Manto, Unplugged

8212; Manto

Bitter, coal black humour laces this slim collection of 32 searing vignettes written more than fifty years ago by one of the finest authors of the Urdu language, Saadat Hasan Manto. It was Manto8217;s fate that he was gifted with an eye to spot the macabre, and convert it 8212; within minutes 8212; into a spine-chilling tale. He lived through the partition of the country and witnessed some of the bloodiest scenes that an author could ever imagine.

His pen was laced with hatred against the communal frenzy and perhaps were he still alive he would probably write 8216;8216;Toba Tek Singh8217;8217; all over again. It remains, till today, probably the finest story ever to be written on the sheer lunacy that gripped the two newly separated nations. In fact, even when we read his other stories, set during the partition riots, we understand the extent to which we are trapped in a battlefield of senseless, and increasingly bizarre, hostilities. One of his most compelling stories remains 8216;8216;Thanda Ghosht8217;8217; 8212; about a dead woman being raped by a man who becomes impotent when he realises that she is lifeless.

It is this element in his writing, his ability to unerringly spot the most chilling vulnerability, which makes Manto8217;s writing extraordinarily gripping. And the truth is, when we read this translated version of Siyah Hashiye, we realise how shockingly relevant the narratives still are. Whether it is the 1984 riots, or the Gujarat killings, we can see their reflection in these crisply told cameos, in which neighbours murder each other remorselessly, using the shield of religion. Manto captures this brutal insensitivity in a moment in 8216;8216;Fruits of Ignorance8217;8217;. A man empties all his bullets into innocent passersby. Then he sees a young child and turns the gun towards him to terrify him, content in the knowledge that the child is too young to know that the gun may be empty.

Manto was always able to tell a story that could leave you uneasy and trembling in just a few sentences, very evident in this collection of brilliant, cold-bloodedly menacing writing. Fortunately the translator, Rakhshanda Jalil, has been faithful to the original text, keeping to Manto8217;s style, and retaining the dreadful punch at the end of each vignette.

True to his brand of double-edged humour, Manto had even dedicated this set of writing to 8216;8216;the man who, while narrating his many misdeeds, said: 8216;When I killed that old woman, I felt as though I had committed a murder8217;.8217;8217;

The real tragedy, of course, lies in the fact that even in the twenty-first century he would have had plenty to write about: for instance, the Best Bakery case, or the Graham Staines murder. Or perhaps, he would not need to write about them after all. He had already commented on all these incidents, fifty years ago in Siyah Hashiye.