Even in translation, the writings of Saadat Hasan Manto are blindingly good. Manto published about 250 short stories in a very brief career — alcoholism killed him at the age of 42 — and countless nonfiction pieces for newspapers and magazines. Much of Manto’s nonfiction writing is witty and sharp, though he also has a dark side that comes out in some of his best work. Partly because they’re available online, today I’d like to point readers to a series of rhetorical “Letters to Uncle Sam” Manto wrote in the early 1950s. There were nine in total, and four of them have been put online at Chowk: one, two, three, four.
If you know Manto well, you might want to skip down a bit for quotes and comments on the “Letters.” For those who don’t know Manto: the stories are amazing, often horrifying. The Partition stories Manto wrote are about the darkest you’ll ever see. Several of them deal explicitly with the psychic effects of rape, on both men and women, perpetrators and victims. Even Manto’s pre-partition writings (stories like “Khushia,” for instance) seem deeply preoccupied with the problem of masculinity and the objectification of women, from a perspective that’s only partly feminist.
Manto was in Bombay through the Partition (in 1948, he decided to move, with his family, to Lahore), so it’s unclear to me whether he personally knew people who had experienced this kind of violence. But stories like “Open it!” and “Cold Meat” (both of which provoked obscenity trials in Pakistan) seem to be inspired by a very personal awareness of the effects of traumatic violence. Whether or not he was personally there, Manto’s partition stories keenly capture the dehumanization that follows communal violence.
(As a place to start, I would recommend the collection Black Margins, though pretty much any collection will do.)On to the “Letters to Uncle Sam,” which were written in Urdu between 1951 and 1954, and translated recently by Khalid Hasan. These “letters,” which Manto says he cannot send as he lacks money for postage, are opportunities for Manto to comment on the strangeness of his new country, as well as on the surreal aspects of American life as discerned from magazines and newspapers. In the letters, Manto happily describes his poverty, and contrasts it to the image of fabulous American wealth. But in some ways, Manto argues, the two countries may not be that far apart after all; the letters are as irreverent in their treatment of “Uncle” as they are of life in Pakistan.
Manto begins the first letter with a note of rancor over the Partition, which led to his displacement from his film-writing career in Bombay and his resentment at the recurring obscenity trials:
My name is Saadat Hasan Manto and I was born in a place that is now in India. My mother is buried there. My father is buried there. My first-born is also resting in that bit of earth. However, that place is no longer my country. My country now is Pakistan which I had only seen five or six times before as a British subject. I used to be the All IndiaÂ’s Great Short Story Writer. Now I am PakistanÂ’s Great Short Story Writer. Several collections of my stories have been published and the people respect me. In undivided India, I was tried thrice, in Pakistan so far once. But then Pakistan is still young. (link)
Manto was right: Pakistan was indeed still young then. (There would be two more obscenity trials for his stories before his death. If Manto had lived, you can presume he would have spent most of his life in prison for his writings.)
Of course, America wasn’t without its own controversies over obscenity. D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover was still banned in the early 1950s, and Manto was struck by the obscenity trial of a novel by Erskine Caldwell, called God’s Little Acre:
All I really wanted to do was to convey my good wishes to brother Erskine Caldwell. You will no doubt recall that you tried him for his novel GodÂ’s Little Acre on the same charge that I have faced here: pornography.
Believe me, uncle, when I hear that this novel was tried on an obscenity charge in the land of seven freedoms, I was extremely surprised. In your country, after all, everything is divested of its outer covering so that it can be displayed in the show window, be it fresh fruit or woman, machine or animal, book or calendar. You are the king of bare things so I am at a loss to understand, uncle, why you tried brother Erskine Caldwell.
So, I read the Caldwell judgment . . . The last lines of [the judge’s] judgment point to the intellectual reach of his mind. He writes: “I personally feel that if such books were suppressed, it would create an unnecessary sense of curiosity among people which could induce them to seek salaciousness, though that is not the purpose of this book. I am absolutely certain that the author has chosen to write truthfully about a certain segment of American society. It is my opinion that truth is always consistent with literature and should be so declared.”
That is what I told the court that sentenced me, but it went ahead anyway and gave me three months in prison with hard labour and a fine of three hundred rupees. My judge thought that truth and literature should be kept far apart. Everyone has his opinion.(link)
Ah yes, everyone has an opinion (including a judge); it’s in those last lines that you see Manto’s characteristic barbed wit at its finest.
The second letter is lighter in tone, and details some of Manto’s run-ins with American troops stationed in Bombay during the war. Perhaps the highlight is where he talks about women’s legs in American films:
Uncle, your women are so beautiful. I once saw one of your movies called ‘Bathing Beauty’. “Where does uncle find such an assemblage of pretty legs?” I asked my friends later. I think there were about two hundred and fifty of them. Uncle, is this how women’s legs look like in your country? If so, then for God’s sake (that is, if you believe in God) block their exhibition in Pakistan at least.
It is possible that womenÂ’s legs out here may be better than legs in your country but, uncle, no one flashes them around. Just think about it. The only legs we see are those of our wives: the rest of the legs we consider a forbidden sight. We are rather orthodox you see.
I have digressed again but I will not apologise because this is the sort of writing you like. (link)
Note the passive-aggressive turn at the end: “this is the sort of writing you like.” It’s something Manto does again and again. Even as he’s mocking the conservative values of the new Islamic nation, at any moment he might turn it around, and mock the absurdities of America as he understood it.
The third letter gets into politics and religion a bit. In addition to writing stories the authorities (British and Pakistani) deemed obscene, Manto was chronically irreligious, as illustrated by the following jab at the local Mullahs:
You have done many good deeds yourself and continue to do them. You decimated Hiroshima, you turned Nagasaki into smoke and dust and you caused several thousand children to be born in Japan. Each to his own. All I want you to do is to dispatch me some dry cleaners. It is like this. Out here, many Mullah types after urinating pick up a stone and with one hand inside their untied shalwar, use the stone to absorb the after-drops of urine as they resume their walk. This they do in full public view. All I want is that the moment such a person appears, I should be able to pull out that atom bomb you will send me and lob it at the Mullah so that he turns into smoke along with the stone he was holding.
As for your military pact with us, it is remarkable and should be maintained. You should sign something similar with India. Sell all your old condemned arms to the two of us, the ones you used in the last war. This junk will thus be off your hands and your armament factories will no longer remain idle.
[Ouch.]
One more thing. We canÂ’t seem able to draft a constitution. Do kindly ship us some experts because while a nation can manage without a national anthem, it cannot do without a constitution, unless such is your wish. (link)
“Unless it is your wish” — yes, exactly: a bit of fake obsequiousness to expose the ethically dubious American approach to fighting Communism and “spreading Democracy” in the 1950s.
The fourth letter gets into films, Bollywood and Lollywood. As with the other letters, it seems oddly relevant to the present moment. Either our era is strangely similar to the 1950s, or nothing has changed and people have been talking about the same things for fifty years:
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. . . .
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.(link)
And there you have it, the great Saadat Hasan Manto. The next time you’re kissing someone or eating watermelon, you will, I hope, remember him.
that was fun amardeep! Love your brilliant lit. posts
amardeep, you’re a menace! just when i think i’m making some headway into my reading list and succeeding in constraining my wishlist to manageable proportions, you come along and tantalize us with more goodies. as if summer didn’t already have enough distractions. (p.s: thanks).
Whose God, glad to be of service! Actually, these four letters read pretty fast… The real hold up will come if you were to decide to read the rest of Manto.
Very interesting character! Thanks for the post.
M. Nam
Great stuff, Amardeep. Had read translations of his short stories, but had no idea about these letters. Are there any published translations beyond the chowk posting?
Oh, ever since we read ‘Toba Tek Singh’ for a lit class in college. Manto’s been one of my favorite short-story authors; way up there with Borges and Chekov.
Thanks for the post, Amardeep.
Vikas, yes, there’s a book version of the translations published in Pakistan by Alhamra press in 2001. I don’t know if any of the usual importers (like Indiaclub) are carrying it, though — most of them just import books from India. (I was reading the Alhamra version at the library at U-Penn.)
Letters Six through Nine are pretty good — they tend to stay more with political questions, though. Letter five is very brief.
Amardeep: Thanks again for an interesting and amusing post. I have been commenting too much on blogs lately and had considered putting a lid on my garrulousness for a while. But then you came up with this post.
Manto was of course an amazing writer. And irreverence is exactly what made him so attractive. Have you noticed that the other famous Urdu writer who was similarly “bold” was also enamored the film industry? Ismat Chughtai too loved the movies and her story “Lihaaf” (The Quilt) was cited for obscenity because of its lesbian implications.
Perhaps you should do a post on Indian / east Asian authors who have gone up against obscenity charges. I do not know of many other than a few in Bengali. The Bangladeshi Tasleema Nasreen is the most recent. But before that you’d be surprised to know that the brainy and literary Buddhadeb Basu was similarly challenged for his story Rat Bhore Brishti (It Rained All Night). And Samaresh Bose of course – he who pioneered sexual explicitness in Bengali lit in the 1960 -70s. The funny thing is that older Bengali writings of the mid to late 1800s contained amazingly crude and suggestive prose and poetry in the form of pulp fiction. Some of them positively pornographic.
That little aside in Manto’s letter about Surayya and Gregory Peck is true. In fact there was a “peck” involved in that encounter too – a chaste kiss on the eyelid during a midnight encounter. Surayya was supposed to have been an ardent fan of Gregory Peck. Some have speculated that her romantic interlude (cut short by a greedy and controlling grandma) with Dev Anand was due partly to the fact that Anand resembled Peck.
Cheers. Keep these nuggets coming.
Thanks for the great post Amardeep.
Here is another Manto post at Middle stage
Amardeep,
I am going to buy Black Margins today. Thank you.
I haven’t read any Manto apart from the brilliant Toba Tek Singh story in school (why oh why did they not expose us to more Real Literature and less preachy nationalist formulaic rubbish?) and would love to read more of his stories in Hindi, if possible – are there any collections that anyone could recommend? I don’t read Urdu well, but would rather not lose the flavour of the writing by reading it in translation, so I figure Hindi versions would solve that problem. Thanks in advance.
SP, One of his darkest, most messed up Partition stories is “Khol Do” (Open it), which you can read online in Hindi here. I haven’t investigated Hindi editions, though I suspect you are right about it solving the Urdu script problem.
I got the link from this blog post.
And Ruchira, yes, you’re absolutely right — we’re overdue for an Ismat post. Fran Pritchett has put her personal translation of “Lihaaf” online so that’s a start. But a certain book sent to me by a friend will also probably be of assistance 😉
I also read Manto’s take on Ismat Chughtai a couple of days ago; that too could come in handy…
Thanks Amardeep! If anyone can recommend good bookstores to look for Hindi fiction in Delhi, would appreciate. Do New Book Depot and Bahri Sons carry this stuff?
Amardeep
Great post.
Saadat hasan manto’s work also encompasses some amazing study of human psyche, in a universal way, even though he writes about partition.
His writing can shock the most cynical among us into thinking about things we wouldn’t think about. Very poignant.
Incidentally, I just found another translation of Manto’s dark Partition stories online here, from Fran Pritchett’s Manto page.
This story is “Cold Meat” (Thanda Gosht), and it is another of the stories that provoked an obscenity trial. After reading it, you might see why… it’s pretty dark stuff, not for the faint of heart.
Thanks for the great post and the links, Amardeep !
Talking of Manto, Ismat and films, Mrinal Sen adapted Manto’s short story Badshahat Ka Khatama for his interesting Bengali film Antareen starring Dimple and Sathyu’s Garam Hawa, based on Ismat’s short story, is possibly the best film ever on Indian partition with Nihalani’s Tamas and Ghatak’s oeuvre providing some stiff competition.
Two points about Manto:
Manto for me remains a grossly overrated writer.
Don’t forget, Ghaatan, one of the worst and obviously sexist stories written by him. No matter what the people say, one of the finest stories ever written on partition is by the unsung Mohan Rakesh. His Malbe Ka Maalik does not follow the formulaic conveniences of a mental asylum and the barter of its residents across the no-man’s-land along religious lines that Manto’s Toba Tek Singh so unabashedly does.
It seems to me to be a bit disconcerting to throw Mrinal Sen, MS Sathyu, Givnd Nihalani and Ritwik Ghatak into the same partition-films basket. For God’s sake – not Ritwik Ghatak. His work is far too precious to be placed next to the likes of Sens and Nihalanis.
Panini: Come on now! It is not a zero sum game. Meghe Dhaka Tara (which I saw eons ago) was a remarkable movie about the partition by the brilliant Ritwik Ghatak. But that doesn’t exactly make M.S Sathyu’s Garam Hawa chopped liver. Gosh, I love that movie. And given the unhealthy Hindu-Muslim relations in India currently, G.H. should be required viewing by all Indians.
I would like to say something about the comment you left on Amardeep’s quieter blog about Ismat and Lihaaf. (I am not terribly familiar with the S. Asian literary scene. I read solely for my own solitary enjoyment. The only time I discuss Indian authors is with my sister and on Amardeep’s blog.) So I do not know about the fly by night feminists and their glorification of Lihaaf. What I know is that it was the men around her who never let Ismat forget Lihaaf.
I have read the story. It is not even Ismat’s best effort. But it is a remarkable story nonetheless. Sure, it is not “Brokeback Mountain” or “Giovanni’s Room”, but as I see it, she neither glorified nor mocked lesbianism. In the end, it is a sad story – more about loneliness, idle lives and sexual frustration. The lesbian angle may have caught the critics’ imagination because the author is explicit in describing the physical act. But did no one notice the allusions to Nawab Sahib and his preoccupation with the fair, slim waisted, gossamer shirted young boys under his tutelege right in the beginning? Was that not what ate at Begum Jan’s heart before she submits to Rabbo’s body massages? Why is there no mention of that anywhere? I would think that the fact that Ismat got branded with this early story despite the fact that she went on to write prolifically afterwards, was a double edged sword. It marked her as fearless writer and also had the negative effect of becoming her calling card. And tell me if there is any other Indian author of that era or of more recent vintage, who has tackled homosexuality in the unselfconscious manner as Ismat did in Lihaaf? I wouldn’t be too quick to dismiss the feminists and their eager defense of lesbianism. The fact that Ismat was hounded by men for her “transgression,” is testimony to what many suspect. That men are more threatened by homosexuality (both male and female) than they care to admit.
Panini: I did not mean to be disrespectful toward Ghatak and I am sorry if the comparison in my last comment came across as flippant. As Ruchira said, it is not a zero sum game. I have seen each of Ghatak’s completed films several times and love and admire his work as much as anyone else. In the context of partition, however, Garam Hawa is very close to my heart and even though I am not a big fan of Nihalani in general, Tamas made an incredible impact on me when it was broadcast on Doordarshan in late-eighties. I will admit that I have not seen it since then and some of that impact can be attributed to early-teen susceptibility.
I did not compare Ghatak with Sen and found next to the likes of Sen a little dismissive of someone who has directed Baishey Shraban, Genesis, Akaler Sandhane, Khandahar and Ek din Pratidin.
Dear Ruchira ji: It is possible that you have read Ismat Chughtai’s Lihaaf in an English translation. The worst of these attempts is by Khushwant Singh and, if I am not wrong, by Prof Harish Trivedi (his translation of Manto’s Toba Tek Singh is a joke). The story in its original version remains very unsympathetic to gays and lesbians. In fact, Begham Jan, overcome by uncontrollable lust, comes very close to being a child molester. It is a cruel story with a liberal dosage of insensitive humour.
And yes, Garam Hawa is an important film – primarily because of Balraj Sahni‘s performance. I would think of GH not so much as a Sathyu film but rather the result of Shama Zaidi‘s and Kaifi Azmi‘s joint and creatively charged effort. Sathyu has done nothing of consequence since. In fact, his subsequent work is so unbelievably shoddy that one begins to wonder if GH is his work in the first place. Within the film world there is many an insider who may enlighten you as to who the real director of GH is.
About Mrinal Sen and Govind Nihalani the less said the better. It would generate unnecessary debate. These two are cinematically too minor to deserve separate columns.
But Ritwik Ghatak remains the absolute thinking and emotional genius of Indian cinema. This Ritwik Ghatak , who did a partition trilogy – Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud Capped Star, 1960), Komal Gandhar (Inadequately translated into English as E Flat, 1962) and Subarnarekha (literally The Golden Line named after the small rivulet in a remote place called Ghatshila in Jharkhand, 1964) – did not win a single National award and his work was never showcased by the Indian Government in any of the International film festivals. These officially driven spaces were completely occupied by Shri Satyajit Ray and Shri Shri Mrinal Sen. This fellow died a unsung alcoholic but remained deeply loved by generations of students at the Indian Film Institute of Pune.
Panini: Indeed I read Lihaaf in English. But in very good translation by Tahira Naqvi and Syeda Hameed. I am quite conversant in Urdu (and completely fluent in Hindi) although I don’t read the script. As a result, I have also read Ismat’s original stories in Urdu (in Devanagari script). The English version of Lihaaf that I read, did cover the near child molestation incident.
Look, the story is disturbing, some would say sordid, because Ismat does not prettify anything. But I still fail to see the mocking or a judgemental indictment of homosexuality anywhere in the narrative. I still see it as the story of a lonely woman whose brain was slightly addled with idleness and sexual neglect. It is a pitiful story.
I suspect you are very knowledgable about Indian movies. I am glad that you agree about Garam Hawa’s credentials as a movie even though Sathyu may not deserve creative praise. I myself opined only on the movie, not on who deserved the credit. Can you tell me if and how I can get DVDs of Meghe Dhaka Tara and Komal Gandhar? I saw both as a young girl. I would love to see them again through adult eyes. I don’t recall if I saw Subarnorekha but I am familiar with the name. I would love to also lay my hands on Ghatak’s Ajantrik. Anything else of recent vintage that you recommend, let me know. I am quite out of touch. Rather than use this forum for this communication, you can email me from my blog’s “about” page. Thanks.
Thanks Amardeep, for yet another v interesting desi lit post. Will have to go hunt around for this now.
Sigh, how come the best writers seem to die so young?
Tahira Naqvi and Sayeda Hameed‘s translation of Chughtai’s Lihaaf is undoubtedly the best. As for as I know they had done two sets of translation and my preference still rests with the first one.
Two of Ritwik Ghatak‘s films – Meghe Dhaka Tara (Cloud-capped Star, 1960) and Titash Ekti Nadir Naam (Titash, the Name of a River,1972) have been issued by the BFI, London. In addition they have also issued a film on the life of Ritwik Ghatak directed by a Geneva-based Indian filmmaker, Anup Singh. This film is called Ekti Nadir Naam (Name of a River, 2003). The film has been written – script, dialogues and lyrics – by my teacher Madan Gopal Singh who incidentally has also composed music for the well-known Pakistani film Khamosh Paani.
Ajantrik (Inadequately translated as “Pathetic Fallacy” 1958) as indeed Nagarik (Citizen,1952-53), Subarnarekha (1964) and Jukti Takko ar Gappo (Arguments/Stories, 1975) have only recently become available in both Calcutta and New Delhi. One shop from where they can be bought is shop no 36 in the Palika Bazaar of what was once Connaught Place of New Delhi. I am sure these films have since become available in the US and parts of Europe.
One must read “Stars from Another Sky,” Manto’s comical and acerbric chronicles of his adventures in the Indian Talkies…
I am in total agreement with Marcus. Manto has never been better than when he dealt with the Bombay film world.
such people are never born again and again who not only impressed local masses but also influence over years in literature.
When I read manto letters just now, I felt that we are still in 1950 not in 2008. The situation is same.
this is no doubt a universal writer.
Thanks.