Saadat Hasan Manto, undoubtedly one of the most controversial Urdu writer of modern India, has a special place in the hearts of literature lovers. His works are notoriously known for the savage, blunt yet coherent portrayal of human nature. His stories are marked by darkness, evil and taboos. But it is this exact accuracy and the highest level of observation and detailing of his characters which make him stand out.
A major proportion of his characters are women. Not the everyday, well-to-do women but the most downtrodden, naked form of the gender. Prostitutes were one of his most favourite characters. In spite of Manto’s rather unconventional choice of protagonists, women in his stories come from very diverse backgrounds and bestow upon his stories a dazzling performance.
Manto was tried on the charges of obscenity six times in his entire career, but was never convicted.
In this write-up, we will look inside the prolific writer’s life and understand the 1940s feminist that he was. We will go through some of his short stories and appreciate the women characters he imagined.
Mauzil मोज़ील موذیل
Saadat Hasan Manto’s stories are a clear reflection of his life and are affected by the changing political and social circumstances. Partition, or Batwara, as he liked to call it due to emotional and economic devastation which succeeded the Partition, had an immense impact on his life and subsequently on his stories.
Mauzil is one such heart-wrenching story set up against the backdrop of Partition riots in Mumbai. Mauzil, the lead character, is a young woman belonging to a Jew family. She loves a Sikh man named Trilochan. Mauzil is an extremely progressive, unorthodox and broadminded woman who is afraid to commit to a religious, somewhat conservative lover, the Sikh. She mocks his love, calling it possessive and unbearable for a girl like her. She mocks his religious sincerity, calling him an idiot. She stands out as an uncanny, brave woman who could not care less about what the society thinks about her. She is an outgoing woman, who does not like to wear underpants under her skirt, the reason being that they make her uncomfortable. Their love story does not make it very far and they get separated.
After some years, during the Riots, weird circumstances make them face each other once again. Mauzil finds out that the Sikh girl who Trilochan currently loves is stuck in a Muslim ghetto in the riot-infested area. She hatches a plan to help him bring his lady love back to safety. In this attempt, Mauzil gives away her clothes to the girl to help hide her religious identity. Mauzil, then, runs out, trying to distract the rioters, without a single piece of cloth on her own body. Naked. The girl is successful in sneaking away, while Mauzil meets with an accident and is gravely injured. The story ends with Trilochan trying to cover Mauzil’s naked body with his turban, which earlier on, he was adamant on not taking off. Mauzil pushes his turban cloth away, saying that she does not need his religion to protect her. She lays there naked, dying.
Frankly, Manto has never been a fan of sugarcoating. What he perceives, he lays it in the front of the reader in the most virgin form. Physical description of Mauzil in this story is so vivid that it led to many people protesting for sexual inappropriateness. Manto’s description makes Mauzil stand as a woman who is proud of her sexuality. She understands what effect her physical appearance is going to have on the rioters. As expected, they gather around this alluring naked lady, forgetting about their religious fanaticism, revenge and violence for a moment, or two.
Mauzil is just of the many stories Manto wrote on the issues of women. He considers stories like Khol Do and Thanda Gosht as his masterpiece. Khol Do is a story about a father who got separated from his teenage daughter during the Partition. When he finds her, she is almost conscious, molested by rioters, rioters who belonged to her own religion. She was also raped by the very people his father sent to find her. The story ends with a very chilling scene where her father, on seeing his daughter, ravaged and barely alive, starts dancing and screaming. These bone-shivering and cold stories are based on the plight of women during the Partition era.
It can be inferred from his works that Manto never intended to scandalize the lives of women. He put the utmost effort to showcase these stories in the most positive way possible. Stories like Kali Salwar and Das Rupey gives the reader an intricate insight into the lives of prostitutes. He rejected the ideology which said that prostitution gives birth to immorality and infidelity. He saw this profession as an indispensable service to the society and portrays these women having the strongest will and most developed minds. His sex workers are not the epitome of Umrao-Jaan or any other fancy lady. These women belong to the most humble backgrounds. For example, the protagonist of the story Das Rupey is a 14-15-year-old girl named Sarita who has been pushed into this trade of skin, as her family business. Manto does not show her story in a dark manner. He portrays her as a very playful, cheerful girl, who will make you believe that she loves doing this job. She is curious to explore new places with her clients. The story ends with a mellow happy scene where she returns the 10 rupee note given to her by the client back to him because she had enjoyed her day very much.
Saadat Hasan Manto is a feminist. He is as feminist as anybody male, from the 1940s, in India, can be. Be it his characters, or the plot of his stories, he had carefully used them to shove up a mirror in face of the hypocrisy of the society at those times. This essay has looked into some of the better-known stories of Manto, with powerful women characters. Most of the women in his stories have shattered the orthodox gender roles and have revolted against the patriarchal notions of Indian society. If these characters were to be real, they would have been dismissed as mad and characterless. Just like Manto was.
Manto, in his last days, faced many economic and health-related problems. He became increasingly alcoholic and died in a mental asylum in Lahore, where he had migrated during the Partition.
“If you cannot bear these stories then the society is unbearable. Who am I to remove the clothes of this society, which itself is naked. I don't even try to cover it, because it is not my job, that's the job of dressmakers.”
~ سعادت حسن منٹو
Saadat Hasan Manto
