wife was lying there, unconscious. A doctor and a nurse were trying to revive her. Mumtaz went and stood by the bed. Khaled lay there with his eyes closed. Death's peacefulness was apparent on his face. Mumtaz stroked his silky hair, and in a choking voice, said, 'Will you have a sweet?' 

Khaled did not move his head to say no. Mumtaz implored him, 'Khaled mian, will you take my fears away with you?' 

Mumtaz thought Khaled nodded his head in assent.

3. Shoba - Licence

The beginning where Abu the coachman, Chinni the horse, and the girl Nesti who will become his bride are introduced in one go.

Abu the coachman was very stylish and his coach was number one in the city. He only took regulars. He earned ten to fifteen rupees daily from them, and it was enough for him. Unlike the Other coachmen, he didn't have a taste for alcohol but he had a weakness for fashion. 

Whenever his coach passed by, its bells jingling, all eyes turned to him. 'There goes that stylish Abu. Just 100k at the way he's sitting. And that turban, tipped to the side like that!' 

When Abu heard these words and observed the admiration in people's eyes, he 'd cock his head and his horse Chinni's stride would quicken. Abu held the reins as though it were hardly necessary to hold them at all, as if Chinni didn't need its master's instructions, and would keep his stride without them. At times, it seemed as though Abu and Chinni were one, or rather that the entire coach was a single life force, and who was that force, if not Abu? 

The passengers Abu didn't accept cursed him roundly. Some wished him ill: 'May the Lord break his arrogance and his coach and horse land in some river. ' 

In the shadows cast by Abu's thin moustache, a smile of supreme self-confidence danced. It made the Other coachmen burn with envy. The sight of Abu inspired them to beg, borrow and steal so that they, too, could have coaches decorated with brass fittings. But they could not replicate his distinct style and elegance. Nor did they find such devoted clients. 

One afternoon, Abu was lying in his coach under the shade of a tree, dropping off to sleep, when a voice rang in his ears. Abu opened his eyes and saw a woman standing below. Abu must have looked only once at her, but her extreme youth instantly pierced his heart. She wasn't a woman, she was a girl—sixteen or seventeen; slim, but sturdy and her skin dark, but radiant. She wore silver hoops in her ears. Her hair was parted in the middle and she had a pointed nose on whose summit there was a small, bright beauty spot. She wore a long kurta, a blue skirt and a light shawl over her head. 

The girl said in a childish voice, 'How much will you take for the teshan?' 

Mischief played on Abu's smiling lips. 'Nothing.' 

The girl's dark face reddened. 'What will you take for the teshan?' she repeated. 

Abu let his eyes linger on her and replied, 'What can I take from you, fortunate one? Go on, get in the back.' 

The girl covered her firm, already well concealed breasts, with her trembling hands. 'What things you say!' 

Abu smiled. 'Go on, get in then. I'll take whatever you give me.' 

The girl thought for a moment, then stepped onto the footboard and climbed in. 'Quickly. Come on then. Take me to the teshan.' 

Abu turned around. 'In a big hurry, gorgeous?' 

'You... you... ' The girl was about to say more, but stopped mid-sentence. 

The carriage began to move, and kept moving; many streets passed below the horse's hooves. The girl sat nervously in the back. A mischievous smile danced on Abu's lips. When a considerable amount Of time had passed, the girl asked in a frightened voice, 'The teshan hasn't come yet?' 

4. Saras - Licence

The ending where Nesti is forced out of the coachwoman’s trade

For eight or ten days, the coach was in the stable, out of work, racking up costs—feed on one hand, stable rent on the Other. Nesti was in a state of confusion. People were either frying to marry her or rape her or rob her. When she went outside, she was met with ugly stares. One night a neighbour jumped the wall and started making advances towards her. Nesti went half mad wondering what she should do. 

One day as she sat at home, she thought 'What if I were to drive the coach myself?' When she used to go on rides with Abu, she would often drive it herself. She was acquainted with the routes as well. But then she thought of what people would say. Her mind came up with many rejoinders. 'What's the harm? Do women not toil and do manual labour? Here working in mines, there in offices, thousands working at home; you have to fill your stomach one way or the other!' 

She spent a few days thinking about it. At last she decided to do it. She was confident she could. And so, after asking God's help, she arrived one morning at the stable. When she began harnessing the horse to the carriage, the other coachmen were stupefied; some thought it was a joke and roared with laughter. The older coachmen tried dissuading her, saying it was unseemly. But Nesti wouldn't listen. She fitted up the carriage, polished its brass tackle, and after showing the horse great affection and speaking tender words to Abu, she set out from the stable. The coachmen were stunned at Nesti's dexterity; she handled the carriage expertly. 

Word spread through the town that a beautiful woman was driving a coach. It was spoken of on every street corner. People waited impatiently for the moment when she would come down their street. 

At first Nesti shied away from male passengers, but she soon lost her shyness and began taking in an excellent income. Her coach was never idle, here passengers got Off, there they got on. Sometimes passengers would even fight among themselves over who had stopped her first. 

When the work became too much, she had to fix hours for when the coach would go out—in the mornings, from seven to twelve; in the afternoons, from two to six. This arrangement proved beneficial as she managed to get enough rest as well. Chinni was happy too, but Nesti couldn't help being aware that her clients often rode in her coach only to be near her. They would make her go aimlessly from pillar to post, sometimes cracking dirty jokes in the back. They spoke to her just to hear the sound of her voice. Sometimes she felt that though she had not sold herself, people had slyly bought her anyway. She was also aware that all the city's other coachmen thought ill of her. But she was unperturbed; her belief in herself kept her at peace. 

One morning, the municipal committee men called her in and revoked her licence. Their reason was that women couldn't drive coaches. Nesti asked, 'Sir, why can't women drive coaches?' 

The reply came: 'They just can't. Your licence is revoked.' Nesti said, ' Sir, then take my horse and coach as well, but please tell me why women can't drive coaches. Women can grind mills and fill their stomachs. Women can carry rubble in baskets on their heads and make a living. Women can work in mines, sifting through pieces of coal to earn their daily bread. Why can't I drive a coach? I know nothing else. The horse and carriage were my husband's, why can't I use them? How will I make ends meet? My Lord, please have mercy. Why do you stop me from hard, honest labour? What am I to do? Tell me.' 

The officer replied: 'Go to the bazaar and find yourself a spot. You're sure to make more that way.' 

Hearing this, the real Nesti, the person within, was reduced to ashes. 'Yes sir,' she answered softly and left. She sold the horse and carriage for whatever she could get and went straight to Abu's grave. For a moment, she stood next to it in silence. Her eyes were completely dry, like the blaze after a shower, robbing the earth Of all its moisture. Her lips parted and she addressed the grave: 'Abu, your Nesti died today in the committee Office. ' 

With this, she went away. The next day she submitted her application. She was given a licence to sell her body.

5. Devika - For Freedom

On how people are turned to political ends by leaders in the name of a noble cause; but they soon forget all this and get on with life.

I was there too. In one tent, the lady volunteers were dressing Nigar up as a bride. Ghulam Ali had made no special preparations. He had spent most Of the day with the city's Congress merchants, discussing the volunteers' needs. His few spare moments, he spent talking to Nigar in private. He didn’t brief his subordinate officers any more than telling them that Nigar and he wished to raise the flag after the marriage ceremony. 

When Ghulam Ali received news of Babaji's arrival, he was standing near the well. I was perhaps telling him at the time: 'Ghulam Ali, do you know that when the bullets flew here, this well became full to the brim with bodies. Today, everyone drinks its water. The garden's flowers soak it up and people come and pick the flowers. And yet, there's never the salty taste Of blood in the water or flower buds carrying something of its redness. What a thing! ' 

I remember well, I said this and looked ahead at the window of a house from which it is said that a young girl had sat watching the scenes below, when she became the victim of one of General Dyer's stray bullets. The streaks of blood from her chest faded slowly from the house's old walls. 

But blood had become cheap, and spilling it hardly produced the same effect anymore. I remember that seven or eight months after the massacre in Jallianwala Bagh, my third or fourth grade teacher had brought the entire class here. The garden then was not a garden; it was a dry, desolate, uneven piece Of land where, at every step, one's foot knocked against the lumpy earth. I remember our teacher finding a piece Of mud, stained perhaps with paan spittle. 'Look,' he said, holding it up before the class, 'it's still stained with the blood of our As I write this story, countless Other incidents, etched into my memory, rise to the surface. But yes, I was recounting the story of Ghulam Ali and Nigar's wedding!

When Ghulam Ali heard of Babaji's arrival, he rushed to gather all the other volunteers, who greeted Babaji with a military style salute. After this, he and Ghulam Ali spent considerable time doing the rounds of the various camps. Babaji, who had a sharp sense of humour, cracked a number of one-liners as he spoke to the lady volunteers and other workers. 

When candles could be seen burning in the occasional window, and a kind of half-light fell over Jallianwala Bagh, all the female volunteers began to sing devotional songs in one voice. A few were harmonious; the rest, tuneless. But their collective effect was pleasing. Babaji closed his eyes and listened. About one thousand people were present, sitting around the stage on the floor. Except for the girls singing devotional songs, everybody else sat in silence. 

The singing ended and for some moments a pregnant silence prevailed. When Babaji opened his eyes and said in his sweet voice, 

'Children, as you know, I've come here today to make two lovers of freedom one,' the garden erupted in passionate slogans. 

Nigar, in her bridal clothes, sat on one end of the stage with her head lowered. She looked beautiful in her khadi tricolour sari. Babaji gestured to her to come over and sat her down next to Ghulam Ali. At this , more passionate slogans rang out. Ghulam Ali's face glowed more brightly than usual. I looked closely and saw that when he took the marriage documents from his friend and gave them to Babaji, his hands were trembling. 

There was a maulvi on the stage as well. He read the Koranic verses that are usually read on these occasions. Babaji closed his eyes. Once the marriage rites were complete, Babaji blessed the couple in his distinct way. And when dried dates were showered on the stage, he jumped at them like a child, collecting a few to keep next to him. 

6. Geetha - Ten Rupees

The innocence of a young girl, Sarita, being introduced by a pimp to a life of prostitution

Sarita was very happy to hear that rich men with motor cars had come for her, granted she was more interested in the motor cars than in the rich men who drove them. She loved riding in motor cars. When the car would roar down the open streets and the wind would slap her face, then everything would become a whirlwind and she would feel like a tornado tearing down empty streets. 

Sarita was no older than fifteen, but with the interests of a girl of thirteen. She didn't like spending time with grown women at all. Her entire day was taken up, playing silly games with the younger girls. They liked especially to draw chalk lines on the street's black tar surface, and remained so absorbed in this game that one might almost believe that the street's traffic depended on them drawing their crooked little lines. Sometimes Sarita would bring out old pieces of sackcloth from her room. And for hours she and her young friends, would remain immersed in the singularly monotonous business Of dusting them and laying them out on the footpath to sit on.

Sarita was not beautiful. Her skin was a dusky wheat colour, its texture smooth and glistening in Bombay's humid climate. Her thin lips, like sapodilla skins, also blackish, were always quivering faintly and a few tiny beads of sweat trembled on her upper lip. She looked robust despite living in squalor; her body was short, pleasing and well- proportioned. She gave the impression that the sheer vitality of her youth had subdued all contrary forces. Men on the streets gazed at her calves whenever her dirty skirt flew up in the wind. Youth had bestowed on them the shine of polished teak. These calves, entirely unacquainted with hair, had small marks on them that recalled orange skins with tiny, juice-filled pores, ready to erupt like fountains at the slightest pressure. 

Her arms were also pleasing. The attractive roundness of her shoulders made itself apparent through the baggy, badly stitched blouse she wore. Her hair was thick and long, with the smell of coconut oil rising from it. Her plait, thick like a whip, would thump against her back. But the length of her hair made her unhappy as it got in the way of the games she played; she had invented various ways of keeping it under control. 

Sarita was free of all worry and anxiety. She had enough to eat twice a day. Her mother handled all their household affairs. Every morning Sarita filled buckets of water and took them inside; every evening she filled the lamp with one paisa's worth of oil. Her hand reached habitually every evening for the cup with the money, and taking the lamp, she'd make her way downstairs. 

Sarita had come to think of her visits to hotels and dimly lit places with rich men, which Kishori organised four or five times a month, as jaunts. She never gave any thought to the other aspects of these jaunts. She never gave any thought to the other aspects these jaunts. She might even have believed that men like Kishori came to all the other girls' houses too and that they also went on outings with rich men. And what happened on Worli's cold benches and Juhu's wet beaches, perhaps happened to all the Other girls as well. On one occasion she even said to her mother: 'Ma, Shanta's quite old now. Why not send her along with me too? The rich men who just came took me to eat eggs and Shanta loves eggs.' Sarita's mother parried the question. 'Yes, yes, some day I'll send her along with you. Let her mother return from Pune, no?' Sarita relayed the good news to Shanta the next day, when she saw her coming out of the bathroom. 'When your mother returns from Pune, everything will be alright. You're going to come with me to Worli too!' Sarita began to recount the night's activities as if she was reliving a beautiful dream. Shanta, two years younger than Sarita, felt little bells ring through her body as she listened to Sarita. Even when she'd heard all Sarita had to say, she was unsatisfied. She grabbed her by the arm and said, 'Come on, let's go downstairs where we can talk.' There, near the urinal where Girdhari the merchant had laid out dirty coconut husks to dry on gunny sacks, the two girls spoke till late about subjects that made them tingle with excitement. 

Now, as she changed hurriedly into her blue georgette sari behind a makeshift curtain, she was aware Of the cloth tickling her skin, and her thoughts, like the fluttering of a bird's wings, returned to riding in the motor car. What would the rich men be like this time; where would they take her? These, and other such questions, didn't enter her mind. She worried instead that the motor would run only for a few short minutes before their arrival at the door of some hotel. She didn't like to be confined to the four walls of hotel rooms, with their two metal beds, which were not really meant for her to fall asleep on. 

She put on the georgette sari, and smoothing its creases, came and stood for a moment in front of Kishori. 'Take a look, Kishori, it's alright from the back, no?' Without waiting for a reply, she moved towards the broken wooden suitcase in which the Japanese powder and rouge were kept. She took a dusty mirror, wedged it between the window rods, and bending down, put a mixture of rouge and powder on her cheeks. When she was completely ready, she smiled and looked at Kishori, her eyes seeking appreciation. 

7. Zakia - Toba Tek Singh

The loony fruitcakes of India and Pakistan don’t know which side they belong – which Manto seems to suggest is the predicament of the wider populace.

(Translation by Frances W. Pritchett http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00urdu/tobateksingh/translation.html)

His name was Bishan Singh, but everyone called him "Toba Tek Singh." He had absolutely no idea what day it was, what month it was, or how many years had passed. But every month when his near and dear ones came to visit him, then he himself used to be aware of it. Thus he used to tell the custodian that his visitors were coming. That day he bathed very well, scrubbed his body thoroughly with soap, and put oil on his hair and combed it. He had them bring out clothes that he never wore, and put them on, and in such a state of adornment he went to meet his visitors. If they asked him anything, then he remained silent, or from time to time said, "Upar di gur gur di annex di be dhyana di mung di dal of the lantern."

He had one daughter who, growing a finger-width taller every month, in fifteen years had become a young girl. Bishan Singh didn't even recognize her. When she was a child, she wept when she saw her father; when she'd grown up, tears still flowed from her eyes.

When the story of Pakistan and Hindustan began, he started asking the other lunatics where Toba Tek Singh was. When no reassuring answer was forthcoming, day by day his agitation increased. Now even his visitors didn't come. Formerly, he himself used to be aware that his visitors were coming. But now it was as if even the voice of his heart, which used to tell him of their arrival, had fallen silent.

His great desire was that those people would come who showed sympathy toward him, and brought him fruit, sweets, and clothing. If he asked them where Toba Tek Singh was, they would certainly tell him whether it was in Pakistan or Hindustan. Because his idea was that they came from Toba Tek Singh itself, where his lands were.

In the insane asylum there was also a lunatic who called himself God. When one day Bisham Singh asked him whether Toba Tek Singh was in Pakistan or Hindustan, he burst out laughing, as was his habit, and said, "It's neither in Pakistan nor in Hindustan-- because we haven't given the order yet."

A number of times Bishan Singh asked this God, with much pleading and cajoling, to give the order, so that the perplexity would be ended; but he was very busy, because he had countless orders to give. One day, growing irritated, Bishan Singh burst out at him, "Upar di gur gur di annex di be dhyana di mung di dal of hail to the Guruji and the Khalsa, and victory to the Guruji! Who says this will thrive-- the true God is ever alive!"

Perhaps the meaning of this was, "You're the God of the Muslims! If you were the God of the Sikhs, you'd surely have listened to me!"

…

Preparations for the exchange had been completed. Lists of the lunatics coming from here to there, and from there to here, had arrived, and the day of the exchange had also been fixed.

It was extremely cold when the lorries full of Hindu and Sikh lunatics from the Lahore insane asylum set out, with a police guard. The escorting wardens were with them as well. At the Wagah border the two parties' superintendents met each other; and after the initial procedures had been completed, the exchange began, and went on all night.

To extricate the lunatics from the lorries, and confide them to the care of the *19* other wardens, was a very difficult task. Some refused to emerge at all. Those who were willing to come out became difficult to manage, because they suddenly ran here and there. If clothes were put on the naked ones, they tore them off their bodies and flung them away. Someone was babbling abuse, someone was singing. They were fighting among themselves, weeping, muttering. People couldn't make themselves heard at all-- and the female lunatics' noise and clamor was something else. And the cold was so fierce that everybody's teeth were chattering.

The majority of the lunatics were not in favor of this exchange. Because they couldn't understand why they were being uprooted from their place and thrown away like this. Those few who were capable of a glimmer of understanding were raising the cries, "Long live Pakistan!" and "Death to Pakistan!" Two or three times a fight was narrowly averted, because a number of Muslims and Sikhs, hearing these slogans, flew into a passion.

When Bishan Singh's turn came, and on that side of the Wagah border the accompanying officer began to enter his name in the register, he asked, "Where is Toba Tek Singh? In Pakistan, or in Hindustan?"

The accompanying officer laughed: "In Pakistan."

On hearing this Bishan Singh leaped up, dodged to one side, and ran to rejoin his remaining companions. The Pakistani guards seized him and began to pull him in the other direction, but he refused to move. "Toba Tek Singh is here!" -- and he began to shriek with great force, "Upar di gur gur di annex di be dhyana di mung di dal of Toba Tek Singh and Pakistan!"

They tried hard to persuade him: "Look, now Toba Tek Singh has gone off to Hindustan! And if it hasn't gone, then it will be sent there at once." But he didn't believe them. When they tried to drag him to the other side by force, he stopped in the middle and stood there on his swollen legs as if now no power could move him from that place.

Since the man was harmless, no further force was used on him. He was allowed to remain standing there, and the rest of the work of the exchange went on.

In the pre-dawn peace and quiet, from Bishan Singh's throat there came a shriek that pierced the sky.... From here and there a number of officers came running, and they saw that the man who for fifteen years, day and night, had constantly stayed on his feet, lay prostrate. There, behind barbed wire, was Hindustan. Here, behind the same kind of wire, was Pakistan. In between, on that piece of ground that had no name, lay Toba Tek Singh.

8. Thommo - Ram Khilawan

The Dhobi implicitly trusted his master for accounts and got the benefit of care by the mistress when he was sick - yet he succumbed to drink from hate-mongers to kill Muslims during Bombay partition riots.

I had told my wife the story of the picture and of the generosity the dhobi had shown me in my days of penury. When I could pay him, I had paid him, but he never complained once. But soon my wife began to complain that he never kept accounts. 'He's been working for me four years,' I told her, 'he's never kept accounts.' She replied, 'Why would he keep accounts? That way he could take double and quadruple the amount of money.'

'How's that?' 

'You have no idea. In a bachelor's household where there are no wives, there are always people who know how to make idiots Of their employer.' 

Nearly every month there was a dispute between my wife and the dhobi over how he did not keep an account Of the clothes washed. The poor dhobi responded with complete innocence. He said, 'Begum Saab, I don't know accounts, but I know you wouldn't lie. Saeed Salim barrister, who is your saab's brother, I worked for one year in his house. His begum Saab would say, "Dhobi, here is your money", and would say, "Alright."' 

One month, a hundred and fifty pieces of clothing went to the wash. To test the dhobi, my wife said, 'Dhobi, this month sixty items of clothing were washed. ' He said, 'Alright Begum Saab, you wouldn't lie.' When my wife paid him for sixty clothes items, he touched the money to his forehead and headed out. My wife stopped him. 'Dhobi, wait, there weren't sixty pieces of clothing, there were a hundred and fifty. Here's the rest of your money; I was just joking.' 

The dhobi only said, 'Begum Saab, you wouldn't lie.' He touched the rest Of the money to his forehead, said 'salaam ' , and walked out.

…

There was a knock on the door. I thought the ticket had arrived. I opened the door and found the dhobi standing outside. 

'Salaam Saab !' 

'Salaam! ' 

'Can I come in?' 

'Come in.' 

He came in, in silence. He opened his bundle and put the clothes on the bed. He wiped his eyes with his dhoti, and in a choking voice, said, 'You're leaving, saab?' 

'Yes.' 

He began to cry. 'Saab, please forgive me. It's all the drink's fault... and... and these days it's available for free. The businessmen distribute it and say, "Drink and kill Muslims." Who's going to refuse free liquor? Please forgive me. I was drunk. Saeed Salim barrister was grateful to me. He gave me one turban, one dhoti, one kurta. Begum Saab saved my life. I would have died Of dysentery motor car. She took me to the doctor. She spent so much money. You're going to the new country. Please don't tell Ram Khilavan... ' 

His voice was lost in his throat. He swung his bundle over his shoulder and headed out. I stopped him. 'Ram Khilavan, wait... ' 

But he straightened the folds of his dhoti and hurried out.

9. Joe - My Name is Radha

Like a feral cat the B-grade starlet attacks the hero of the films, Raj Kishore, and then confesses to Manto, the lowly script-writer.

'I knew he'd come back to my place when there was no one there. And he did. To get his bag! ' 

As she said this, that same faint, secretive smile played on the mouth which the lipstick had so completely defaced. 'He came to get his bag. I said, "Sure, go ahead, it's lying in the other room." 

There must have been something different about my tone because he looked a little frightened. I said, "Don't be afraid." But when we went into the other room, instead of giving him the bag, I sat down at the dressing table and did my makeup.’

Neelam fell silent. She picked up the glass of water on the broken table in front of us, and drank it in a few short gulps. Wiping her lips with the end of her sari, she resumed her story: 'For an hour, I did my makeup. I piled on as much lipstick as I could. I daubed my cheeks with as much rouge as they could take. He stood in silence in one corner, watching me in the mirror as I transformed into a proper witch. Then I walked with firm steps towards the door and locked it. ' 

'What happened then ? ' 

I looked at Neelam for the answer to my question. She had completely changed. She had wiped 

her mouth with her sari , and her lips had lost all colour. The tone of her voice was subdued, like red hot iron that had been beaten down with a hammer and anvil. She didn't look like one now, but I can imagine she must truly have looked like a witch with her full makeup on. 

She didn't reply immediately to my question, but rose from the charpoy and went to sit at my desk. 'I tore at him,' she said at last. 'I clung to him like a junglee cat. He clawed at my face; I clawed at his. For a long time, we wrestled with each other. And... he had the strength of a wild cat, but... But, like I once told you, I'm a fierce woman. My weakness, the weakness that the malaria had left—I didn't feel at all. My body was burning up; sparks flew from my eyes; my bones stiffened. I caught him and began fighting him like a cat. I don't know why or for what reason, I attacked him. Nothing passed between us that could be misconstrued. I was shrieking; he was groaning. I clawed the flowers from his white khadi kurta; he ripped several clumps of my hair from their root. He used all his strength, but I had already decided that victory would be mine. In the end, he lay on the carpet lifeless. I was panting , as if my breathing was about to stop. And though I was short of breath, I shredded his kurta to pieces. It was at that exact moment when I saw his firm, wide chest that I understood what it had been— what we'd tried, and failed, to understand... ' She got up quickly and threw her dishevelled hair to one side with a jerk of the head. 'Sadaq,' she said, 'the bastard! His body really was beautiful. I don't know what got into me. I lowered my head and began biting into it. He just lay there , whimpering. And when I joined my bleeding mouth to his and gave him a wild, heated kiss, he became cold, like a woman resigned to her fate. I got up and felt an immediate loathing for him. I looked down at him. My blood and lipstick had left vile , almost floral bruises on his beautiful body. When I looked up at my room , everything in it seemed illusory. And so I threw open the door, from fear that I would suffocate , and came directly to you.’ 

With this , she was silent, like a corpse. I became afraid; I touched her hand; it hung limply at her side, and was burning hot. 

'Neelam... Neelam.

I called her name many times, but she didn't respond. When at last I called it loudly, and in a frightened voice, she gave a start. Rising to leave, she said only this: 'Saadat, my name is Radha.' 

10. KumKum - The Dog of Tithwal

The Indian and Pakistani soldiers facing each other across the border keep worrying a story dog who does not know which side of the border is his home. 

(The beginning of the story is a description)

For some time now the two sides had been entrenched in their positions on the front. Over the course of the day, the sound of firing could be heard, some ten or twelve times from either side, but no human cry ever accompanied its report.

The weather was extremely agreeable the air infused with the scent of wildflowers; and on the heights and slopes of the hills, nature, oblivious to the sound of the war, went busily about her duties. The birds squalled, the flowers bloomed, and hovering drowsily over them, in their same old way the slow-moving honeybees sucked out their nectar.

When the sound of firing rang through the hills, the squalling birds gave a start and took flight, their hearing hurt, as if a hand had struck some discordant note. The end of September gently embraced the beginning of October; it seemed as if heat and cold were being seamlessly reconciled to each other; and over the clear blue skies, like bits of carded cotton or white budgerows, light feathery clouds scudded by.

After a while the soldiers of both sides grew vexed that no decisive result had presented itself. The at length they tired of lying about, they felt the desire to make themselves hard. That no-one was listening was unimportant. They would remain flat or face down on the stony ground and on receiving the order, fire once or twice into the air.

Both fronts were in very secure places. The bullets would come singing at full speed, collide against the rock face and be extinguished. The two hills on which the front stood were of similar height; between them lay a valley over whose green clad breast a runnel ran, writhing over it lie a snake.

There was no danger from airplanes; neither side possessed cannons; so both sides would fearlessly light fires, whose smoke rose and mingled in the air. At night silence prevailed, though soldiers of both could occasionally hear someone’s laughter at some little bit of fun, or else the song of another, who having caught the mood, would disturb the quiet of the night. And from behind when a returning echo was heard, it was as if the mountains were learning a lesson by rote.

A round of tea had ended; in stone stoves the light pieces of pine coal and grown cold; th espies were clear; and there was a chill in the air. It was free of the smell of flowers, as if they too, had closed their perfume boxes for the night; as a result the atmosphere was infused with the scent of pine resin, which was not unpleasant.

Everyone, wrapped in blankets, lay asleep, though all were ready at any minute to rise, fight, and die.

…

(End of story)

Captain Himmat Khan said with sadness, ‘Tch-tch, poor fellow. Another martyr.’

Corporal Harnam Singh, running his hands over the still-warm barrel of his gun, said: ‘He died that death that is a dog’s alone.’

11. Hemjit

Hemjit gave a short biographical background on Manto from the Introduction to the Penguin volume of Selected Stories translated by Khalid Hasan

(See above)