Bald Angel

PunjabiZulu:

...will let you in on a secret;)...go through my i-log and search the older entries as well...i often provide links to what interests me...and that includes literature related links...recall posted one there about frances pritchett`s home page...what a wealth of links there...one of my favorite was an interactive link to her passion ..ghalib...

...i will find some useful links to the four musketeers and will post them later this week...thanks for your interest...

rgds,

t

ps: and you come across some interesting links pass them along and i will mention them there...

temporal

I look forward to reading whatever you write...File away in your long term memory for future project, at least?

:)

regards

PunjabiZulu:

sorry cannot...maybe someone else reading this can...

i have been sweet talked into transcribing and translating an `interview-chat` i had with ismat chughtai...i have transcribed it into urdu and am in the process of letting procrastination sweet talk me into delaying the translation process till the kashmir issue is settled;)

...t

temporal

~~urdu adub had its glorious period when the four musketeers (Krishn Chander, Ismat Chughtai, Rajinder Singh Bedi and Manto) were in full swing… ~~

Can I make a suggestion? Could you write an article about these four writers to educate Urdu-ignorant people like me? I would be interested in learning about them and their work and lives.

regards

Thanks for the informative sketch Gill Sahib.

Very interesting little piece Gill sahib. I enjoyed it immensely. I am not a big Manto fan but have read quite a few of his stories. Indeed, I began to translate Khol Do into English for Chowk but then stopped..may be I should complete it?

**

I think he is overrated as a writer of Urdu prose. Yes, his topics and themes are often hard hitting and daring but controversy alone doesn`t make one `great`. Still an enjoyable piece of work and much preferred to your sermons on science vs religion!! :-)

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


Mohammed:

..good write up…wish you had emphasized Khol dO…

re: the epitah, I have been told that it was never put on his tombstone…

urdu adub had its glorious period when the four musketeers (Krishn Chander, Ismat Chughtai, Rajinder Singh Bedi and Manto) were in full swing…

rgds,

t

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Gill Sahib, One thing you forgot to mention is the unique characterisation in Manto`s Short Stories, from the prostitutes to Gangsters, He gave each character something unique, something that isolates them from every other prostitute or gangster ever written about. I agree with your analysis of the sketch about Quaid-e-Azam, but the catch was that it was not a story about the Quaid as much as it was a story about a man who lived in the great man`s shadow. Meray Sahib is a unique tale of an old man`s respect for a one time employer. It is also a manifestation of the importance and strength of memories. I beleive aparts from Meray Sahib, there are hardly any stories about Quaid`s Personal Life. And so generations will know about Quaids personality through a few recollections of his driver. (I am not able to recollect the name of the American Author who wrote Jinnah of Pakistan)

One of my favourite Manto Short story is ``Kal jo saweray meri aankh khuli``, I may have taken the wrong title but it was about his first days in Independent Pakistan and his walk around in karachi. He wrote so vividly about the strangeness of this new found country and how identities were held together, and how patriotic fervour took hold of everyone. That story also described the innocence of the newly found nation and its people. An innocence and patriotism that would become blurred in the future with what the partition writers referred to as `` Har koi apni dahi gaz ki masjid bana raha hai``.

And offcourse no one can complete Manto`s sketch without mentioning his Letters to Uncle Sam in which one quote caught hold of my imagination. Manto Wrote `` Chacha it feels like this world and all its resources are made for you and your fellow americans..........we are just wasting our time here``.

Indeed a very nice sketch, portrayed after a comprehensive research. great work Gill sahib...