Image courtesy Arpana Caur
Saadat Hasan Manto
(Translated from Urdu by Alok Bhalla)
THERE was an announcement made in every city and every street: “Anyone caught begging will be arrested.”
The arrests began.
People applauded because an old curse was removed.
When Kabir saw that his eyes filled with tears.
People asked him: “Hey weaver, why are you crying?”
With tears in his, Kabir replied: “Two things are required to weave a cloth – a tense line
of thread and a spool to feed the loom…There is now a tense line of the arrested, but
who will feed them?”
A M.A. L.LB. was allotted two handlooms.
When Kabir saw that his eyes filled with tears.
The M.A. L.LB. asked him: “Hey you…bloody weaver…why are you crying?…Do you
think the handlooms should have been allotted to you?”
With tears in his eyes, Kabir replied: “Law has taught you to leave the looms to those
who can weave. You can, instead, sell all the cloth you can gather. After all, why must
you endure the noise and the labour…noise and labour are the life and soul of the
weaver.”
A man was tearing pages from a book to make small and large paper bags. As Kabir was
walking by, he picked up two or three paper bags and began to read what was printed on
them. Tears filled his eyes.
The man making the paper bags asked: “Miyan Kabir, why are you crying?”
Kabir replied: “The poems of Bhagat Surdas are printed on these pages…It’s
blasphemous to make paper bags out of them.”
Surprised, the man making paper bags answered: “A man who is named Soordas, can
never be a bhagat.”
Kabir began to weep inconsolably.
A very beautiful idol of Lakshmi was carved on a tall building.
When people moved their offices into that building, they covered the idol with a few
tattered pieces of jute.
When Kabir saw that his eyes filled with tears.
The people tried to console him and said: “Our religion doesn’t allow idol worship.”
With tears in his eyes, Kabir looked at the pieces of jute, and retorted: “No religion
allows the desecration of a beautiful object to make it ugly.”
The people began to laugh.
Kabir wept inconsolably.
The General stood before and army ready for war and said: “We don’t care if we don’t
have wheat…We don’t care if the fields are destroyed…Our soldiers will fight the enemy
even if they are hungry.”
Two lakh soldiers raised slogans: “Long live…long live…!”
Kabir began to weep loudly.
The General was very angry. He shouted at Kabir: “Hey you, tell me why are you
weeping?”
Still weeping, Kabir replied: “O my brave General, who will fight hunger?”
Two lakh soldiers screamed: “Death to Kabir…death to Kabir.”
A Moulavi was hectoring people in the market place: “Brothers grow a beard,shave your
moustache, wear broad pyjamas…Sisters, braid your hair, do not powder your face, and
wear a burqua…”
When Kabir saw that his eyes filled with tears.
Angry, the Maulvi who was screaming asked: “Kabir, why are you crying?”
Kabir wiped his tears and replied: “You neither have brothers nor sisters. Besides, why
have you dyed your beard? Don’t you like white hair?”
The Maulvi began to abuse Kabir.
Tears began to flow down Kabir’s eyes.
There was an argument going on somewhere.
“Manners are completely irrelevant…”
“That’s rubbish. Manners are essential for life… ”
“That age has gone. Manners are another name for propaganda.”
“To hell with you…”
“To hell with your Stalin…”
“To hell with your syphilitic and progressive writers, Flaubert and Baudelaire…”
Kabir began to cry.
They gave up their argument and looked at him with surprise.
One of them said to Kabir: “Your soul seems to have been hurt by something.”
Another said: “Your tears are a sign that you are a bourgeoisie.”
Kabir began to cry even more loudly.
Annoyed, the people asked bluntly: “Mian, at least tell us why you are crying?”
Kabir replied: “I am crying so that you can decide if manners are irrelevant or essential
for life.”
The people began to laugh.
One of them said: “He’s a proletarian joker.”
The other said: “No, he’s a bourgeois spy.”
Kabir’s eyes at once overflowed with tears.
The town ordered that all young women must get married within the month and lead a
respectable life.
When Kabir saw the pale and anxious faces of the young women in the town square, he
began to cry.
A Maulvi asked him: “Maulana, why are you crying?”
With tears in his eyes, Kabir replied: “Will the men of wisdom, find husbands for all
these young women?”
The Maulvi didn’t understand Kabir and began to laugh. Kabir began to weep
inconsolably.
The sign outside a shop read: “Jinnah Boot-House.”
When Kabir read it, he began to weep inconsolably.
The people standing near by began to clap when they saw a man reading the board and
weeping: “He is mad…He is mad…”
When the most important leader of the country passed away there was mourning
everywhere.
Many people tied black armbands to express their sorrow.
When Kabir saw that his eyes filled with tears.
People with black armbands asked: “Why are you so upset? Why you are crying?”
Kabir replied: “If all the cloth used for black armbands could be collected thousands of
people could have clothes to wear.”
People with black armbands started beating Kabir: “You’re communist, a fifth columnist,
an enemy of Pakistan…”
Kabir began to laugh: “But friends, I don’t have a black armband.”
*******
Saadat Hasan Manto (1912-19155), one of the most controversial and most prolific Urdu short fiction writers and essayist in the first half of the twentieth century still read avidly and admired across South Asia and the world. His fictions and essays have been translated into English and other European languages.
Alok Bhalla is at present, a visiting professor of English at Jamia Millia Islamia. He is the author of Stories About the Partition of India (3 Vols.). He has also translated Dharamvir Bharati’s Andha Yug, Intizar Husain’s A Chronicle of the Peacocks (both from OUP) and Ram Kumar’s The Sea and Other Stories into English.
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On Manto in The Beacon MIRTH AND THE DUST-CLOUD: REMEMBERING VARIS ALVI | THE WHORE AS METAPHOR FOR A CITY | Alok Bhalla in The Beacon Ahimsa in the City of the Mind: Language, Identity-Politics and Partitions The Self As Stranger Stand by Me: Song of a Farmer I Am A Hindu
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