KARACHI: Saadat Hasan Manto, the master story writer was most undeservedly ridiculed at the Arts Council on Thursday evening at a mushaira held in his memory and in which mostly novices and juniors participated.
The idea to mix poetry with fiction was the brainchild of Mr Noor Mohammad Pathan, resident director of Academy Adbiat Pakistan. Had it not been so, as one speaker pointed out, there would have been only one or two speakers to deliver a few words on Manto and no one to hear them but the speakers themselves.
Dr Farman Fatehpuri said it was a ‘Sharai bidat (irreverent, yet within the bounds of Sharia). So the ‘vehicular’ poetry carried the weight of a dull evening.
It began with the ‘abiat’ of the great sufi saint Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, but soon after a young poet read out couplets from Iqbal’s famous poem ‘Iblees Ki majlis-i-Shoora’. No one could guess the occasion for the poem.
Shaukat Siddiqui was presiding over the proceedings with poet Manzer Ayyub sitting beside him as the president of the poetry session. As soon as Dr Farman Fatehpuri arrived, Siddiqui was relegated to the status of ‘special guest’. Saher Ansari was the other ‘honoured’ guest.
Poets, young and enthusiastic to perform, kept coming one after the other, adding ‘sugar’ to the few salty remarks about Manto, as one listener said. An appropriate and quite meaningful speech came from Nazir Channa and so did a paper by Karim Bakhash Khalid. Finally came the speeches by Saher Ansari and Shaukat Siddiqui.
There seemed no order in inviting the poets to the dais. Eminent among the senior poets were Abrar Abid and Khayal Afaqi. The latter prayed for the deliverance of the “departed soul”
Dr Farman Fatehpuri recalled that Manto wrote his first short story titled ‘Tamasha’ with the gory killing of Jallianwala Bagh in the background, in 1934 when he was quite young. He lived only for 43 years and wrote more than a dozen masterpieces equal to world class literature. “What was important in Manto’s life was his creativity and not the drunkenness he is known for”, Dr Farman said.
Prof Saher Ansari said Manto was a labourer, made to earn his living through writing. He used to write a story a day for a journal earning Rs10 for one piece. Saher Ansari compared Manto with Ghalib and drew a comparison between the humour, satire and lucidity found in both.
Karim Bakhash Khalid gave a review of Manto’s career as a creative writer and said his works, translated in many languages, were taught in 22 universities. He said Manto had been translated in Sindhi and was popular as he was against exploitation, state oppression and hypocrisy. Khalid advised that Manto’s proscribed stories should be published to enlighten the readers.
Shaukat Siddiqui said that Manto was daring and bold, to the extent that he annoyed most of his contemporaries, but he hated hypocrisy and was therefore against the established order including the “Mullah”. “His writings are the real treasure of Urdu literature”, he said.—Hasan Abidi