Bald Angel

In my tonsorial parlor there is no comb, shampoo, or hair -curling machine. I don’t apply make up on my subjects. I am unable to straighten out the crooked eye of Agha Hashr, nor can I make his mouth shed flowers instead of obscenities. I cannot iron away the degradation of Meeraji, as I could not have persuaded my friend Shyam not to describe self-important women as “Sali’s”. Every angel who appears in my book, has had his head shaved, a ceremony I have performed with the utmost style. (Manto in Ganjay Farishtey, tr. Khalid Hasan)

Saadat Hasan Manto had written the sketches of twelve persons and published them in a book, which he called Ganjay Farishtey (Bald Angels). Some of these sketches were of Manto’s friends or acquaintances from the Indian Film Industry. One sketch was on the famous contemporary Urdu poet, Akhtar Shirani, whom Manto had met only a few times, during which Manto had the opportunity to observe Shirani almost in every mood and phase. One sketch was on Agha Hashr, the famous Urdu dramatist, whom Manto had met only twice but was able to grasp and encompass Hashr’s personality and life style comprehensively. The sketch is down to earth and very realistic. Agha Hashr comes out alive through Manto’s description, with his exaggerated pride in his artful writing, extempore delivery of versified theatrical dialogues, and love for whiskey and women.

The opening sketch of the book is of the Quaid-e-Azam, Mohammad Ali Jinnah. I do not believe Manto ever met the Quaid personally; he had abstracted the material of his sketch from the Quaid’s driver, Mohammad Hanif Azad. This probably is the only sketch which does not portray any negative aspects of the subject’s personality and the language used by Manto is also clean, dignified, and circumspect bordering on respect. The apparent reason for this is that even though the language in which the sketch has been described is Manto’s own, but the emotions and the facts of the story belong to Azad whose heart was filled with nothing but sentiments of respect and devotion for the Quaid. Also because Manto did not know the Quaid personally, he was unaware of his weaknesses to which he could have drawn attention in his sketch. And the reader should also remember that Manto, in spite of his liberal outlook and rational mind, started every story with 786 written at its forehead, which connotes ‘in the name of God’. So Manto despite being brash, outspoken, and intellectually honest and uninhibited, did respect implicitly certain values, certain personalities, and certain traditions.

The inspiration for writing this sketch derived probably from my curiosity about Manto. During my growing up years, I had read Hafeez’s Shahnamah, I read, off and on, Iqbal’s Baang-e-Dara, Baal-e-Jibril, and many other things. I did not completely understand Iqbal’s poetry at that early stage of my life, but its topical themes and inherent musicality fascinated me. Then I started Manto. I vividly remember one of my English Professors discussing Manto’s Khol Do in the intermediate class at the college. He also kindled an interest in me for Faiz.

Another source of my inspiration may have derived from Manto’s own writing. In his sketch of Ismat Chughtai, Manto wrote, “When Dozkhi (hell-bound, or destined for hell) was published in Saqi and my sister read it, she said, ‘Saadat, see how worthless is this Ismat. She did not even excuse her own deceased brother. What worthless things she has written about him’. I said, ‘Iqbal, if you promise to write a similar essay on me after my death, by God I am prepared to die today’”. Although I cannot write as exquisitely as Ismat did, nor am I Manto’s sister (or brother) for that matter, it did however subconsciously prompt me. And Manto’s title of ‘Ganjay Farishtey’ for his book also inspired me to entitle this sketch as ‘Bald Angel’.

Manto wrote his short stories on the ‘socially forbidden and taboo’ themes with the innocence of a child. He was able to describe the facts as they were, without shrouding them in beautiful wraps. His literary friends even some of the top-notch writers, used to get embarrassed talking about the contents of Manto’s short stories, but Manto was a natural. He didn’t have any reason to feel abashed or embarrassed about what he wrote.

An excellent example of Manto’s natural openness is provided in his sketch of Ismat Chughtai, in Ganjay Farishtey. He had read her short story Lihaaf but was put off by Ismat’s closing statement regarding half-inch raised lihaaf. Describing this incident Manto said, “I met Ismat some time later, I told her, I liked your story, Lihaaf, very much….But I was surprised that you wrote that pointless sentence at the end of the story. Ismat said: what is wrong with that? I was about to say something in response when I noticed the same embarrassed contraction of her face which you see in ordinary domesticated girls when they hear something that is not usually mentioned in polite society”.

I had seen and heard Manto only once. He was invited by the Bazm-e-Adab of Lahore College of Engineering and Technology (now University of Engineering, Lahore), in early 1955. He read a short story called “Malbay ka Dher (Heap of Debris)”. I was a student of Civil Engineering at that time. The hall was full to its capacity and Manto was the focus of every one’s attention. He was handsome and looked quite young and healthy; no body could have guessed that he would pass away in a couple of months.

I had heard that he was going through the most excruciating time of his life in those days. His publishers (and friends too) were taking undue advantage of his difficult situation: lawsuits, social harassment, poverty and what not. He was impoverished and his consuming urge for drinking was inversely proportional to his material well being. He wanted his drink very badly but could not afford it. Many have written about Manto’s drinking problem but only a few with any empathy or understanding. People brought up in the traditional Muslim culture (even the so-called liberals) have nothing but abhorrence for alcohol and despise for those who drink; very few care to understand that alcoholism is a disease like any other disease. Manto was alcoholic and was a sick man in this respect. He did not need sermonizing from his friends; in fact a sermonizing attitude from his friends worked like poison for him. It didn’t do him any good; on the other hand, it aggravated the actual sickness considerably. According to Khalid Hasan (n.1), “Ahmad Nadim Qasmi whom Manto liked quite a lot, once kept pestering him in Peshawar about his excessive drinking”. Manto was in the end so much annoyed by Qasmi’s nagging that he said, “Look, you are my friend. I would hate you to become a judge of my conscience”. It is simply naïve and superficial to believe that Manto was unaware of the religious and social injunctions against alcohol and that Qasmi and others who sermonized him knew any better.

It is difficult to explain how Manto became addicted to alcohol but is probably not so difficult to understand how he had started drinking. He was a rebel by temperament and he could not withstand hypocrisy. Drinking was an okay thing with the writers and artists; most of them drank, some with caution and some others without it. Some of Manto’s friends were heavy drinkers. Shyam, for instance, was a heavy drinker. Akhtar Shirani, though not a close friend of Manto but fairly well acquainted to him, was a heavy drinker. And to top every thing, drinking was a fad. It was glorified in a perverse way. Many people, even these days, not only accept social drinking but admire it too. Manto however could not keep his drinking within limits, he abhorred limits and controls.

Manto’s personality was indeed multi-dimensional. I am perplexed how to or from where I should start this sketch. But let me not be overwhelmed by this thought; the sketch is already begun and is on its way. Let us see what Manto’s celebrated contemporaries had to say about him. Rajinder Singh Bedi considered Manto “the only short story writer in whom the art and language were blended equally to give a beautiful mix”. Shorish Kashmiri commented, “Manto recognized no body excepting his own self. He believed himself to be the greatest short story writer of the sub-continent, in his own time. His claim was true to some extent”. Kashmiri’s specification of “to some extent” is ludicrous; Manto was the greatest short story writer of his time. According to Qur’at-el-Ain Haider, “Manto displayed artistic charisma not only in literature but in his whole life. He drank alcohol without any bars. He was dragged into lawsuits. So much so that he ended up at the mental hospital. He was a fine portrayer of the literary underworld of the sub-continent… ”.

Hasan Askari wrote about Manto that if he “is not part of it, no literati can become a representative body in the eyes of the people”. Krishan Chander said, “Manto.. may God fill your pen with more poison”. According to Mumtaz Shireen, “Manto has left a lot behind him, which would always remain alive in the world of literature”. But best of all is his own epitaph: Here lies buried Saadat Hasan Manto in whose bosom, are enshrined all the secrets and art of short story writing. He, buried under maunds of earth, even now is contemplating whether he is a greater short story writer or God”. “Hansta tau hoga aap bhi Yazdaan kabhi kabhi”, on Manto’s boastful vaunt.

After reading his involvement in the lawsuits, one is tempted to conclude as if Manto wrote his stories only to get entangled in the lawsuits. Manto wrote in his sketch of Ismat Chughtai, “We went to Lahore twice and both times we bought some ten to twelve pairs of shoes of different designs from Karnal Shop. Somebody asked Ismat in Bombay if she had gone to Lahore in connection with a lawsuit. Ismat said, no, we went there to buy shoes”.

Manto left Bombay and came to Pakistan in 1948. Pakistan, in those difficult days of blood and turmoil, was steeped in religious fervor and passionate nationalism. Manto found himself out of place there. He wrote Thanda Ghosht for which he was not only severely criticized by contemporary writers but was sued also in a court of law. Those who had testified against Manto’s Thanda Ghosht, included some well known ‘heavy weights’ of Urdu literature like Hameed Nizami, Maualan Tajwar Najeebabadi, Maulana Akhtar Ali Khan, Abu Saeed Bazmi, and Dr. I. Latif, who was a defense witness but turned hostile. And those appearing for the defense included Abdur Rahman Chughtai, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, and Ghulam Mustafa Tabassum. Manto was finally acquitted and the bearded Judge who had tried Manto’s case, said to him later playfully, “Had I rejected your appeal, you’d have said that a bearded man did you in” (n.2).

Manto had a dry wit also. Khalid Hasan (n.3) has described an anecdote showing this side of Manto. According to him, “When under the Public Safety Act, the Punjab Government arrested Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi and Zaheer Kashmiri, Manto wrote, ‘Is the Government out of its mind? Both of them are extremely harmless people. One is fond of making sisters, and the other is fond of making brothers’”.

Writing in his essay “Ganjay Farishtay”, the last one in his book of the same title, Manto described how he tried to obtain allotment of an ice factory. Finding himself almost friendless in a hostile environment in Pakistan, he lost interest in creative writing. He did not know what else to do. He needed to make some money in order to survive and make both ends meet. In the end, he thought of applying for allotment of some evacuee property. Technically, he was qualified for such an action because he indeed was a refugee from Amritsar, India. But he also had a guilt complex about it because he knew that he did not own much of property in India. Finally he mustered enough courage and obtained the application form for allotment. He wrote in his sketch ‘Ganjay Farishtey’, “The application had to be filed on a printed form. The form was kind of a strange questionnaire in which each question prompted the applicant to tell bellyful of lies. My problem is that I am not adroit in spinning lies. I consulted some clever people who were knowledgeable about allotment affairs. They told me that I had no recourse but to tell lies. I reconciled myself with the situation but when I started filling the forms I could bring myself up to telling lies only two or three annas in a rupee (2-3 in 16). When I went for the interview, I told up- front that whatever is described in the application is false. Truth is that I did not leave any worthwhile property in India. I had only one house, and that’s it. I am not begging for anything in alms from you…. I only want that the Government should allot something to me for which I have to work and earn some five to six hundred rupees in return. It is surprising that my straightforward talk struck a responsive chord. I was about to be given an allotment of some ice factory when somebody interfered and said to the Board members, ‘What are you doing? This man whose name is Saadat Hasan Manto, is a progressive writer. On this, my application was turned down’”.

However, according to Qudrat-Ullah-Shahab, who was then the Director of Industries, the ice factory was indeed allotted but it was in the name of Mrs. Manto. Shahab stated in an interview (n.4), “I had made one wrong decision in those days which got publicized also. That decision was regarding the allotment of an ice factory to Manto. The allotment was indeed in the name of Manto’s wife". Khalid Hasan has obliquely mentioned the allotment of the ice factory without providing any corroboratory details. He stated, “I wonder how many remember the hilarious story of the allotment of a Lahore ice factory to Manto. After a few months, he went to the custodian of evacuee property and begged him to take it back”. Managing and running the business of an ice factory was not something that Manto could handle. The whole thing was an act of desperation and an effort to survive.

Be that as it may.

Another cause for Manto’s grievance in later life was his contempt of several progressive writers for their hypocrisy and duplicity of character. He believed that many of them were duplicitous; they indulged in double talk. They admired Manto and at the same time criticized him for some of his stories. An impression that emerges from Manto’s writings is that he was very sensitive about his work; he couldn’t take criticism and would invariably be offended and hurt by it. For instance, he states, “..when Babu Gopi Nath was published in Adab-e-Latif, I was still in Bombay. All the progressive writers admired it profoundly; they declared it to be the masterpiece of the year. Particularly, Ali Sardar Jafri, Ismat Chughtai, and Krishan Chandar appreciated it very much. But all of a sudden, God knows, what happened, that all of them failed to recognize the greatness of the story and they began criticizing it…now they are suggesting that the story is reactionary, immoral, ugly and provocative”.

He also grouched about Ali Sardar Jafri’s duplicitous behavior. Before Manto left Bombay, he had delivered the manuscript of his book “Chughd” to Kutb publishers. At that time, Jafri worked in Kutb. In order to expedite the publication of his book, Manto requested Jafri to write a preface to his book. Jafri wrote back, “I would gladly write the preface to your book although it doesn’t essentially need it, and certainly, not one from me. You know we have very different views from each other regarding some literary concepts, yet, in spite of this, I value you very much and have many expectations from you”. “After reading the letter, I told Jafri, let the book be published without a preface then. However, I learnt from his second letter that he had included a brief preface in the first edition of the book”, wrote Manto.

Manto was indeed very bitter about Jafri and the other progressive writers. He also complained about Nazir Ahmad Chaudhry who was the owner of “Naya Adarah” which used to publish ‘Savera’. Manto called Chaudhry sarcastically the ‘promoter of the progressive movement in literature’. According to Manto, “…he (Chaudhry) had blacklisted me and called me a reactionary, profiteer, individualistic, lustful, and escapist, yet at the same time, Naya Adarah suggested, while reviewing one of my writings, ‘Saadat Hasan Manto is the upholder of truth. He holds a double-edged sword in his hand, which he wields ruthlessly against government and the society. He shreds through the wraps of artificiality and hypocrisy. He is abused and he smiles in return. Without caring for reward or retribution, he is walking a path, which alone he can walk’”.

Manto felt grievously hurt and mortified by untoward criticism, due to his sensitive nature. It would have been a lot better for him, had he ignored such criticism and the superficial admiration altogether. He was very emotional.

Although Manto had written some exceptionally good stories like Mozail, Toba Tek Singh, Babu Gopi Nath, Mera Naam Radha Haiy, Khol Do, etc., he like many others indulged in prolificness also. Several of his stories and essays are ordinary, colorless, and insipid. For example, almost all the nineteen stories included in his book “Talkh, Tursh, Aur Shireen (Bitter, Sour, and Sweet)” suffer from these defects. One could quote several others of the same genre also from his other books.

A period of mental stagnation comes in the life of all the great writers and artists when nothing worthwhile seems to motivate. Manto had a similar phase in his life when he left Bombay and came to Pakistan. He had lost interest not only in creative writing but also almost in every thing else, and didn’t know how to engage himself. Then he thought of writing sketches of his friends and acquaintances for his redemption, and it led to the publication of Ganjay Farishtay, which indeed is a masterpiece. But in the meanwhile, he wrote some ordinary stuff also mainly to stay above water.

Ghalib comes to mind in this respect. He was so meticulous about the quality of his work that he tore up a considerable part of his original Urdu Diwan after a great deal of soul-searching. The remainder that we read with great love and passion, is indeed the gem of his poetry. But Manto was in a different bind. The motive for Manto to write did not solely emanate from his urge for creativity, particularly after he came to Pakistan, he wrote for money. Writing became a gainful profession for him. The more he wrote, the more he would be able to earn and afford his drink, which drove him wild. He paid a price for this in terms of the quality of his production, which went down.

Manto, undoubtedly one of the greatest Urdu short story writers, lived a miserable life and sadly came to a tragic end. He died when he was only 43 years of age. Heavy indeed is the burden of the cross which many of the creative people are destined to bear.

Notes

n.1. Khalid Hasan, “Saadat Hasan Manto: Not of Blessed Memory”, Annual of Urdu Studies, V.4, 1984, p.94.
n.2. Ibid. p.93.
n.3. Ibid. p.93.
n.4. “Interview of Qudrat-Ullah-Shahab, by Sajjad Baqar Rizvi, Kishwar Naheed, Jilani Kamran, Zulfiqar Ahmed Tabish”, in “Shahab Nagar”, compiled by Sheema Majid, Jung Publishers, 1991, p. 129.