"Two Rupees" by Saadat Hassan Manto

"Two Rupees" by Saadat Hassan Manto (1951, 5 pages)

Short Stories of the Indian Subcontinent

A Reading Life Project

My Prior Posts on Saadat Hasan Manto

Saadat Hasan Manto was born 100 years ago in British India, in Punjab.   He was a very prolific writer publishing twenty six collections of short stories, worked as a Bollywood script writer in Bombay (a city he loved above all others).   He wrote in Urdu.   (There is more data on him in my prior posts.)

  

Lately I have read some interesting brand new novels that are about the "dark side" of Bombay or as it is now called, Mumbai.   I enjoyed reading these works but Manto was doing this a long time ago.  I have a special fondness for stories and novels about Mumbai/Bombay as it is the home town of more of my readers than any other city.  

  He was actually arrested and tried for obscenity six times, partially in retaliation for his devotion to the truth.

"Two Rupees" (I will provide a link where you can read this story) is about a prostitute and her young daughter who she is introducing into the business.   The story is set in the slums of  Bombay.   The people live almost right on top of each other so there is a lot of gossip.   Two women in the area love to talk trash about each other, suggesting the other is a prostitute.  One for sure is and the other, though she is married, does have some men visitors who look like they are not from that part of town.   The heart of this story is the developing career as a sex worker of the five-teen year old daughter of one of the women.   She loves it when men in fancy cars come to pick her up.   We know that she has sex with them and that her mother takes most of the money.   One days some men from Hyderabad come pick her up along with another girl even younger.    The men, who seem pretty young and I am not sure what politically is to be made of the fact that they are from Hyderabad, maybe just out of town boys doing in the slums of Bombay what they cannot do at home for fear of being observed, are thrilled to have the two girls in the car with them.  They start feeling their legs and such.   The girls are so happy to be in a car and they know what will bring in money so they do not object.   The price for the girls is two rupees.  I do not know what two rupees in 1951 means in modern rupees but one suspects it is not much.   There is an interesting twist at the end, a sad one as is often the case in the short stories of Manto.   

You can find the story online in English HERE

I will be posting on more stories by Manto.   

I offer my great thanks to Rohan of Rest is still unwritten for the link to this story and several other ones by Manto. He lives in Mumbai and his blog is very interesting source of insight into the culture of the country. I follow it and find it very insightful.

Mel u

"Kingdom's End" by Saadat Hasan Manto-

"Kingdom's End" by Saadat Hasan Manto  (1949, 5 pages)

The Short Story Initiative  

September

Hosted by A Simple Clockwork

Nancy C of A Simple Clockwork has converted her weekly event on short stories into a series of month long focuses on different aspects of the short story.   Every month there will be a theme.   I am very excited over this project.   Two and half years ago I had read in five decades of constant reading read maybe at most 20 short stories.   I always said., as most readers do, that I needed something "more substantial" to sink my teeth into.  Since March 2010 I think I must have read close to 2000 short stories.    I think the short story is the oldest literary form, tracing its roots back to at least 6000 years BC in ancient Indian texts.   Anyway the purpose of this post is to let people know about the event and to post briefly on a very great, dark story set in Bombay short story by a master of the art, Saadat Hasan Manto.

Here, take from Nancy's blog are the themes for the year.

September - Getting to know each other

October - Crime/suspense short stories

November - Indian short stories

December - Sci-fi short stories

January - Russian short stories

February - Classic short stories

March - Japanese short stories

April - Speculative fiction

May - Irish short stories

June - Short stories by feminist writers

July - African short stories

August - Award-winning short stories

September - Short stories adapted into movies

Nancy has proposed some question for September to help us get started.

1. Why do you want to join The Short Story Initiative?- To network with others who love short stories and to encourage others to try what is a genre many think they do not like.

2. What kind of short stories do you read? Is there a specific genre or culture or nationality you would like to explore through short stories?- I am seeking to read great short stories, to read the very best. Lately I have been reading a lot of Irish, Filipino, and Indian short stories but I am very open on the nationality of the stories I read.

3. Who is your favorite short story writer? Why?- Tough question, I will list five-Katherine Mansfield, Anton Chekhov, R. K. Narayan, Flannery O'Connor and among the living, Ethel Rohan. I have posted on each of these writers but I have no good answer to why. Maybe after I read another 2000 I will!

4. What is the most memorable short story you have read? Super tough question- "Solid Object" by Virginia Woolf.

5. What is your experience with short stories in the past? Is it a good or bad experience?- Answered this in my opening paragraph

6. Share one book confession when it comes to short stories? Sometimes I keep a great collection of books on my nightstand so I can see it when I get up so I know I have a reason to wake up!

7. Share something about yourself that has nothing to do with short stories. maybe another time.

For my first participation in The Short Story Initiative I will post on a very dark story by Saadat Hasan Manto (1912 to 1955, Pakistan-there is some background information in my prior posts on his work) set in Bombay. Bombay, now known officially as Mumbai, is city in the world from which my blog gets the most readers. I have also read several new novels recently that attempt to lay bare the dark side of the city. All I can say is that Manto already did this 60 years or so ago!

"Kingdom's End" by Saadat Hasan Manto is about an unemployed for years man living in Bombay. He normally sleeps on the pavement but he has gotten some luck lately. A friend is going to be out of town for a few weeks and he invited the man to stay in his office to keep away robbers. The man is perfectly capable of working, he used to be a film director and script writer (Manto was also) but he does not care to be tied down. He lives from charity of people he knows and has taught himself to live on next to nothing and eat what ever he can find. One day the phone rings. It is a woman with a wrong number but he strikes up a conversation with her and she starts calling regularly and they have more and more intimate conversations. He never asks her name, never what she looks like or seeks a meeting. The woman asks him why and he says basically he does not feel like the assertion. The story is short, the ending is terribly sad and grim. It is a small masterwork of the art of the short story.

You can read it here.

I offer my great thanks to Rohan of Rest is still unwritten for the link to this story and several other ones by Manto. He lives in Mumbai and his blog is very interesting source of insight into the culture of the country. I follow it and find it very insightful.

Mel u

"The Assignment" by Saadat Hasan Manto

"The Assignment" by Sadat Hasan Manto (1953, 20 pages)

Short Stories of the Indian Sub-Continent

Pakistan

A Reading Life Project

The Reading Life Guide to The Indian Short Story


My post on Manto's most famous short story, "Toba Tek Singh"

"The Assignment" can be read here.


My great thanks to Rohan for this link whose  great blog "The Rest is Still Unwritten"  I follow. Rohan's blog is  consistently a first rate very well informed and balanced  source of information on the culture and politics of the Indian Subcontinent.  


This is my fifth post for a  new permanent event on The Reading Life, short stories of the Indian subcontinent.   There is no literary culture with roots older than that of India.   I will always admire Edmund Burke for telling the English that they had no right to govern a region whose culture is much older than theirs.  Many of the geographic boundaries that created these countries were created by the British or are consequences of their misrule.       Some of the writers featured will be internationally famous, such as Salmon Rushdie, Saadat Manto,  and R. K. Narayan but most of the writers I post on will be authors on whom there are no prior book blog posts.    There are numerous books and academic conferences devoted to exploring the colonial experiences of India and Ireland and I will look these stories partially as post colonial literature.   My main purpose here is just to open myself up to a lot more new to me writers and in this case most will be new to anyone outside of serious literary circles in the region.  Where I can I will provide links to the stories I post on but this will not always be possible.




Saadat Hasan Manto (1912 to 1955, born in Lahore, Pakistan and with long term ties to Bombay) is considered the greatest of Urdu language short story writers.   Most of his best known works centered on the horrible human costs of the partition of India).  He began his literary career as a translator of the works of writers like Victor Hugo, Oscar Wilde,  Nikolai Gogol, and Anton Chekhov into Urdu.  (I think he translated the English versions of the Russian writers but I would like to be corrected if I am wrong in this.)   His stories are dark stories about a very dark period of history.   Much of the blame for what happened belongs on the shoulders of the British.  

"The Assignment" is a heartbreaking story of betrayal, of evil returned for generations of good, of senseless violence and meaningless cruelty and deaths of the innocent, deaths with no reward but the temporary satiation of blood lust and religious hatred.   

There is a sad paradox about religious hatred.  All major religions advocate kindness toward fellow humans, none advocate the killing of children of religions other than your own but this is what religious based political views lead to in India after Independence (and of course in countless other places and times in history).     


The story is a very simple one.  (I feel bad as I wish everyone could read this story but it is not, as far as I know, available online.)   A man once helped in a very important way a another man who was a member of another religious group and for many years afterwards the helped man made a gesture every year toward the family of the other man to show his gratitude.   It was a cross religious bond that meant a great deal to both families and both used it to teach their children to avoid the hate that consumes so many.   I will tell the ending here as few will be able to read it and the story is so beautifully crafted that this will not spoil it.   One day the grandson of the helped man comes in his place to the other family and tells them his grandfather is no longer able to come.   They talk of the great family bonds.  As the man leaves in a scene stark with terror, the grandson tells a group of men outside the house, carrying torches, that he has done his duty and points out the house of their religious enemies.  The men say they will now do their duty and we know the family will all, including young children with so much respect for the grandfather, probably die in the fire when their house is set ablaze.   


This is a story of horrible betrayal and pointless cruelty  told in a beautiful  way.   If you can read this story, I wish you would.


I read this story in Passages:  24 Modern Indian Short Stories edited and introduced by Barbara Solomon and Eileen Panetta.   This is a very good reasonably priced book with one serious flaw.   The table of contents lists only the story name, not the names of the authors.


Please share your experience with the work of Manto with us.


You can find more about his life here.

This is my participation for this week for Short Stories on Wednesday, a great event run by Nancy C. of Simple Clockwork.


Mel u

Two Stories On The Partition of India by Two Very Different Writers Who Are Closer than we might Think

"Dog of Tithwal" by Saadaat Hasan Monto (5 pages, 1955)
"The Comments of Moung" by Saki  (1906, 4 pages)

BBAW Day Two
Reader's Suggestion Day

Two Stories Set in India 

both suggested by Book Bloggers  from India

Today is day two of BBAW.   Today has been set aside for posting of interviews with other bloggers.   In 2009 I participated in this event but this year I decided not to be interviewed or interview anyone else.    But I am not at all ignoring BBAW.   In fact I think my plans for today might be a good idea for next year!   Today I am going to post on three short works of fiction that I learned about through either readers of my blog or blogs I follow.   If it were not for these fellow bloggers I would have missed out on these three  works.   (I will do a separate post on Anton Chekhov's powerful and very dark work set in a mental hospital, "Ward 6".)

"Dog of Tithwal" by Saadaat Hasan Monto was suggested to me by Wordsbeyondorders who is from Tamil in southern India.   It is a very keenly observed story that finds a dark humor in the shooting of a dog during the war that resulted from the 1947 partition of India.

Saadat Hasan Monto (1912-1955-Samrala, Punjab, India) was a very prolific writer but it  is for his work as the literary chronicler of the terrible human consequences of the 1947 Partition of India into the two countries of Pakistan and India that he is best known.  (There is some additional background on him here)


"Dog of Tithwal" opens in a military camp on the Indian side of the Pakistan-India border in 1947 right after the Partition of India.    Both sides have military camps facing each other and every morning they go through the show of shooting some shots at each other.    One day a friendly stray dog wanders in the camp and the soldiers give him some food.   He then leaves and comes back the next day (compressing a bit here-I will have a link at the close of the post to read this work) with a note on his collar.   The  note makes no sense but the men assume he has been in the enemy camp.   They take the note and give it to  their captain.   The next day the dog comes back wagging his tail as he approaches the camp.   The Indians begin to yell at him that they will shoot any Pakistani, even a dog, who approaches their camp.   In sport first they shoot near him, then they shoot him in the leg but he comes forward still and still wags his tail in friendship.   He is then shot dead.   This story is a wonderful account of the absurdity of war.

"The Comments of Moung" by Saki was suggested to me by Rohan of Rest is Still Unwritten from Mumbai, India.  Here is the comment that lead me to this story

"Saki is master at twisted endings,it is trait of his writing. Irony is despite knowing this; in the end we are left nothing but to admire them.
Shredni Vestar is good,but being learner of a confused democracy,as India,I admire his "The Comments of Moung Ka" most of all. It is surprising to know that even after 100 years,his politically incorrect observations about democracy still stand time-test with no difficulty".

Before India was partitioned in 1947,  the large province of Bengal was partitioned along religious lines from 1905 to 1912 when the partition was abolished.   "The Comments of Moung" is not set in India, but in Burma (I prefer to use the old name) in a village on the shores of the Irrawaddy River.  (Saki was a military policemen in Burma from 1893 to 1895, just like his father was.)    Moung is a prosperous rice merchant who travels quite a bit in his business so when he comes home people ask him what is going on in Indian and England.   He tells everyone how the province of Bengal is going to be partitioned.   He says even though the people do not want it the English do and they must know best.     Now he explains that he heard that England is also to be partitioned into two countries.   I will quote a bit as Saki really does a great job with this:

‘The other matter,’ said Moung Ka, ‘is that the British Government has decided on the partition of Britain. Where there has been one Parliament and one Government there are to be two Parliaments and two Governments, and there will be two treasuries and two sets of taxes.’
Moung Thwa was greatly interested at this news.
‘And is the feeling of the people of Britain in favour of this partition?’ he asked. ‘Will they not dislike it, as the people of Bengal disliked the partition of their Province?’
‘The feeling of the people of Britain has not been consulted, and will not be consulted,’ said Moung Ka; ‘the Act of Partition will pass through one Chamber where the Government rules supreme, and the other Chamber can only delay it a little while, and then it will be made into the Law of the Land.’
‘But is it wise not to consult the feeling of the people?’ asked Moung Thwa.
‘Very wise,’ answered Moung Ka, ‘for if the people were consulted they would say “No,” as they have always said when such a decree was submitted to their opinion, and if the people said “No” there would be an end of the matter, but also an end of the Government. Therefore, it is wise for the Government to shut its ears to what the people may wish.’
‘But why must the people of Bengal be listened to and the people of Britain not listened to?’ asked Moung Thwa; ‘surely the partition of their country affects them just as closely. Are their opinions too silly to be of any weight?’

Both of these stories are very much worth reading.

"The Comments of Moung" by Saki  can be read HERE

"Dog of Tithwal" by Saadaat Hasan Monto can be read HERE

In the last few days my regard for Saki has gone up quite a bit and I wish there was more Monto online I could read.

Mel u

Saadat Hasan Manto-سعادت حسن منٹو-Two Short Stories by the Greatest Urdu Short Story Writer

"Noor Jehan"  (1950, 3 pages, translated by Richard Mcgill-read HERE)
"The Return" (1949, 4 pages, translated by Khalid Hasan-read HERE)

Two Short Stories By The Most Famous Urdu

Short Story Writer of all Time

Saadat Manto (1912 to 1955-Punjab, India) had many accomplishments in his far too short life.   He his lasting legacy will be in his short stories about the human cost of the 1947 partition of India.    (I have previously posted on his by far best known short story, "Toba Tek Singh" and you can, if you wish, read more about his importance and background in my post on that story HERE)

"The Return" deals directly with one of the most terrible consequences of the partition of Indian in 1947 into Pakistan and India.    Women from bordering areas were (by people from each side-there is no good or bad  group here) kidnapped and taken across the border.   Some were forced married and converted in  their faith.   Others were forced into prostitution or sold as slaves.    1000s and 1000s died from the consequences of repeated rapes.   In the culture of the time and area, a raped woman was often regarded as a shameful person whom no respectable man would ever deal with again.   Many returning wives and daughters found themselves treated very badly when they did return home.   Husbands rejected returned wives and fathers and mothers often beat their daughters for bring disgrace on the family.

As "The Return"  opens we are in a train wreck.   Maybe it is an explosion or an attack we never really learn.   A married couple and their early teenage daughter were traveling on the train.   When the man awakes his wife is next to him but she knows she will soon die.   Their daughter is missing.   The wife tells him to leave her and go find their daughter.   He looks and looks but he never finds her.   He fears she has been kidnapped,  maybe by the people that caused the train wreck.    He has in time to give up and he returns home alone.   In time men from his area begin making cross border raids to recover women and they promise to bring his young beautiful daughter home if she can be found.     One day the man hears a truck has come back with a number of recaptured women on it.   The man cannot let himself believe his daughter is among them.  (spoiler alert)   She is on the truck but in perhaps the greatest tragedy of it all in this, she has been raped by all of the men that rescued her.    The story ends when the father finds her in a make shift hospital and slowly realizes what his daughters "saviors", his own neighbors and coreligionist have done.   Manto is his great wisdom, never tells us what country this story takes place in.

"Noor Jehan" is a much "lighter" story than "The Return".   It is pretty much a comic story about adulation heaped on an aging once glamorous female movie star by a four year old boy and other males.    It is mostly an entertainment read (there is nothing wrong with that!).

On Manto I would say for sure his most famous short story "Toba Tek Singh" belongs in  the world canon of short stories.  "The Return" is very much worth reading.

mel u

Saadat Hasan Manto-Great Urdu Writer-"Toba Tek Singh"- ٹوبہ ٹیک سنگھ)

"Toba Tek Singh"  by Saadat Hasan Manto (1955, 7 pages-translated by Sundeep Dougal )  ٹوبہ ٹیک سنگھ) 


A Short Story by the Great Urdu Chronicler of the Partition of India


Saadat Hasan Manto (1912-1955-Samrala, Punjab, India) was a very prolific writer but it his work  the literary chronicler of the terrible human consequences of the 1947 Partition of India into the two countries of Pakistan and India that will bring him to the status of an immortal.   (There is a very good article on Manto in Wikipedia).    The country of Bangladesh  also arose from this partition.  At least 500,000 people died as a result of the mass migrations that the partition caused.   


Manto began his literary career translating the works of Victor Hugo and Oscar Wilde into Urdu.    Urdu is one of the two official languages of Pakistan (the second is English).   It is a subdivision of Hindustani and is intelligible to speakers of contemporary Hindi.   Linguistics do not see Urdu as a fully independent language but, I believe, for political reasons many insist that it is.   Readers of Hindi can read Urdu and vice versa.   He was born into a Kashmiri Muslim family of barristers.   He is best known for his short stories and "Toba Tek Singh" is considered by all his greatest work.   His stories are about the real life of the ordinary person.   In the course of his career he was tried six times for obscenity but never convicted.   I really urge you to read the Wikipedia article on him (the author of the article is very much an admirer of Manto and has written one of the best of the of the many author articles I have read there).  


"Toba Tek Singh"  (the title refers, I think, to a city in India) deals with what happens in a mental hospital when the governments of Pakistan and India decide a few years after the partition that all those living in mental hospitals should be sent to their proper country (Muslims to Pakistan, Hindus and Sikhs to India).   The result creates absolute chaos in the hospital in the story.   This is just a hilarious story.   I am actually surprised that the story did not get Manto in serious trouble with the government as some of the conversations of people in the mental hospital seem to mirror the views of leading politicians of the time.  


I have to quote a bit from the story as it is just so funny and so well done.

Two or three years after Partition, it occurred to the governments of India and Pakistan that lunatics, like prisoners, should also be exchanged -- that is, Muslim lunatics in asylums in India should be sent to Pakistan, and Hindus-Sikhs in asylums in Pakistan transferred to India.Whether or not this was a reasonable idea, high-level conferences were held here and there, as decided by the learned, and finally one day a bill was passed for the exchange of lunatics.

"Some inmates were not really insane. A majority of them were murderers whose relatives had bribed the officials to admit them into the asylum so that they could escape the noose.
They had a bit of an idea as to why India had been divided and what this Pakistan was, but as for the actual events, they too were clueless. They could not glean much from the newspapers. The guards were illiterate and ignorant and their conversations weren't very illuminating and edifying either.
They only knew that there's a man named Mohammed Ali Jinnah, called the Quaid-e-Azam; who'd created a separate country for Muslims, called Pakistan.
Where this Pakistan was, what its geographical location was, about this they did not know anything. Which is why all those lunatics, who were not completely mentally-imbalanced, were confused whether they were in Pakistan or in India. If they were in India, then where was this Pakistan? And if in Pakistan, then how could it be that they, sometime back, living in the same place, were in India?
One lunatic got so caught up in this whirl of India-Pakistan, Pakistan-India, that his condition worsened. One day, while sweeping, he suddenly climbed on to a tree and sitting on a branch, declaimed non-stop for two hours on this delicate matter of India and Pakistan.
When the guards asked him to climb down, he went up even more. When threatened, he said, "I don't want to live in India, nor in Pakistan ... I'll remain on this tree."
After quite some time, when his fit of madness subsided, he climbed down, and started crying, hugging his Hindu-Sikh friends. He was overwhelmed with the thought that they would leave him and go away to India.
In an M.Sc-pass Radio Engineer, who was a Muslim and a bit of a stay-away, given to taking long walks in the garden by himself all day, such a change manifested itself that he took off all his clothes, handed them over to an attendant, and took to parading around stark naked.
A fat Muslim from Chaniot, who had been an active worker of the Muslim League, suddenly stopped bathing fifteen to sixteen times a day as he used to. His name was Mohammed Ali; but now he proclaimed from his cell that he was Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Inspired by this, a Sikh lunatic became Master Tara Singh. Apprehending blood-shed, both were declared dangerous and locked up separately."


Normally I do not quote a lot from the works I read, but this, to me, is a brilliant incredibly funny and for the times very bold story.   I am sure it managed to offend people all over India and Pakistan.  




I am glad I ventured outside of my comfort zone into the realm of Urdu literature.    In any language "Toba Tek Singh" is a wonderful story that way transcends its setting.   If you can read this without laughing out loud you must be in a very bad mood!    If Jonathan Swift lived in India in the mid-20th century he might have written a story like this.   


I think this story belongs in the canon and I urge all to take the time to read it.


You can read it online HERE in just a few minutes.   


If anyone has any suggestions for short stories written by authors from Pakistan or Bangladesh please leave a comment.   I am venturing into new to me reading areas and I would welcome guidance from the many readers of my blog with more experience in this area.    I am open to a joint venture on an event on short stories from the Indian subcontinent.  


Mel u