Our literary circles are expected to celebrate the current year as Manto’s. Of course, the greatness or the importance of a writer does not depend on such rituals. They just provide an opportunity to revive our memory about the writer, to make a re-assessment of his works and pay homage to him. And so it happened, and what a rare happening, that the birth centenaries of our three top most writers belonging to modern Urdu literature have fallen in three consecutive years. We celebrated 2010 as the year of Noon Meem Rashid’s birth centenary, 2011 as the year of the birth centenary of Faiz. Now, 2012 is the year of Saadat Hasan Manto’s birth centenary. We hope that this occasion too will be celebrated in a befitting manner.
LUMS took the lead in this respect. It planned a full day programme, a seminar divided into four sessions beginning early morning and ending in the evening. A number of fiction writers and critics had been invited for this occasion from Karachi and Islamabad. The distinguished Indian critic, Professor Shamim Hanafi, had been invited from Delhi.
The inaugural session started with an address by the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Aadil, and was followed by the scholarly paper of Professor Hanafi, who presented a critical study of modern Urdu short story with particular reference to Manto. This inaugural session was followed by two sessions, where the participants, short story writers and critics from Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad heatedly discussed modern Urdu short story with reference to modern literary theories, which, coming from the West, have deeply influenced our modern short story.
One particular session was held in English which was devoted to the study of Manto with particular reference to Partition. Here participants included historian Ayesha Jalal, Professor Syed Naumanul Haq and Professor Farrukh Khan.
So such was the start of Manto’s year. Frankly speaking, at the seminar mostly modern Urdu short story, rather than Manto, was discussed. The session reserved exclusively for the discussion of Manto, was held in English. Obviously it was meant for the benefit of a particular class of our society, a class which has chosen English as the sole means of communication. So we should wait for other events where we will hopefully have the opportunity to discuss Manto in detail.
| Family OF Manto |
However, it should be granted that the subject of Manto in the English session had a significance of its own. Manto was already a controversial writer. He was in the true sense a rebel writer. He was under attack because of his bold expression and the treatment of the social situations in his stories. After Partition he said goodbye to Bombay and coming to Pakistan, settling in Lahore. Here his stories triggered off new controversies, which pertained more to his approach to the traumatic events during Partition than simply to his bold expression. In fact, we will not be able to understand Manto in this respect if we discuss him in isolation.
But I should better stop here as the limited space of this column does not allow me to be elaborate on this point. And as I am trying to conclude this column I have just received a newly published book on Manto. This should be taken as the first drop of the incoming rain. Published by Book Home, Lahore, under the title Afsanay — Saadat Hasan Manto, the book compiled by Rana Abdur Rahman, is a selection of 38 of Manto’s stories. They show Manto at his best. It is heartening to see that the first installment of Manto publications, which we expect throughout the year, is a good selection from Manto. Now we have the opportunity to refresh ourselves with regards to Manto before we come across revised critical studies of him.
No comments:
Post a Comment