KARACHI: Saadat Hasan Manto doesn’t belong to Pakistan alone. He did 33 per cent of his work before the partition of the subcontinent, some during partition and some after it.

This was enunciated by poet and scholar Prof Dr Satyapal Anand while presiding over the launch of a book titled On and about Manto, English translations of Manto’s non-fiction Urdu pieces by Mujahid Eshai, at the Arts Council on Tuesday.

Dr Anand said he had met Manto only once when he visited his cousin Shyam (actor) in Bombay (now Mumbai). Later on, as a pen-pusher, he translated the author’s short stories into Hindi for different magazines, earning 40 to 60 rupees per story, more than what Manto used to get.

He said when the writer’s centenary was being celebrated in India, the sales of his books increased considerably. Trying to find the reasons for a sudden surge in his popularity, he argued it was because some of his tales (Thanda Gosht, Toba Tek Singh) dealt with the division of his country and ‘strike a man in the core of his heart’.

Dr Anand congratulated Mr Eshai, a chartered accountant by profession, on writing the book. He called it a compendium of assorted pieces of Manto in English, which included reports on two court cases against the writer. He said it’s difficult to translate poetry but prose could be easily translated. Translations were important to convey and communicate ideas expressed from one language into another.

Earlier translations of works of Urdu into English were done in what’s called ‘Babu English’ (language used in Company Bahadur’s time). Today, the English written by the young Pakistani and Indian authors was different. And Eshai’s book did not resort to the Babu version.

Dr Anand hinted that he didn’t appreciate the ‘arrangement’ (order or sequence of the essays) in the book and suggested to Mr Eshai that in his second book he should include short works by Manto that were like the ‘Scorpion having its sting in its tail’.

Prof Sahar Ansari highlighted the point that Manto’s short stories had been widely translated into English but not his non-fiction work, and that’s what made Mr Eshai’s effort worthwhile. He said the late writer attached importance to three things: his birth, his marriage and creative pursuits, and the book had a piece on his marriage. He termed the book a good addition to Manto studies.

Writer Hasina Moin said she had read Manto at a young age. But it’s not easy to comprehend his writings. It was after a while that she began to understand what the writer was talking about. She pointed out that it’s right at the end of his stories, in the last line, where he surprised the reader with his talent exposing issues pertaining to human instincts.

Therefore, to get the hang of Manto, it was important to be familiar with one’s culture as his stories captured what was happening in his lifetime.

Mr Eshai said Manto was a realist; his short stories were a reflection of his realism. Since fiction was to do with the imagination, he chose to translate his non-fiction work — he wanted to know the person that Manto was.

He said the book contained 18 essays, 15 written by Manto while two penned by eminent people (Bari Alig and Krishan Chander) about Manto and one was Manto’s impressions on Ismat Chughtai.

Speaking on the impact of partition on the author, he said those who went through the trauma of the division of India did not remain the same individuals as they were before partition.

As for writing the book in English, he said a big chunk of our younger generation read English and didn’t know much about the great authors of Urdu. The book would help them familiarise with the likes of Manto. In the end, he read out three excerpts from On and about Manto.

Dr Fatima Hassan conducted the programme.

Published in Dawn, January 21st, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play