“THE more I read of Manto, the more impelled I was to write about him one day. It was just a question of timing. When my sister-in-law mentioned something about her father’s letters to his mother, my ears pricked up. I was soon helping her organise Manto’s papers.” This is how Ayesha Jalal started her research on Manto, which gradually led to the book, The Pity of Partition (Oxford University Press, Karachi). The research discusses Manto, the man and the writer, in the context of Partition, a harrowing experience which influenced him deeply.

But here I have limited myself to the early years of Manto’s life. The reason is that in the absence of a reliable account of his early life, fantastic stories were put about with particular reference to his family relationships. Now we have a detailed account based on credible research, which can be relied upon.

The researcher belongs to the same family, though she was born after Manto’s death. But since her early years she had been hearing so much about Manto Abajan that she had developed a fascination for him. In spite of that, “researching on Manto Abajan,” she says, “has been quite a revelation. There were so many aspects of his personality, life, and work that I did not know. The experience was immensely rewarding.” However, as Jalal enjoys the reputation of a genuine historian, we can expect her to keep up her historian’s impartiality in her account of Manto Abajan.

She discusses Manto in relation to his family, beginning with him as a son who could never carry the favour of his respectable father as an obedient son. That had to be so. Manto was a born rebel, who could not reconcile with the social values his father adored. Manto’s father wanted Manto to be educated in a formal way to adopt a respectable profession like his elder brothers. “A contrarian by nature,” Jalal writes, “Manto only strengthened his resolve not to conform or compromise in the face of familiar disapproval of his lifestyle. When his father’s pressure on him to pass his school-leaving examination became unbearable, Manto decided to drop the science subjects in favour of Persian and Urdu.”

However, as Jalal tells us, “outside the constraints of formal schooling he proved to be a swift learner and an avid reader of revolutionary literature.” Bhagat Singh was now his hero.

But, according to Jalal, the decisive moment in Manto’s life came in April 1933 when, at the age of 21, he met Bari Alig. Bari was not interested in literature. He mostly wrote polemics on Hegel and Marx, but it was under his influence and guidance that Manto got involved in the translations of French and Russian fiction. Short story writers such as Maupassant and Chekov in particular attracted his attention. And he translated extensively all such writers.

After giving full credit to Bari for influencing a wayward young man to embark on a literary career, Jalal adds that “the ground work had been laid much earlier. Two individuals, both women, encouraged Saadat’s penchant for storytelling; his mother, whom he called Bibijan and his elder sister Iqbal, whose flair for telling captivating yarns in simple but sophisticated Urdu has been one of the better kept family secrets.” After talking about the deep love and regard of the brother for the sister, Jalal talks about mother’s love and care for her son. It was after Manto’s departure to Bombay that his mother started writing letters to him. It was during this period that she felt the pangs of separation from her dear son. The letters she wrote to him speak of her deep love and care for her son. “Bibijan,” says Jalal, “read his stories with rapt enthusiasm, recording her approval where she felt it was due and actively engaging with their plots and characters in detail.” Here is a letter she wrote to Manto:

“Saadat, may God give you a long life. By God’s grace you are very clever and promising […] Steer away from contention and vice, and my darling son God will shower you with His blessings. May you shine forth and be respected in every corner of the world.”

As for Manto’s relationship with his brothers, Jalal tells us that it was cordial and correct, but never close. Differences in upbringing and age, not to mention their clashing lifestyles, kept them miles apart emotionally, intellectually and spiritually.

Jalal quotes Manto saying that his proclivity for storytelling was quite simply a product of the tensions generated by the clashing influences of a stern father and a gentle-hearted mother. From this she infers “that an understanding of Manto’s family history, therefore, is enormously helpful in illuminating the complexities of his personality and the context for his development as a writer.”

Manto was a born rebel, who could not reconcile with the social values his father adored. “A contrarian by nature,” Jalal writes, “Manto only strengthened his resolve not to conform or compromise in the face of familiar disapproval of his lifestyle.”