KARACHI, Sept 9: It may sound like a trite statement but the fact remains that the more you read stories by Sadat Hasan Manto the more he, after 58 years of his untimely death, comes across as the most relevant writer in the context of the subcontinent’s partition. His works paint a heartrending picture of the incidents and events that took place in 1947.

Zanbeel Dramatic Readings brought to life a couple of Manto’s significant works at T2F on Saturday evening and reminded the audience of the atrocities when India divided to give birth to Pakistan. For the most part, the three readers, Asma Mundrawala, Mahvash Farooqui and Saife Hasan, did justice to Manto’s writing.

Of the two works were read, one was Siah Hashyey, a collection of 32 sketches on different aspects of the partition. The second was the story Gurmukh Singh Ki Wasiyat. The event was titled ‘Taqseem’, taken from one of the 32 pieces in Siah Hashyey.

The first segment included some of Manto’s memorable gems — Taa’wun, Munasib Karawaee, Halal Ka Jhatka, Pathanistan, Ghate Ka Soda, Kasr-i-Nafsi, Joota, Qismat, Aankhon Per Charbi and Sorry. All the members of Zanbeel took part in the narration which was supported by sound effects that intermittently signified either the intensity of the situation, the end of the story or important junctures.

Nearly all the miniature vignettes highlighted, directly or through roundabout ways, human shortcomings. The stories in Siah Hashyey show that the rioters who loot and plunder when they get an opportunity or those who kill people belonging to other religious groups are flawed human beings. These people cannot do away with the prejudice and hatred which can be fanned at the drop of a hat. At the same time, Manto pokes fun at their foibles with his razor-sharp wit. For example, in a piece titled Joota, the angry mob garlanding the statue of a Hindu leader eventually uses a hospital named after that leader when someone needs to be medically treated.

All the artists read Siah Hashyey well. But at places where there were no dialogues, the narration moving the story forward sounded like a news bulletin. There was narrative monotony at certain points that made the sketches come across as a novella.

Saife Hasan was the only one who tried to modulate his voice when he felt the need for it.

However, Zanbeel’s performance was markedly better when it read out Gurmukh Singh Ki Wasiyat. They told the tale with the correct intonations and did justice to the message of the story.

The story revolves around a Muslim family still living in a neighbourhood from where all the other Muslim families have migrated at the peak of partition fever. The head of the family, an old judge, Abdul Hayee, keeps telling his daughter, Sughra, and son, Basharat, that all is going to be well and they don’t have to worry about the violence that has engulfed the whole country. There comes a time when Abdul Hayee suffers a stroke, increasing Sughra’s worries. One day a Sikh knocks on their door. He is the son of Gurmukh Singh whom Abdul Hayee had done a huge favour for which he was eternally grateful to him. At every Eid, Gurmukh brings sivaiyyan (vermicelli) to them. But now he is dead and Gurmukh’s son has come to do what his father used to do. When Gurmukh’s son returns, a bunch of non-Muslim men ask him if everything is okay so that they can set fire to Abdul Hayee’s house. Gurmukh’s son says he doesn’t mind.

The group’s sensitivity while reading out this story was commendable.