Bombay High

Based on the 28 stories in this volume, it would have to be a close contest. Manto8217;s life was as eventful as much of his fiction. The Amritsar-born Kashmiri, born into a family of lawyers, rebelled against following the family profession, failed his school-leaving examinations twice in succession; failed his first-year exams in college; dropped out of Aligarh; and turned, instead 8212; under the mentorship of historian and journalist Bari Alig 8212; to translation and writing. It was a fortunate move, because the very Urdu in which he failed would later become the language in which Manto would produce his considerable corpus of writing 8212; consisting of 22 collections of short stories, one novel, five collections of radio plays, three collections of essays, two collections of reminiscences and several film scripts. In Urdu Manto would not only chronicle Partition but also write about sexuality, urban life and most of all the down-and-out inhabitants of city streets, especially in the Bombay that he loved so intensely 8212; the sex workers, shopkeepers and deadbeats whom high literature generally chose to ignore.

These stories are filled with rough humour and tenderness; occasionally they break out into the cold fury that is the hallmark of Manto8217;s most affecting fiction. Here is Ustad Mangu the tongawallah, who knows something about everything under the sun 8212; except that he cannot understand what the new constitution will mean for the land. Here are the procurer Dhondoo, 8220;the one who searches and finds8221;, and Siraj, the only girl whom he cannot fathom. Here is Mozail, the 8220;wild Jewish girl in Bombay8221; for whom there is no curfew even in a rioting city; Saugandhi the sex worker who, at the end of the night, throws her arm over her mangy dog and goes to sleep; and Sultana, who longs for a black salwar for Muharram, and maybe a bit of kindness too. Manto8217;s women are compelling figures 8212; strong, sensitive, drawn with compassion and grace.

The Partition stories form Manto8217;s monumental achievement. As Hasan points out, it makes no difference to Manto whether his characters are Hindu, Muslim or Sikh. Despite the compassion that brings people together in his stories, we are also asked to look searchingly at that base and evil quality residing within the human psyche which makes men commit the greatest acts of violence even upon those who have been their neighbours and friends for generations. Among the most finely crafted of these stories is 8220;The Return8221;, a taut three-and-half page piece that tells of one of Partition8217;s worst horrors and ends with one of the most chilling lines in fiction. 8220;Two-Nation Theory8221; illustrates the abstract title with a love story that begins tenderly enough but ends in a cynical impasse. Yes, the greatest allegory of Partition madness, 8220;Toba Tek Singh8221;, too is here.

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