I read Saadat Hasan Manto 1 & a half year ago & I didn’t write anything on him, because I have been wondering as to why they raise mediocrity to that level. I’m very sorry to say but I do him find extremely over-rated.
I just couldn’t understand what he was trying to explore. Maybe his ardent fans know that but I just couldn’t understand the depth of it all. In one of the stories, a woman dies & she is suddenly naked. The same women used to wipe her nose with her skirt & the guy who was mad about her notices that she doesn’t wear panties. In another story, a girl is taking shower & her window is opened, & the guy sees everything. In one of the stories, the guy doesn’t work & ultimately he dies. In another story, a prostitute walks out naked in front of the pimp & the pimp doesn’t like the idea & later that day, he goes to that prostitute as a client.
Every time they used to put a ban on him & maybe that’s why he got famous. I also had a discussion with my mom & khala on him the other day & even they regard him as over-rated. I have read novels & plays on incest & prostitutes & I think it’s the plot that matters more than stupid details about a girl playing with her boobs.
At that time, it might have seemed too much but right now, it’s nothing. But the thing is that it doesn’t make sense even today. If a writer wants to talk dirty, then he should at least make sense. It only sounds hilarious…the way everyone becomes naked. I know a writer can’t be moral 24/7. It’s just not possible but making sense is a requisite.
Raising altars for Ghalib & Mir Taqi Mir make sense. They were gems. But so far as Manto is concerned, fine he had a bad life but does that mean we should call him now a genius when he is not? Shakespeare too is over-rated, but there is something about him. I’m afraid there is nothing about Manto. His fans have done an excellent job. People who haven’t read him also consider him a genius. And unfortunately in our part of the world, people don’t read & form opinions; they hear & take that viewpoint as truth. I think D. H. Lawrence is a sexy mind, but this is an opinion & it would be dangerous if I start pouring this into the heads of those who don’t read at all.
Anyway I liked one of his stories. Actually I had been fascinated by the character of the guy who admired a girl & she was in love with someone else. And he said to her when she was being deserted by that fellow: “If you have the strength to love, you also have the strength to survive heartbreak…The joy, the ecstasy that you drew from being in love, is the essence of your life.”
I was looking at the pic of Manto & I was like...look at you, I can’t even call you a naughty head but whatever happened in your brain cells, happened quite instantly.
I’m sure the ardent fans of Manto will hate me, but I just couldn’t see much in his writings. And I can’t say what everyone has been saying for so long without even reading him.
