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review What
Manto actually wrote
review This is the book I
have waited for quite some time. Having read this collection of 12 very
well-written short stories under the title “Killing the Water” by the
Bangladeshi American writer Mahmud Rahman, I can safely say the wait has been
worthwhile. There is not a single story
in this collection that fails to leave a mark, some a bitter taste, a few a
lingering sadness. Rahman has deployed a variety of strategies to flesh out
his themes which deal with oppression, deterioration of environment, revenge,
desire, attraction, racism, anger, maternal love, anger towards parents,
jealousy, push and pull of history, you name it. Rahman’s canvas is broad
and the choice of characters is rich. He uses first person narrative as
effectively as he handles stories told from the third person’s point of
view, and never stretches the plot beyond plausibility even when he makes the
reader witness his character’s most callous acts amicably demonstrated like
in the story Kerosene. In the midst of 1971 war of liberation, the
protagonist is caught up in a situation where a group of women and children
are to be locked up, for being on the side of the rulers, and burnt alive. It
is not an easy story to write, to show that inhuman situations which
sustained oppression and wars can turn decent human beings into brutes in the
name of revenge or personal safety. The twelve stories are
roughly divided into those that take place in colonial India, East Pakistan,
and Bangladesh, and the rest in the US. Most stories, regardless of where
they take place, are shadowed by the experience of war of liberation, the
colossal loss of life of Bengali people at the hands of the Pakistani Army. In the hands of a lesser
author, the consistent reminder of human tragedy would have bogged down the
reader. Rahman’s restraint with words saves the day. This restraint with
words whether coming from the author’s pen or the narrator’s mouth allows
Rahman to experiment with another aspect of story-telling. His narrators
often allow minor characters to hijack the narrative, which some refer to a
story within a story device. This allows Rahman to create a layered text
accommodating several points of view. Although it is hard to pick
out a favourite in the collection, the story Interrogation impressed me for
several reasons. Told in the first person, not only does he allow the reader
to enter the protagonist’s mind but also to witness the interrogator’s
ambivalence towards work ethics and torture, and heightened consciousness
about class issues. Rahman bestows upon him a tone that is precise yet
lyrical at times, hinting at a clash of duty and desire. While his duty is
dictated by the force of economic survival, his desire (to be a writer)
obliges him to prod the young Reza — the interrogated — to tell his side
of the story, placing his narrative at the heart of the story and in conflict
with the one that a state promulgates. The author, too, acts as a
stand-in for an interrogator, who wishes to understand, in this case, why the
newly liberated state in turn has turned into an oppressor, hunting down her
own citizens since the story takes place after liberation. In an interesting twist of
plot, a series of incidents from his younger life tug at Reza’s conscience,
who belongs to the ruling class, leaving him to believe that the only way to
change the system is through armed resistance. Rahman is at the peak of
his art when he takes a serious risk by not letting the Interrogated speak in
first person. A lesser choice would have been to allow Reza direct audience
with the reader for maximum effect. Instead, Rahman shifts from the
Interrogator’s first person narrative to the third person account by the
author. Then, again, he switches back to the first person: I felt for this
boy sitting in front of me. I could see he was a sensitive soul. I suspect
that both of us at young ages were gifted with keenness of observation, me
about the good and evil inherent in the human personality and him about the
inequities embedded in our society. I could turn my knowledge into stories,
but this poor boy…? The dissonance created by
this continues to hover in the reader’s mind. This story brought to mind a
wonderful Iranian film The Hidden Half by Tehmina Milani. On the
president’s order, a judicial officer is sent to hear a condemned woman, a
political prisoner’s final appeal before she is sent to the gallows. His
wife, whose leftist past from her student days is hidden from him, hides her
diary in his suitcase. As he opens his suitcase in the hotel, he begins to
read her diary. This changes his attitude toward the prisoner, and as the
woman is finally brought into the room to be interrogated, he asks her to
narrate her story in the last shot of the film. Rahman’s Interrogator
instead wants to strike a deal with the boy’s family, return the boy in
exchange for a small but comfy job where he can write his stories, even when
the boy insists that he’d run away again. This is not to suggest that
Rahman’s stories get stuck on the issues of “evil inherent” in humans
and “inequities imbedded” in capitalist and feudal societies. He is also
interested in exploring cultural forces that shape human beings as he tries
to explore those issues in one of my other favourite stories Blue Mondays at
the Gearshift Lounge. Can a person of Bengali origin truly dig Jazz and
Blues? Can Carlotta, the singer of the band at the bar where Ali visits to
drown himself in liquor and befriends her, ever understand his pain? Can Ali
feel the pain of slavery and racism in these lyrics: I am passing through, new
to your city Sing me a tune or two, even
if it’s out of pity The book is highly
recommended for Pakistani readers as we need to read fictional
interpretations of the conflict as experienced in the imagination of those
whom we betrayed. Moazzam Sheikh’s
collection of stories Cafe Le Whore and Other Stories is due this year. Killing the water Author: Mahmud Rahman Publisher: Penguin India Pages: 200 Price: INR 250
16
isn’t just a number “…I walk
straight into the tunnel looking for the exit; but as I move, the tunnel gets
longer and darker. I start running. I’ve got a class in ten minutes…have
to reach my school. Suddenly I see light and…finally I exit the tunnel but
enter into an entirely different world. Is this This is the young
protagonist of the novel: half awake, half asleep, now sitting as a tangible
entity in the real world of her class room, home, friends, pizza, cell phone,
sms, …and now sunk into the world of fantasy like an ethereal being. Javariya will soon turn
sixteen and the whole novel is in fact a run-up to her all-important
sixteenth birthday: “ I felt unfortunate. The
most important time of my life was approaching and there was no one whom I
could go to and express how happy I felt. They would laugh and joke about it.
According to them, a sixteenth birthday is as normal as other birthdays…I
didn’t have a sister, and my best friends hated me. How perfect! “ Despite these handicaps,
Javariya has set her heart on celebrating the upcoming event with full pomp
and show, because 16 isn’t just a number for her, it’s a gateway to
adulthood, a passport to freedom, a symbol of maturity and independence and
as she explains it to one of her teachers, “…This is my life’s most
important moment. When the clock strikes 12 and I’m not in the perfect
situation at that time, I’ll be upset for my whole life. it’s like an
omen.” To see how Javariya had
been preparing herself for the occasion, you just have to look at a page in
her journal: “I turned to a fresh page and wrote down the heading: The
Perfect Sixteen, under which I began listing the things I had to do before my
sweet sixteen: Lose weight Grow my hair till it
reaches my waist Get a personality makeover Become politer Start cooking Help around the house Help Dad solve his problems It’s a common practice in
fiction to take help from personal letters or diaries, to give a direct
account of a character’s viewpoint, feelings or inner thoughts, and though
Tanzila Khan’s narrative is already in first-person, yet she seeks help
from these devices, and consequently, Javariya’s journal gets a pivotal
place in the story. A better arrangement could have been to keep the general
narrative in third-person, and use the first person devices only where
essential. But the author seems more interested in “I, me and mine”: “…It had to be around
midnight now. I got myself ready for Mission T.S.O.F (My own invention—-it
stood for “Teens Sneaking Out for the sake of Freedom) I stuffed a five
hundred rupee note into my purse, along with a flashlight. and put on my
jacket…A quick shimmy down the drainpipe and my feet hit the ground” The story is full of such
juvenile adventures and the fact that it’s written by a young person whose
school experience is still fresh, gives us a unique opportunity to watch the
teen-age world from a close distance…A carefree world of youthful energy,
vigour and dynamism, a world of parties, shopping trips and joyrides. Raw passion itself however
is not literature. It requires a lot of taming and discipline, and
unfortunately that is what this teenage venture could make use of. A tighter
editing of the text could also have helped the narrative. The Perfect Situation:
Sweet Sixteen Author: Tanzila Khan Publisher: ILQA Publications, Lahore, 2013 Pages: 286 Price: PKR 395
What
Manto actually wrote The hundred years of Saadat
Hasan Manto has seen an appreciable rise in the interest taken by both
scholars and readers in one of the already popular fiction writers of Urdu.
Due to his popularity he has also been translated into English and is also
known to the English reading public. But naturally, with more
publications and a desire to know what exactly did Manto write, the next
logical step was to certify the authenticity of the text. In the past Manto
has been published many times, his complete works compiled repeatedly but is
found that there are discrepancies in those texts. And some of them so
varied, that it changed the entire meaning of what the writer intended to
say. In the absence of strict
implementation of the copyright act the field had been left wide open for the
publishers to pirate and market the works, which in their view would sell
well in the black market. This was generally the case with all sorts of
writings, but in the case of Manto, it became more acute because his writings
were thrown into a disputed arena and so aroused the curiosity of many to
read what he wrote. Many read the alleged
“obscenity” and “pornography” bits with salacious delight and this
led to Manto being printed many times and by all kinds and marketed freely.
What Manto was writing was not pointedly pornography. He was aware of the
great significance of the sexual powers in both men and women, and the lack
of proper manifestation of these in the society. The social face of sex did
not exist, but it did inevitably find ways and means, which led to both a
feeling of guilt and a sense of exploitation. For Manto sex was some kind of
a primal force, which needed to be recognised and treated as such but for his
more dogmatic progressive colleagues sex was to be dealt only in the form of
exploitation of the weak by the strong. This was one of the many reasons for
Manto falling out with his progressive friends. Shamsul Haq Usmani had
taken this difficult task upon himself to edit Manto and bring out the
authentic text. He is eminently qualified to do so because he has been
associated with Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi as professor of Urdu and has
also been the head of the department. He has been particularly interested in
textual criticism and has focused on Urdu fiction. His two books on Rajinder
Singh Bedi, one on Krishen Chandar and the compilation ‘Nazeer Nama’ have
been applauded for maintaining the rigorous standards of scholarship. The entire scope of the
work is quite awesome and it is expected to cover about ten volumes. The
recent volume was published a few years ago in India but has been published
now in Pakistan. During Manto’s lifetime, thirty-seven works were published
but the subsequent republication during his lifetime and later was so big
that it almost became an industry. Usmani recognised the
enormity of the task “From Manto’s early literary career till he breathed
his last, about 37 of his books had appeared. They included short stories,
pen-sketches, radio plays, features, essays, film scripts, and a novel. After
Manto’s death, Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi published a book consisting of Manto’s
letters addressed to Qasmi. Also, a number of Manto’s writings appeared
either in magazines or were included in some books. This still goes on.” In this the collected works
have been classified according to their date of publication and then care has
been taken of the various forms in which Manto wrote. As said earlier,
despite being recognised as an afsananigar he also made sketches, wrote a
novel, plays, film scripts and translated a lot. The first point of
reference for Usmani was the text that has been published during Manto’s
lifetime, the inclusion in the collection has been according to the initial
publication. It has happened that many stories were subsequently published
under different selections of short stories. It has also transpired that
Manto himself made changes in the text, so the first and the last
publications during his lifetime have been taken and the differences
identified between the two texts. All the publications have been taken into
account. Manuscripts whether in book
form or in the various magazines that printed such stories including the
publications categorised as unreliable publications, apparently pirated
versions. Even in some the names and titles of the afasanas have been
changed. Also the words, which were clear but did not fit within the context,
were earmarked as well as those words, which were not recognisable or could
not be verified. Similarly, there were words or sentences that happened to be
mere repetitions. Particularly in writing
Urdu, the scribes usually made mistakes in the manuscripts for they did not
understand the word and therefore could not figure it out by placing it with
the context. Another vexing exercise was the correct use of punctuations.
Similarly, the various disjointed paragraphs too were connected. In the end
the explanatory notes, pointers and the books consulted too have been
mentioned. It is an exercise that has
been very thoroughly conducted and hopefully what actually Manto wrote would
now be within reach of the avid reader. Poora Manto Volume 1 Edited by: Shamsul Haque
Usmani Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2013 Pages: 392 Price: PKR 895
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a
market? I see people selling fruit, vegetables, pots, goats. Goats? I try to
find my way through this ancient crowd…tripping my foot and falling into a
well. My body thrashes with water and I try to scream but instead allow water
to enter my lungs. I keep on sinking as water fills me up. I see a blurred
image of faces popping at the opening of the well and shouting my name:
“Javariya” !
