0
0
Minto died at the age of 43, spitting blood and going to insane asylums. To say today is a happy bird, but you yourself used to say that death is better than a life of humiliation, so congratulations that you came out at the right time.
Manto wrote what you saw, what you wrote did not leave you able to live. If he had lived, he would not have been able to write what he saw.
Your friends used to say that you fled from your beloved city of Mumbai to Lahore in fear of Hindu-Muslim riots because you thought that none of your Hindu friends would kill you. If he were alive today, he would not be able to run away.
From India you would hear the shouts of ‘Traitors of the country, shoot for years’ and when you came to Pakistan you would be greeted by the slogans of ‘Kafir Kafir Manto Kafir’. He would have become the main character of his story ‘Tatwal’s Dog’.
You wrote a ‘Toba Tek Singh’, we made the whole subcontinent Toba Tek Singh.
It often seems that we are alive in one of your stories. Probably in the story called ‘Mushtik’ in which a knife comes towards Nephew while cutting his stomach.
Now we don’t even call this mushtik mushtik, but we clap our hands on our chests and say that we will do it again and again.
You wrote as if your pen was on fire, as if the paper was about to burn to ashes. You wrote that women are being raped after being killed. The government said that cold meat is obscene. You wrote that poor women are forced to make a fuss, we said that Manto is spreading filth in the society.
The British government made three cases against you. We got hurt, more than one crore people became homeless, more than 2 million people were killed but after gaining independence our independent government against the British government made three cases against you and Made
You were a penman, you didn’t know how to do anything else, nor did you learn the art of allotting plots and shops from your fellow writers. You have to blacken a lot of paper for your daughters’ medicine and your medicine.
But we also tried to snatch that bread from you. Like you, your pen also started spitting blood.
The Americans came to your house on their own. The same Americans whose slavery we are still fighting for. You slapped their dollars on their face and gave free advice to take it and give it to the Maulvis, they will come in handy one day. The United States has made this mockery of yours a part of its foreign policy and we are still suffering from it.
Our judges may still be sweating after hearing your name, but the publishers who used to hide their eyes from you, they print you well, make money, you are mentioned in literary fairs, but your admission in schools and noble families is still there. Is closed
But no writer on the subcontinent has received as much love from readers as you have from generation to generation.
I have been instructed to write on my grave that ‘Minto is buried here and he is still thinking that he is going to write a great story or God’. We have also censored your book He wrote that no one would understand or object.
But now you are with your God, I hope he has arranged a half-heavenly pooja on your birthday. Drink generously and ask him who wrote the big story.
