‘Manto wasn’t born there?’
‘No one on earth was born there.’
‘If any human being has ever been born, he has been born outside Kashmir.’
‘And why is that?’
‘Why?’
‘Ask Kashmir.’
‘Ask the one who has been born.’
‘This is very strange. Very strange, indeed.’
‘This strange thing is known by its other name — UNO.’
‘That too is a very strange name.’
‘Politics is a strange business.’
‘And the other word for “strange” is Saadat.’
‘E Saadat bajor-e baazu neest
Tanah bakhshad Khuda-e-Kashmiri.’
‘But unfortunately, he is no Hato9.’
‘Long live Dr Graham!’
‘Down with Dr Graham!’
‘The fellow is a good for nothing.’
‘No, my dear, he writes reports. Which is a very difficult thing to do.’
‘Long live difficult things!’
‘Long live Kashmir!’
‘Paradise has been broken into parts.’
‘We have half; they get half.’
‘No, we want all of it.’
‘We want a whole and complete paradise.’
‘Who’s that?
‘Manto.’
‘No, that’s Sheikh Saadi, who was the Manto of his time.’
1 In the Bible, Nimrod, the son of Cush, grandson of Ham, great-grandson of Noah, was a Mesopotamian monarch and ‘a mighty hunter before Yahweh’. According to popular legend, however, he has been made out to be an impious tyrant who built the infamous Tower of Babel.
2 In the original, there is a great deal of word play between Nimrod (pronounced Nimrood in Urdu) and amrood (guava). Just as in the original Urdu, there is a clever pun on Dogre (plural of Dogra, the community from the foothills of the Himalayas who produced the last Maharaja of Kashmir, Maharaja Hari Singh), ‘Do-gure’ (a coinage to imply one who has two gurs or two qualities), and Gore (the often pejorative word for the white-skinned Englishmen).
3 The play upon words continues — ‘jyoti’ meaning light or radiance and ‘jooti’ meaning shoe sound the same but mean vastly different things.
4 Cyril John Radcliffe, 1st Viscount Radcliffe GBE, PC (1899–1977) was a British lawyer and law lord most famous for his partitioning of the British Imperial territory of India. With the passing of the Indian Independence Act, he was appointed Chairman of the Boundary Commission on 3 June 1947 and given the task of carving up three separate territories in the Indian subcontinent; India, West Pakistan and East Pakistan. While it is doubtful that anything Radcliffe could have done, or not done, would have made any significant difference to the fate of millions who were displaced by the greatest migration in history and even the most carefully crafted border would have provoked the massive exchange of population that resulted, Radcliffe has been demonized by many as the evil architect of the Partition. Whatever the merits of the Radcliffe Awards, he was clearly a man in a hurry, or a man being hurried by the powers-that-be, especially Lord Mountbatten, since he took just over two months to carve up these new territories.
5 Some Sunni Muslims observe Shab-e-baraat, which falls on the 15th day of the month of Shabaan according to the Islamic lunar calendar as a night of worship and salvation, commemorating when Allah saved Noah and his followers from the deluge. It is believed that during this night Allah prepares the destiny for all people on Earth for the coming year. For this reason it is sometimes called the Night of Emancipation (Lailat ul Bara'at). In India it is celebrated with distributing sweets and halwa, lighting candles and bursting crackers. People fast during the day and pray during the night, visit graveyards and light candles on the graves.
6 A Persian couplet by Amir Khusrau, the 13th century Hindustani poet, written in praise of the land of Hindustan.
7 Again a play on words: Rahim, a popular Muslim name, is also a name for God, One who is Merciful.
8 ‘Sarokar’ means ‘to do with’.
9 A community among Kashmiris.
SKETCHES
SAADAT HASAN
Much has been written and said about Manto — a great deal against him than in favour of him. An intelligent person would be hard pressed to reach any sensible conclusion on the basis of these reports. As I sit down to write this piece, I feel it is very difficult to truly express one’s feelings about Manto. Although, viewed in another way, maybe it is actually quite easy — because I have had the great good fortune to be close to Manto. In fact, if truth be told, I am Manto’s twin.
I have no real objection to what has been written about him; my only contention is that most of what has been written about Manto is quite far removed from the truth. There are some who call him a devil. Others a bald angel. But, wait, let me check whether that swine is hovering close by and eavesdropping. No, no, it is all right. Now I remember — this is the time when he drinks. He has the habit of guzzling his bitter sharbat at six in the evening.
We were born at the same time, and I seem to think we will die together. It is possible, however, that Saadat Hasan may die and Manto may not; the thought torments me. That is why I have made every effort possible to remain friends with him. If he stays alive and I die, it would be a little like the piquant case of the eggshell remaining intact while the yolk and white disappears from inside it.
I don’t wish to go into any more background details. I want to make it amply clear to you that Manto is one of those ‘one-two’ people, a real clever devil, the like of which I have never seen before in my entire life. If you add 1+2, it becomes 3. And he knows a great deal about triangles, but let us not get into that. A hint is enough for a clever man to follow.
I have known Manto since his birth. We were born together, at the same time, on 11 May 1912 but Manto has always tried to make himself into something else. If he tucks his head and neck in, you can try all you want but will never be able to find him. But I am a part of him; I belong to him. No matter what he does, I can always monitor every move he makes.
Let me tell you how he became such a great storyteller. Writers and novelists tend to write tomes about their own quirks and personality traits. They quote from Schopenhauer, Freud, Hegel, Nietzche, Marx whereas they are miles away from reality. Manto’s oeuvre is the outcome of two opposing principles. His father, may God bless him, was an extremely harsh man and his mother was the kindest of women. You may well imagine how that poor kernel must have been pulverised between these two implacable forces.
I shall now come to his schooldays. He was an intelligent though mischievous child. His height then would have been no more than three feet six inches. He was the youngest of his father’s offspring. He had his parents’ love but never had the opportunity to meet his three elder brothers who were his half-brothers and were studying abroad. He wanted to meet them and wanted them to behave like elder brothers but he got to meet them only much later — when he was an established and famous writer.
Now, let us come to his storytelling. Let me tell you quite bluntly that he is an absolute fraud. His very first story was called Tamasha; it was about the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. He did not get it published in his own name. That is why he was able to escape the clutches of the police.
Shortly after this, a new thought arose in his fertile mind — this time a scheme to study further. Here it would be pertinent to mention that he had failed the ‘inter exam’ twice before finally clearing it with a third division. And you will be surprised to know that he had failed his Urdu paper!