Some Glimpses
of Manto’s Life in Lahore
By Dr Afzal Mirza
US
I first saw Manto in 1951
when I was a student of the Government College
Lahore. He had arrived in the city in early 1948
and had started living at 31 Laxmi Mansions on
Beadon Road in close proximity of the famous The
Mall.
Those were almost newly constructed flats where
many future stalwarts of the country had come
to live after the partition of the sub-continent.
Manto’s family stayed in a flat next to
the one occupied by his nephew Hamid Jalal.
In 1947 Manto was in Bombay in a state of confusion
whether to join his family in Pakistan or to continue
to live in Bombay. That is why he wrote, “I
was really insane perhaps. My wife and children
were in Pakistan when it was a part of India .
From time to time some Hindu-Muslim riots would
take place in that area but I understood it. But
what this new name (Pakistan) had made of that
piece of land was beyond my comprehension.What
is self-rule? I had no concept of it…I couldn’t
understand which was my country Hindustan or Pakistan
and whose blood was spilling so callously every
day? Where would they bury or burn those bones
whose flesh had been devoured by vultures. Now
that we had become independent who would be our
slaves? And there was the question whether we
had actually got independence or not?.There were
answers to these question but those were Indian
Answers, Pakistani Answers and British Answers….Hindustan
had become free. Pakistan had become independent
soon after its inception but man was still slave
in both these countries — slave of prejudice
… slave of religious fanaticism …s
lave of barbarity and inhumanity.”( Murli
Ki Dhun)
So one day he suddenly decided to leave India
and arrived in Lahore to join his family at 31
Laxmi Mansions.
In his autobiographical novel Raakh (Ashes) writer
Mustansar Husain Tarar has mentioned in details
of this building where Tarar’s family also
shifted from Gowalmandi. “The Laxmi Mansion
or present day Ahmad Mansion whose face opened
on the Mall was a representative building of colonial
architecture after Dinga Singh Building. Beadon
Road was on its right side and Hall Road was on
the left side of its three-storied flat area.”
Tarar has drawn a picture of the people who lived
in the flats at that time, ”There was a
big banyan tree in the grassy courtyard in the
middle of the area beyond which was the house
of Akmal and his sisters. Beyond that lived G.M.Asar.
On this side it was Lari Sahib … Khurshid
Shahid used to come out of her flat fully made
up with a flower tucked in her tied hair. In the
next flat was Agha Baqar, the grandson of Maulana
Muhammad Husain Azad.”
Tarar writes of how the hero of his novel comes
across Manto one night. “Both of them walked
carefully in the darkness of the Mansion up to
the flat of Qureshis when they found a man sitting
in front of the house. His white dress was visible
in the darkness. ‘He is Manto Sahib –
somewhat sick. Can you escort him to his house?
You hold him from the other side…’
Both of them drew near and helped him walk. What
help could they give him because they would hardly
reach his back. But Manto had very softly rested
his hands on their shoulders as if they were his
friends. In the darkness he was dragging his sandals
and his starched pajama was rustling like a starched
paper. ‘Who are you, my boys?’ Manto
stopped to catch his breath. There was som thing
in his breath which appeared strange to Mushahid.
‘This is Mushahid Manto Sahib. They are
new arrivals in flat number 17 which is on Hall
Road side.’ ‘A good boy he is…’,
Manto said pressing his shoulder. Taj rang the
bell of his flat and Safia Apa came out immediately.
She was waiting perhaps … white complexioned
with air of innocence on her face, her glasses
were again and again slipping over her nose. ‘Well
done son . .. Safia said receiving Manto. ‘This
is Mushahid and a good boy…’ Manto
told Safia while entering the house and during
next many years whenever he escorted Manto to
his house he would always say the same sentence
to Safia.’”
Then after reading Manto’s short story Mozaille
the hero of the novel Mushahid (i.e. Tarar himself)
felt a strange sensation because of explicit description
of breasts of Mozaille and would feel some sort
of embarrassment confronting Manto “as if
that milky scene was not witnessed by Manto but
he himself and then he would look intently at
Manto’s glaring eyes behind the thick lenses
of his glasses thinking that some remnant of that
scene might still be left in those eyes. But he
would always remember Manto’s habit of walking
straight in the direction of his nose and if he
would find any stone or piece of a brick on the
sidewalk or road would bend to pick it up and
put it aside abusing the unknown doer of this
bad deed.”
In a recent article on Laxmi Mansion journalist
Yasser Hamdani wrote,” Today his (Manto’s)
daughter resides in the house which has become
a memorial of sorts to the man hailed as Pakistan’s
most gifted writer. The plaque that indicates
that Manto once resided in the building has been
vandalized with graffiti. ‘People often
come looking to find material about Manto and
we try and help the best we can,’ Nighat
Patel, Manto’s daughter, said. Meraj Khalid
also lived here for a large part of his life.
Lakshmi Mansion thus served on several occasions
as the residence of the chief minister, National
Assembly speaker and finally the prime minister
of the country. There is also a beautiful park
in the centre of this historical locality. Trees
in this park are said to be over a 100 years old.”
As I mentioned in the beginning Manto came to
the Government College some time in 1951. He had
been in Lahore for at least three years trying
to make his both ends meet by writing incessantly.
His Laxmi Mansion neighbor Prof G.M.Asar who taught
Urdu in Government College brought him to this
special meeting of Majlis-e-Iqbal. Manto left
a good impression on the staff and students of
the College. Among the teachers one could name
Sufi Tabassum, Safdar Mir, Ashfaq Ali Khan, Dr
Ajmal, Dr Sadiq, Dr Nazir Ahmad and G.M.Asar .
Among the students one could count Ashfaq Ahmad,
Muzaffar Ali Syed, Shahzad Ahmad, Akhtar Ahsan,
Javed Shaheen and many other budding writers.
As a tradition Majlis used to hold its meetings
in the college staff room. But on that occasion
the staff room fell short of space because a large
number of students came to listen to Manto. Many
of them therefore watched from the corridors.
It seemed that he still had the imprint of the
Bombay days on his personality. Looking as if
in his early forties he had a glowing Kashmiri
complexion and wore a light brown gabardine sheervani
with a white boski pajama and a white saleem shahi
sandal in his feet. He had a thick crop of brown
hair on his head and a thick-rimmed pair of glasses
was perched on his nose.
Manto read his essay entitled “How I write
a short story.” Manto had his unique style
of writing simple prose and would read it slowly
giving pauses at appropriate places. That evening
he mesmerized his audience with his personality
and his reading style. He was generally in a pleasant
mood and answered the questions of students in
his usual blunt style. After that introductory
meeting we found that Manto was already a familiar
figure in the literary circles and was a frequent
visitor to the Pak Tea House and YMCA Board Room
where the literati usually met. One of his favorite
place was the office of monthly “Director”
situated in the Commercial Building not far away
from the Tea House. Since the son of the proprietor
of the magazine Ch Fazal Haq was our College fellow
therefore we were frequent visitor to that office
which was also often visited by other famous writers
as the magazine paid ready remuneration.
The editor of the magazine was Shabab Kairanvi
who later on became a famous film director. Those
days he was working on his first film venture
Jalan and many people would not know that one
of the songs of the movie was written by Manto
which was filmed on dancer Rakhshi. That was perhaps
the only song he ever wrote for a movie. The song
had some objectionable Urdu word in its main line
and was censored out by the board. In the Director’s
office Manto would come, take a paper and pen,
sit in the adjoining room, write something and
leave after collecting his remuneration. During
those visits I had observed that Manto was fast
losing his health. His brownish hair had gone
thinner and were graying fast and his glowing
complexion was losing its radiance. His big eyes
that darted out of the glasses had turned yellow.
All this was due to his use of substandard liquor.
I remember that one evening (and it was 1954 perhaps)
I went to attend a function at the YMCA Hall to
celebrate the recovery of Maulana Chiragh Hasan
Hasrat from heart attack. The meeting was in progress
when Manto arrived accompanied by his wife Safia.
He was in high spirits and asked the permission
of the chairman of the meeting to read an article
on Hasrat Sahib. which he was allowed to do. The
sketch entitled ‘The Bull and a Dog’
is present in his second book of sketches entitled
‘Loud Speaker.’ As he proceeded with
his sketch in which he had highlighted the boozing
habit of Maulana the chair person stopped him
and asked him to leave the stage. Manto protested
and squatted on the floor till his wife escorted
him out. In the book ‘Loud Speaker’
Manto has written about the incidence but in a
different perspective. Manto thought that Hasrat
Sahib got upset from his reading and his supporters
prepared to create a scene. So he sat on the floor
to ask Hasrat’s forgiveness but he did not
agree so he quit.
In the same article, Manto had mentioned that
he was suffering from a disease called Liver Cirrhosis
and had spent three months in the Mayo Hospital
where doctors saved him. During the same period
the Punjabi Cultural Society of Safdar Mir held
its annual meeting which was presided over by
Maulana Abdul Majid Salik. I saw Manto walking
in. One couldn’t say whether he was in high
spirits. In the meeting I had been asked to present
a short story and I became quite nervous to read
it out in the presence of Manto. Thank God all
went well. Then there was an article on Punjabi
Bolis by Muhammad Asaf Khan after which a competition
ensued between Ustad Daman and Manto and they
recited some of the most obscene bolis to the
embarrassment of the chairperson.
Though Manto’s presence would generally
enervate the organizers but in that particular
meeting it enlivened the atmosphere. And then
I remember that it was the annual meeting of the
Halqae-Arbab-e-Zauq where Manto read out his short
story ‘Toba Tek Singh.’ The hall on
that day was full to capacity and as Manto gradually
proceeded with his story the whole audience was
captivated by its theme and Manto’s rendition.
Due to his life-long association with the film
industry Manto used to dramatize the reading of
dialogues. That day it was Manto’s best
performance. I remember that as Manto neared the
climax of the story where the mad Sikh falls dead
on the no man’s land between the borders
of the two countries there was pin drop silence
in the hall and almost every eye was full of tears.
The story reflected Manto’s own reaction
to what had happened after the partition and the
agony he had personally gone through. That was
perhaps his last performance. Then on a cold January
day he breathed his last in the Mayo Hospital
Lahore.
The news spread like a jungle fire and soon the
green park of the Laxmi Mension filled up with
his friends and admirers. It was the same place
where he had spent seven years of his life, a
period of self-destruction during which he gave
to the world his many master-pieces. Manto died
on 18th January 1955.
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