This is the birth centenary year of Saadat Hasan Manto, a superb storyteller in the Urdu language. He was born on May 11, 1912, at the village Paproudi, near Samrala (Ludhiana), where his father was holding a post in the judiciary. He received his early education in Islamia High School, Amritsar, and after matriculation, he joined Hindu (Sabha) College, Amritsar. He lived in Kucha Vakilaan in Katra Jaimal Singh, Amritsar, where in his room, he had placed on the mantelpiece a photograph of Shaheed Bhagat Singh. Indeed, he was an ardent admirer of freedom fighters.

In the college he came under the influence of Professor MM Mathur, Urdu and Persian teacher. In the later years, during mid 1940s, Prof Mathur told the writer of these lines as his student that Manto had a literary bent of mind but he seldom mixed up with his classmates. He left the college after doing F.A. and fell into the company of good for nothing youngsters. Luckily, Abdul Bari Alig came from Lahore to Amritsar to start an Urdu newspaper and Manto was initiated into writing a filmi column for it. Thereafter he translated some short stories of Gorky and Maupassant for which he received due credit in the literary circles. When Bari went back to Lahore, Manto too left Amritsar for Bombay to try his luck in the world of films. He died on January 18, 1955 in Lahore where he had shifted from Bombay, after the partition, in January 1948.

Manto was a born storyteller but he never devised ways and means to project his viewpoint. He was not only seized with a particular aspect of life but was also obsessed with it. In such a state of mind he produced works of art but without straining his nerves about their forms. In reality he was an unconscious artist but he created superb stories. He attains the stature of a modern storyteller when his narration moves from metonymic to metaphoric, from statement to suggestion.

Manto is at liberty to choose the precise moment of time to begin his story but the earlier events do not grip his mind. There are no pauses during the course of the story, rather the events are related breathtakingly. He rarely allows his characters to enter into a meaningful dialogue with each other. 

In the garb of an omniscient narrator, he tells all that has to be told without leaving much to the imagination of the reader. Indeed Manto’s typical short story has a beginning and an end but there is no middle. The middle is diffused in its texture and it cannot be pinpointed. The writer never labours to build a gripping plot. He simply strings together certain events that lead to an inevitable denouement. The end of Manto’s stories gives a jolt to the reader’s mind and he finds himself immersed in deep thoughts. His stories much as Khol Do and Thanda Gost bring a sea change in the preconceived notions of the reader.

Manto has no penchant for episodes. The surprise endings apart, he never introduces improbable incidents or impossible characters. He is always eager to point out the oddities and eccentricities of his characters. At times he seeks out such happenings as have been instrumental in unhinging the minds. In Toba Tek Singh he presents a character who might have lost touch with the outer reality but he is still in contact with the inner reality. In the stories such as Babu Gopinath, Sharda, Mouzil, Latika Rani and Mera Nam Radha he presents the chiaroscuro of human characters. In delineating them he does not employ any specific narrative technique. He is sympathetic in his attitude to human failings but is impatient in regard to sham, pretence and hypocrisy. In the story Raj Kishore he presents an actor who never reveals his true self and always tries to camouflage his real motives under a glossy veneer. His image of a man whose moral fibre is very strong is tarnished by the actress, Neelam. She plants a passionate kiss on his lips when they are face to face in a secluded spot, only to find him unworthy to be woman’s man.

Manto’s art of characterisation is superb. He is unsparing in his comments on the foibles and follies of the individuals. He delineates these portraits with bold strokes and never tries to tone down the glaring colours. He is adept in the art of defamiliarisation, as such the characters retain their uniqueness even if the situations in which they are placed are familiar to the reader. He loves Babu Gopinath for all his failings as he has the essential goodness in him. The writer is always eager to strike and at times willing to wound.

Admittedly, Manto lingers on the physical tensions but he never isolates them from the psychic tensions. In his representative stories they are interwoven inextricably. At time, however, he focuses his attention entirely on the psychic repercussion of a particular situation. In the story Hatak (The Insult), the prostitute Sugandhi feels insulted when her customer rejects her after having a glimpse of her face in the torch-light. The word Unh that he utters before leaving in the taxi cuts her to the quick.

Manto is anti-romantic by nature and he shuns the poetic style of narration. But in Sarak Ke Kinare (On the roadside), he becomes lyrical while depicting the feelings of elation of an unwed mother for her unborn child and later her traumatic feelings when the infant is taken away forcibly from her. In the same manner, Manto adopts a modernist mode of narration in the story Phhundane (Tassels), wherein the existentialist feelings of a neurotic girl, who is obsessed with rape and violence, find expression in a compelling manner. In it Manto has adopted the surrealistic mode of expression which has added a new dimension to his art of narration. 

There is no denying the fact that the short stories of Saadat Hasan Manto are still relevant and he has gained popularity in national as well as international languages.

(The writer is a Sahitya Akademi Award winning author and poet)

Daily Post: May 13, 2012