SAADAT HASAN MANTO Q;\' .Mottled Dawn FIFTY SKETCHES AND STORIES OF PARTITION Translated from the Urdu by Khalid Hasan 'SØith an Introduction by Daniyal Mueenuddin @ 1q1.7/zott PENGUINBOOKS PËNGI.JINBOOKS Published by the Penguin Group Penguio B9^ol<s-l^1di1_Pvr Ltd, 7th Floor, Infinity Tower C, DLF Cybet City, Gurgaon 122 002, Haryana, India Penguir Group york, york !YSA) Io , 375 Hudson Street, New New 10014, US.A (Canada), f91gu11 Croup 90 Eglinton Âvenue East, Suiæ 700, Toronro, Oitario, M4P 2Y3, Canada Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London IVC2R ORL, England Penguin lreland' 25 sr stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland {a division of penguin This mottled d.aøn Books Ltd) T h is ni gb t -b itten marnin g Penguin Group (Ausualia), 707 collins street, Melbourne, vicroria 3t0gn Australia No, rå¿s is not the marning Penguin,Group (NZI,67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zrx;lanð Penguin Bpoks (Pry) park, We had set {Sourh.Africa) Lr.l Block D, Roeeba¡¡k Office 1g1 Jan out in sbarch of Srnuts Aven1rc, Parktown Norh, JohannesbutgZlgs, South Àfrica *Faiz Ahmed Pecrguin Books Lrd, Registered Officç: B0 Strand, london WCIR ORL, England Faiz First published in Ë,nglish by Penguin Books Indþ 1997 First published in Penguin Modern Classics 201i T¡anslation copyright @ Khalid Hesan 1997, 2011 In*oduction copyright @ Daniyal Mueenuddin 2011. Ail rights ¡eserved 1098765432 ISBN 9780143418313 Typesø ip Sabon by R. Aiirh Kumar, New Delhí Printed at Rcpro India Ltd, Navi Mumbai This book is sold eubiect ro the condirion that it shall nor, b/ way of trade o¡ oth€rwise' be lent, resold, hired our, or othêrwise circulated n it(out túe publisher's prior wrinen consenr in any form of binding or cover orher thân that in which it is published and wirhout a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser and wirhout limitiùg the righrs under copytig;ht ¡eserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into e retrievat systèm, oi t¡ansmi*ed in any form or by any mcans (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwisc), without rhe prior wrinen permissioa of both the copyriglt owner and the above-mentioned publisher of this book- A P€NGUIN.RANDOM HOUSE COI,lPANY In memory of Saadat Hasan Manta and C ONTENTS hk dream of a subcontinent wherc peoþle wìll liue ds þeople, irresþectiue of religion, caste at calour, wh¿re hatreå søà¡t' Introductian stand abalished, uthere-hypoaisy shall-haue no fliay, tahere by Daniyal Mueenuddin relþion shall 1X only mnoblà those who Translator's þilouí;, Note XV not diuide them into utaruing tr¡bes. Toba Tek Sineh Manto's dream remains - I a dream. The Return B :ffi¡qc¡u 11 Colde¡ than Ice 77 lTã-D-og-TE;wal- 22 The Last Salute 28 The Voman in the Red Raincoat 36 The Price of Freedom 43 Mozail 58 The Dudful Daughrer 73 Three Simple Sraremenrs 78 Jinnah Sahib 80 A Girl from Delhi 94 The Grear Divide 101 Bitter Harvest rc9 A Believer's Ve¡sion 172 A Tale of.1947 120 The New Constitution 126 Sweet Moment 736 Wages 137 Cooperation 140 Division 143 Proper Use 144 The Benefirs of lgnorance 1,45 For Necessary Action 146 Miracle Man t47 Misrake Removed 148 Jelly 1"49 Invigtion to Action 150 Pathanistan 151 I7arning 152 Permanent A TITIST TTITH DESTINY Vacation 153 Ritualistic Difference 154 Daniyal Mueenuddin Losing Proposition 155 Bestiality L56 The Fool 157 Modesty 158 Determination 159 fe.hru's_'rrysr with destiny', his premy phrase describing Due Supervision Independence-which ,twist 160 as a child I understood as a witñ The Ga¡land desdny', tlvist âs in the waltz, the 161. Vatusi, the twist*was more Out of Consideradon a rape than a tryst or â twisr, one of the great catastrophes 1,62 Precautionary 'of the twentierh century, My father, who was Rehabilitation Arrangement 163 Mishtake Commissioner in Lahore ât the time of partition, had the 764 Itdtness gruesome task of meering rhe trains that came into Lahore from 76s Punjab, freighted God is Great ,Indian with a load of corpses, butchered en 1,66 route by Hindu and Sikh Socialism mobs-just as some functionary on 167 the opposite side had the task of meeting at Delhi's station death Double Cross 168 trains loaded with slaughrered Hindus and Sikhs. My father Resting Time L69 found no difficulry in explaining the mass killings, saying that, Luck 1,70. if today it were announced rhat ail red-h¿ired men could be Ungrateful Lot 171 killed with impuniqi tomorrow rhere would nor be a red,haired man alive. Such is human narure. It is this qualiry in mankind that Saadat Hasan Manto, his horror moderated by his grim humour, bears witness to in the volume of stories that you hold in your hands. Sorne sixty ye¿rs after Parrition, we inevitably still read these stories as historical documents, recording those events. There are still people living who remember the bloodshed, who su_ffered personally from the violence. We, in both India and Pakistan, afe still crippled by the nârratives that the armies of our counrÍies have buílt around the crimes of Parrition, cynically keeping the hatred generated at Partition alive, in order to jusrify their ix x INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION xl budgets and their dominant roles in their respective countries. uncle who lived in Lahore had been killed. He iust couldn,t The Pakistani military, from the moment of my country's believe it. He had said to Mumraz, ,If Hindu-Muslim inception, has sat on and smothered the country's political bod¡ killings start here,'I don'r know what I'll do., justifying itself by reference to the Indian threat. The Indian 'Vhat'll you do?'Mumtaz had asked. military bloated upon a larger corpus, operating more discreedy; 'I dont know. Maybe I'll kill you,'he had replied darkly. has played a similar game. We may yet all be blown to kingdom Mumtaz kept quier and for the next eight days he didn'r come in revenge for the killings of t9+2, speak to ânyone; on rhe ninth day he had said he was sailing If we today keep our grievances alive, so many years lateE for Karachi that afternoon. it is startling that Manto, writing soon after these events, was able to be so level-headed, so cool. That he was able to withhold W-hile itmighr appear that Mumtaz is leaving from fear of being blame. Although the stories in this book are specifically about killed, the story insæad conveys with characteristic lightness-, a political event, about the dilemmas of people caught up in a without emphasis, that, in fact, Mumtaz is leaving because he great internecine massacre, they are neither overtly nor covertly bows to the inevitability of its being sor that there must be blood, partisan. They espouse no position and are almost purely thst their difference as communities has divided them. This iá desciptive. As Chekhov has famously sâid, the writer's task is pique, not pressure. This is sublime: he obeys the historical not to pass sentence, but rather, to empathize with his characters' imperative. There is no ânger in him, but rather rhe tenderness sufferings after they have been judged and condemned. [n these that a man feels upon leaving a woman whom he has loved stories, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs are all guilty of murder, of deepl¡ upon abjuring a grear love. Pointing ro the horizon, inhumanity. The catastrophe is general, Manto's dominant where sea and sky are joined, he says, 'It is only an illusion âttitude, in the face of this madness, is one of bemusement at because they can't really meet, but isn't it beautiful, this union the absurdity of the violence. Men and women, who have lived which isn't really there?' Mumtaz's response to the separation together in peace, when given lice¡rce to kill do so with relish, imposed by Partition is aesthetic rârher than polirical.' with abandonment. This response is also romantic, and perhaps naive-without The key to Manto's attitude lies pdrhaps in the story'A Täle blame there can be no justice-and yet, is a key ro our of 1947', which is based on a reminiscence he wrote soon after understanding of why Manto's stories of Partition are so very Partition. A Muslim chârâcter named Mumtaz, closely identified good. As in Isaac Babel's Red Cøualry srories, which describe with Manto himself, is taking a ship from Bombay for Karachi. the savagery of rhe Russian revolution, the horror of such events The n¿rrator, one of three Hindus sending Mumtaz off with a is best conveyed through the lens of a romantic sensibility. final carouse, considers why he has decided to leave them. Manto was, by all accounts, a gentle, wounded, disorganized man, and therefore well suited to consider in his stories rhese Mumtaz u/as very emotional that day. The three of us had massâcres, his softness marrying their violence. One of my come to see him off. He was sailing for Pakistan, a country elderly relations, ancienr in my childhood, bless her, and now we knew nothing about. All three of us were Hindus. gone to the reward that she so fervenrly believed in, happened IÍe had relatives in West Punjab, now Pakistan, some of in the 1950s to live in the same building where Manro came rù(/as whom had lost their lives in anti-Hindu riots. this to rest; Lakshmi Mansions on the Mall road in Lahore.