Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 58 views

    Mantos Letter To Nehru

    Uploaded by

    Rudrin Das
    Manto wrote a letter to Jawaharlal Nehru expressing his desire to meet the prime minister as fellow Kashmiris, despite their differences in status and occupation. He jokes about being "one and a half ser" compared to Nehru being the "whole stream." Manto complains that Nehru has not acknowledged his literary works and that Indian publishers are pirating his books without permission. He invites Nehru to read and give his opinion on Manto's new book, of which this letter serves as the preface.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Mantos Letter To Nehru

    Uploaded by

    Rudrin Das
    58 views5 pages
    Manto wrote a letter to Jawaharlal Nehru expressing his desire to meet the prime minister as fellow Kashmiris, despite their differences in status and occupation. He jokes about being "one and a half ser" compared to Nehru being the "whole stream." Manto complains that Nehru has not acknowledged his literary works and that Indian publishers are pirating his books without permission. He invites Nehru to read and give his opinion on Manto's new book, of which this letter serves as the preface.

    Original Description:

    Document

    Original Title

    Mantos Letter to Nehru

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    Manto wrote a letter to Jawaharlal Nehru expressing his desire to meet the prime minister as fellow Kashmiris, despite their differences in status and occupation. He jokes about being "one and a half ser" compared to Nehru being the "whole stream." Manto complains that Nehru has not acknowledged his literary works and that Indian publishers are pirating his books without permission. He invites Nehru to read and give his opinion on Manto's new book, of which this letter serves as the preface.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    58 views5 pages

    Mantos Letter To Nehru

    Uploaded by

    Rudrin Das
    Manto wrote a letter to Jawaharlal Nehru expressing his desire to meet the prime minister as fellow Kashmiris, despite their differences in status and occupation. He jokes about being "one and a half ser" compared to Nehru being the "whole stream." Manto complains that Nehru has not acknowledged his literary works and that Indian publishers are pirating his books without permission. He invites Nehru to read and give his opinion on Manto's new book, of which this letter serves as the preface.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 5

    Manto’s Letter to Nehru

    kashmirlife.net/mantos-letter-nehru-131771

    8 February 2017

    Saadat Hussain Manto’s has been Pakistan’s celebrated story writer of


    Kashmir origin. But not many people know that the great story-teller has written
    a lot of political prose and essay’s as well. Here is one of the letters that he had
    written to Pandit Nehru.

    In picture Jawahr Lal Nehru, Indra Gandhi and Bakhshi Ghulam Muhammad

    Pundit-ji,

    Assalamu alaikum!

    This is the first letter, I am sending you. By the grace of God you are
    considered very handsome by the Americans. Well, my features are not
    exactly bad either. If I go to America, perhaps I will be accorded the same
    status. But you’re the Prime Minister of India, and I am the famed story
    writer of Pakistan. Quite a deep gulf separating us!

    However, what is common between us is that we are both Kashmiris.


    You’re a Nehru, I am a Manto. To be a Kashmiri is to be handsome, and to
    be handsome … I don’t know.
    1/5
    I have a long-cherished desire to meet you. (We might yet meet during our
    lifetime.) The older people from my side often meet those from yours. But
    so far I have not had any opportunity to meet you. What a great pity that I
    have not even seen you! Of course, I’ve once heard you on the radio.

    As I said, I have long harbored this desire to meet you. Being Kashmiris, we
    are bound together. But now I wonder where the need is. One Kashmiri
    does run into another in bylanes or at crossroads.

    You settled on the bank of a nahr [stream]and came to be known as Nehru.


    I ponder how I became a Manto. You may have visited Kashmir a million
    times. I could just go up to Banihal. My Kashmiri friends who know the
    Kashmiri language tell me that Manto means “manut,” i.e., a measuring
    stone weighing one and a half ser! I am sure you know Kashmiri. If you take
    the trouble to write a reply to this letter, do write to me about the origin of
    the word “Manto.”

    If I am just one and a half ser, then there is no comparison between us.

    You’re the whole stream while I am just one and a half ser! How can I take
    you on? But we both are the kind of guns that—as the well-known proverb
    about the Kashmiris goes—“take a shot in the dark.” Please do not take it
    amiss. When I heard this so-called proverb, I felt terrible. But I mention it
    light-heartedly because it sounds interesting. Otherwise we both know that
    we Kashmiris have never accepted defeat in any field.

    In politics I can mention your name with pride because you know well the
    art of contradicting yourself. To this very day, who could beat us Kashmiris
    in wrestling? Who can outshine us in poetry? But I was surprised to learn
    that you want to stop rivers from flowing through our land. Pundit-ji, you
    are only a Nehru. I regret that I am just a measuring stone of one and a half
    ser. If I were a rock weighing thirty or forty thousand maunds, I would have
    thrown myself into the river so that you would have to spend some time
    consulting with your engineers about how to pull it out.

    Pundit-ji, there’s no doubt that you are a great personality. You are the
    Prime Minister of India. You are the ruler of the country that was formerly
    mine. You are everything. But pardon me if I say that you have never cared
    for this humble person.

    I would like to tell you an interesting anecdote. Whenever my late father—


    who was, obviously, a Kashmiri—ran into a hato, he would bring him home,
    seat him in the vestibule and treat him to some Kashmiri salty tea and
    kulchas. Then he would tell the hato proudly, “I’m also a kosher.”

    Pundit-ji, you are a kosher too. By God, if you want my life, it is yours for the
    asking. I know and believe that you have clung to Kashmir because, being a
    Kashmiri, you feel a sort of magnetic love for that land. Every Kashmiri,
    even if he has not seen Kashmir, should feel this way.
    2/5
    As I have already mentioned, I have been to Banihal only. I have seen
    places like Kud, Bataut and Kashtwar. I have seen their poverty alongside
    their beauty. If you have removed this poverty, then keep Kashmir to
    yourself. But I am sure you cannot do it, despite being a Kashmiri, because
    you have no time.

    Between us Pundit brothers, do this: call me back to India. First I will help
    myself to shaljam shabdeg at your place and then take over the
    responsibility for Kashmiri affairs. The Bakhshis and the rest of them
    deserve to be sacked right away. Cheats of the first order. For no reason
    you have given them such high status. Is that because this suits you? But
    why at all … ? I know you are a politician, which I am not. But that does not
    mean I don’t understand anything.

    The country was partitioned. Radcliffe put Patel to do the dirty work. You
    have illegally occupied Junagarh, which a Kashmiri could do only under the
    influence of a Maratha. I mean Patel. (God forgive him!)

    You are a litterateur in English. Over here, I write short stories in Urdu, a
    language which is being wiped out in your country. Pundit-ji, I often read
    your statements which indicate that you hold Urdu dear. I heard one of
    your speeches on the radio at the time the country was divided. Everyone
    admired your English. But when you broke into so called Urdu, it seemed
    as though some rabid Hindu Mahasabha member had translated your
    English speech, which was obviously not to your liking. You were stumbling
    on every sentence. I cannot imagine how you agreed to read it aloud.

    It was the time when Radcliffe had turned India into two slices of a single
    loaf of bread. It is regrettable that they have not been toasted yet. You’re
    toasting it from that side, and we, from this side. But the flames in our
    braziers are coming from outside.

    Pundit-ji, this is the season for babbogoshas. I have eaten lots of goshas, but
    I long to eat babbogoshas. What injustice that you have given Bakshi all the
    rights over them and he does not send me even a few as a gift!

    Well, let the gift go to hell, babbogoshas too…. No, on second thought, let
    them be. Actually, I wanted to ask you: Why don’t you read my books? If
    you have read them, I am sorry to say that you have never appreciated
    them.

    3/5
    Saadat Hasan Mantoo

    However, it is more regrettable if you have not read them at all, because
    you are a writer yourself.

    I have one more grievance against you. You are stopping water from
    flowing in our rivers, and taking a cue from you, the publishers in your
    capital are hurriedly publishing my books without my permission. Is this
    proper? I thought that no such unseemly act could be perpetrated under
    your regime. You can find out right away how many publishers in Delhi,
    Lucknow, and Jallundhar have pirated my books.

    Several suits have already been filed against me on charges of obscenity.

    But look at the injustice that in Delhi, right under your nose, a publisher
    brings out the collection of my stories and calls it The Obscene Stories of
    Manto. I wrote the book Ganje Farishte. An Indian publisher has published it
    as Behind the Curtains.… Now tell me, what should I do?

    I have written a new book. This letter addressed to you is the preface to it.
    If this book, too, is pirated, then by God I will reach Delhi some day, catch
    you by the throat and will not let go.… I will cling to you in such a manner

    4/5
    that you will remember it your whole life. Every morning you will have to
    treat me to salty tea along with a kulcha. Shaljam shabdeg, in any case, will
    have to be there every week.

    As soon as the book is out, I will send you a copy. I hope you will
    acknowledge receipt and let me know your opinion of it.

    You may smell the scent of burnt meat in this letter of mine. You know
    there was a poet in our Kashmir, Ghani by name, who was well known as
    “Ghani Kashmiri.” A poet from Iran came to visit him. The doors of his
    house were open. He used to say, “What’s there in my house that I should
    keep the doors locked? Well, I keep the doors closed when I am inside the
    house because I am its only asset.” The poet from Iran left his poetry
    notebook in the vacant house. One couplet in that notebook was
    incomplete. He had composed the second line but could not do the first
    one. The second line ran thus: “The smell of kebab is wafting from your
    clothes.” When the Iranian poet returned and looked in his notebook, he
    found the first line written there: “Has the hand of a blighted soul touched
    your fore-cloth?”

    Pundit-ji, I am also a blighted soul. I’ve taken issue with you because

    I am dedicating this book to you.

    Saadat Manto

    27 August 1954

    (Translated from the Hindi version of the original Urdu by M Asaduddin )

    5/5

    You might also like