Second Letter to Uncle Sam

Re: # 84

hi so sorry to post a random reply like this..but it seems that people here might help me...has anyone here heard of a novel called KAGAZ KI NAO by krishen chandar?
can anyone help me with what the book is about etc...i need the info desperately and the book is out of print...and in mumbai it seems there are no libraries that keep hindi books....:(

Khamkhwa:94
we would still love you for what you are...;))

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``t00 pyaar kaa saagar hai, tiri ikk boond kay pyaasay hUm
Lautaa jo diyaa t00 ney, chalay jaaeN gey jahaaN sey hUM``

Yeh loa, bhateejay kyaa yaad kroagey.

hUm haiN,
tumhaaray chachay,
chusni/echo boom/farangi-kush/hamzaad afaqui

#89 on #85...

chacha...
koi mishtake nahin hua...entire chowk knows chusni/echo boom/farangi-kush/hamzaad afaqui...even chacha meer taqi meer knows about it and says...

patta patta boota boota haal hamara jaanay hai
janay na janay gul hi na janay bagh tou sara janay hai

come clean... we would still love you for what you are...;))

Echoboom #89:

Talking of Maulana Kausar Niazi some books of him I read before my Matriculation and I didn`t find them interesting even the travellogues...one of which was I think...``Koh Qauf Kay Dais mai.n``... anyways his son rizwan niazi ` appeared a cool actor in some dramas i saw in my teens.

A comparitive study analysis of socialist and moderated writers after a consumed time came up with a very less known writer, worker, socialist ``Ahmed Daud``. Not I recommend him as more matured than Manto`s Level because I knew him . But I read his sensitive social writing depicting urban culture, the corruption, spoiled law and justice is factual and very much inspiring in his short stories. His some work got published after his much early death in mid 40`s. Coming from Mansehra a remote background status Ahmed Daud wrote which even shocked his close companions.

Re: # 84

manto was independent, irreverent and his own man ... and not one easy to pigeon hole



`Cause he`s indian.He should never have left his motherland.He would have been celebrated here just like all our other curmedgeons.

Re: kurasach# 80

Very true! I agree with you! I cannot speak of the same in India, but in Pakistan this is a reality as we seem to crave new and shiny things. It seems that we actually think that all that glitters is gold.

Ciao

Nadia:

tegh ilahbadi later mustafa zaidi was a good poet...amist a lot of good poets of his time...not an outstanding urdu poet by any means...in fact in any history of urdu poetry of 1940-1970 he would be termed at best as a footnote...more for the way he died than for what he wrote...(when police burst open into his KDA flat they found two naked bodies, suicide notes and drugs...the other person was shenaz gul who was the wife of a pathan contractor... he succumbed to the drug overdose..she survived)

t

#85: chusni
:)
As Manto wrote ``Mishtake ho gaya`` :)

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Nadia_Zehra:88

Manto ``killed`` Taigh-Allahbadi long before he migrated to Pakistan. Those were his ``atheist`` years and he, as he admitted later, was quite embarrassed about that `jahilya` phase in his life.
The parallel I drew was simply in the personality of both to be fearlessly, in fact dangerously, frank & forthright and, in the process, a unique ability to cultivate enemies.

The two ``friendly-adversary`` organisations those days were the Haqua-i-Arbaab-e-Zauque ( the `conservatives`) and The `Anjumna-Tarraqui-Pasand``. The former had a monthly meeting at Paki Tea House and the latter at YMCA building --just a few steps away. Writers frequented both places but Manto & Quasmi were identified with the Halqua.( In fact the brother owners of
Pak Tea House made ``full arrangements`` for Quasmi`s wedding).

Manto`s address to the students ( post #73) is perhaps one of the best insight into his mind.
Nothing that I say would add or takeaway anything. I urge evryone to read that `written` speech again & again. Few short sentences contain a world of information & emotions in them.

Breaking Islamic tenets does not necessarily make one a ``progressive`` or communist and performing all the rituals does not make one necessarily a ``mullah`` or a Jamaat-i-Islami .

Maulana ``Whisky`` Kausar Niazi , the second highest office-holder of Jammat-Islami, when became a member of the `socialist` Peoples Party (in fact Information Minister--and Bhutto`s closest confidante) was quite at home with his Whiskey & his Wazoo.

`` Rind kay Rind rahay, haath sey jannat naa gaee``

He was a great writer of prose & poetry as well. A few ``greats`` in Urdu iterature could learn a thing or two from him.

Maulana Abul Kalaam Azaad is another one. How about Maulana Chiraagh Hasan Hasrat?
..Manto`s sketch about the fun they had when they pushed the Maulana to have a few with the gang. Incidentally, Maulana Chiraagh Hasan hasrat was also the editor as was Quasmi of Mian Iftekhar`s paper--Imroze.

Echoboom’s Sahib strikes a chord by naming Mustafa Zaidi who didn’t get required recognition of chunks of his poetry neither at governmental level nor much in literary circles. Being a professional careered civil servant Mustafa Zaidi didn’t become a part of the prevailing grossing corrupt culture. His extremely emotional poetry is an artifact of his commotions of acute love affairs one after another. The one which got lot exposure was with a woman named Shehnaz who was accused for his murder which was later revealed to be suicide. He was an ahl-e-zaban and used the name “Taigh-Alahabadi” in his poetry. His poetry is pure portrayal of his percepts of love, life and his state in the country of endurance. And definitely Manto cant be termed in the lines of Mustafa Zaidi.

Re: # 84
Yes Temporal,they were the four ``pillars`` of urdu afsana-nighari.
While other three were part of the ``taraqqi pasand tehreeq``, Manto was more of a ``freelancer``,which suited most to his mast-malang nature and style of writing.

The so called cultured intellectuals tried their best to prove Manto to be a crude,jaahil type of man with no real artistic touch,but always failed because common reader always found Manto to be closer to them.Even today people respect Krishan Chander, Bedi and Chugtai,but they LOVE Manto.

He alone was (and is) larger than any literary movement.
Manto did not spare anybody.He wrote whatever he felt.He was basically a writer of emotions and he never let any``ism``come between his emotoions and his writing or the expression of emotions.He was the Baadshah of urdu story writing.

His story ``Chughd`` was his befitting reply to the so called cultured intellectuals.

#81 by Raw_Dust

Echoboom posts lots of inane stuff here and I skip over them. His knowledge of Urdu literature is rudimentary. (Only a total jahil and a person with no knowledge of Urdu literature would call Mustafa Zaidi another Manto!) The attempt by the Jamaat Islami Gadhaa brigade to promote Manto as the top Urdu writer which he clearly was not irks me. He was good and genius at times but he was not what they are trying to promote. Manto was resurrected in the last 5/6 years because he was a Muslim, spent his last days in Lahore, and supposedly was against the progressive and the supporters of Secularism. Manto was pretty much non political and never had any affiliation with any particular school of thought. They find it easy to use his dead body for their political purposes. In fact what they are doing to Manto is the same stuff they did to Jinnah when they decided to turn Jinnah into Hazrat Jinnah aliahussalm Rehamtulllah wah barkathoo and a champion of Islam which Jinnah was not!

Manto’s worst years were in Pakistan from 1948 to 1955. Before that he was in okay financial shape. He worked for All India radio and then he moved to Bombay and those were probably his best years financially. Once he moved to Pakistan the whole Mullah brigade was after him. He was not given any job and made to beg for pennies and had to deal with court cases on top of that.

#85 by chusni Aka Echoboom

Qasmi was of a conservative family but he was a part of the progressive movement and worked for Main Iftikahr’s papers. He is still alive so your lies are not going to fly very far. Akhtar Shirani was not exactly your model Muslim. Shirani and Manto both were in Halqa arbab e zooq and often had drinks together. Patras Bukhari was a big name but he was a government servant and never was close to Manto. He might actually have given Manto a job in All India radio before partition but after partition, Patras moved on to different areas.
Patras was never in any kind of ideological grouping.

Quit lying!

Urstruly:83
Do you remember reading Quasmi`s account about how Manto tried to get hiim employment in the studios.

Keeping that in mind we should know something about Manto. Ahmad Nadeem belongs to an ultra-conservative Peer Khanvaada. and yet Manto was real friends with him. His mentor, Malana Bari, who taught Manto how to write and took him under his wings after Manto failed twice in Urdu and I`m not sure if he completed his Intermediate or not.

Manto was more on friendly terms with Aktar Shirani etc, the Arab restaurant Islamia college crowd rather than the Pitras gang of the Government college.

The socialist cabal in India and Pakistan co-opted him because they would have looked stupid if they did not praise someone who wrote on ``their`` subjects. The fact is that it was the westernised ``freedom-fighters`` [ London chhaap--progressives of Sajjad Zaheer and Mulk Raaj Annand] who had no use of self-employeds like Manto and Hafeez Julludri.

I know you must have but please read again the last paragraph in that speech at #73. See how cleverly he delivers the message during war emergecy & British tryrrany.

It is stuff like this where he excelled.
.

R-D:

in their bombay days the four of them were known as the four musketeers:

krishn chandar, ismat chugtai, rajinder singh bedi and saadat hasan manto

urstruly:

manto was independent, irreverent and his own man ... and not one easy to pigeon hole...only one other contemporary urdu writer comes close...intezar hussain... though he is not irreverent!

Re: # 73 echo

From all the works that I have read of Manto, I gather that he did not have any ideological bend on any side. As it is evdent from the letter in this article he was approached for recruitment from the Imperialists as well. But in fact the kind of subject matter he wrote could only be published in so called ``progressive`` press only. No God fearing conservative magazine would dare publish him. For that he had to keep contacts with so called progressives just to get published; but progressives used his weakness to claim an ownership over him. I think that these to letters (one in the aricle) and one in your post make it very clear that he was a man of his own and accepted no ones ownership over him.

Saadat Hasan wrote the script for the first movie made about Mirza Ghalib. Some `fiction` was added for commercial reasons but the movie & the music is far superior to the one made decades later with Naseeuddeen Shah.

Those who did not see this one would really enjoy these eight videosongs.

Best viewed at 2x framw. Please move cursor to top left of screen. when the icon appears click 2x and you`ll get it.

Hope you`ll find it rewarding.

Mirza ghalib: Videosongs. Script by Manto

HP: i think from what i have read of Manto`s writings - the guy had this irreverent air.. his life was probably in a constant state of flux: court battles/kasmapursi/poverty - until these things claimed him prematurely... i suspect he would have cared for any sort of approval by the Urdu establishment or Pak. establishment or indian est. etc. His act IMO was strictly of a trouble-maker and along the way he had some interesting bits to say.

Krishan Chandar and Bedi were probably more devoted writers. Manto could have cared less.