The Dog of Tithwal

There are writers who you always come back to because they've mastered the craft, Saadat Hasan Manto is a one among them. His best short stories reveal how rich spareness can be. I loved the compilation, with a good mix of his popular stories and many uncelebrated works. And I'm glad I found few gems.

"They were living a pretension and they were quite happy with it. Saugandhi had argued to herself that, if one was unable to buy real gold, one might as well settle for what looked like gold."
(From A Woman’s Life)

When I chanced upon this book I was excited to read it, as I vividly recall reading a friend’s fabulous introduction to Manto’s stories in her review of the collection Bitter Fruit: The Very Best of Saadat Hasan Manto.

Saadat Hasan Manto (1912-1955) was born in the Punjab and lived and worked as a screenwriter in Bombay and Delhi before moving to Lahore in 1948. He wrote radio dramas, essay collections, one novel and a handful of film scripts and 22 collections of short stories. He is best remembered for his stories on the India-Pakistan Partition and regarded as the greatest chronicler of this ugly episode in the region’s history, exposing and denunciating the brutality and absurdity of it.

The scope of the stories selected from this collection is broader than the tribulations of communalism and covers other aspects of life in India at those times(1919-1947) as well, also holding stories focussing for instance on the position of women, the relations between men and women or stories which are dressed in a more absurd, dreamlike or even slightly comical attire (as in the sarcastic God-Man, poking fun at religion and superstition).

Apart from the rare moments in which sweetness of life or a romantic mood (Kingdom’s End strikes a character, the language is mostly unadorned, laconic and precise – a pared-down way of storytelling that perfectly suits the often raw substance of the stories, which wouldn’t attune with any softening by flowery language.

The 32 stories in this collection have been translated from Urdu into English by four different translators. Many deal with the Partition, the maddening communal violence, the brutality and inhumanity of its repercussions on ordinary people, showing how Muslim, Hindu an Sikh neighbours, friends, army comrades are torn apart and pushed to take sides and fight each other (like in the titular story The dog of Tithwal and in the haunting closing story The last salute in which friends formerly fighting united in the same army now find each other on opposite sides, or in his perhaps most renowned story Tobha Tek Singh, in which the residents of an asylum have to be transferred and distributed over the two new countries according to their religious obedience and an old man cannot fathom his home village is simply wiped out from the map and history – as he is himself). These stories and the atrocities they document are disconcerting to read, to say the least. The bitterness of Manto about Partition is tangible, the stories are sharp and wounding like shrapnel.

Other stories refer to the freedom movement and the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre which took place in Amritsar in 1919 (Manto was seven at the time) as a tipping point in rising Indian national consciousness. Some stories evoke the stamina and resilience one needs to live and to earn in a living in the big city. Moving back and forth between pimps, petty criminals, prostitutes and the big city’s intellectual and artistic circles, Manto takes the reader from Amritsar to Bombay as a painter of life as it was lived in the vibrant streets of the big city, throbbing with life – and with melancholy.

Some of the gut-wrenching endings reminded me of the lugubrious stories of Guy de Maupassant because of their well-paced escalating into ferocious gruesomeness (the short stories of Guy de Maupassant are considered one of the influences of Manto; in the foreword, written by Vijay Sheshadri, Chekhov and Poe are mentioned as influences as well).

Thematising love, loneliness, family honour, desire, lust, alcohol, Manto touches on themes which seem more than delicate and remarkably irreverent and frank in the context he wrote (he was put on trial six times for obscenity, seen as subversive, a menace to society). In just a few words he shows how rape is systemic in the violence –as in every war. Not that Manto solely depicts women as victims of the violence and oppression: his women are often fierce, courageous, proud and agile human beings outsmarting clumsy men; Manto makes clear men, in the case they are not directly the subject of violence themselves, also suffer from the abuse and oppression of women, standing powerless and grieving when they have been unable to prevent the abuse or murder of their sisters, friends or daughters (The Return, Mozail)..

In Manto’s own words: “If you find my stories dirty, the society you are living in is dirty. With my stories I only expose the truth”.

And this truth, as the poet Vijay Sheshadri writes so astutely in his excellent and enlightening introduction, stuns the reader into silence.

3.75 "sociological tales of the underclass" stars !!

Thank you to Netgalley, the author/translators and Archipelago. This English translation was released September 2021. I am providing my honest review.

For the past month I have been reading one story per day to my partner (usually in the morning over yoghurt and scones) and discussing with him not just the narrative but the structure, history and sociology of each. This was incredibly enriching and sweet but also stress reducing as we were in the midst of a temporary move that was very stressful. Yesterday we broke the pattern and read five of the stories to celebrate the first day in our new temporary home in a village where we will stay for up to a year. These stories put our stress in perspective as we are not facing war, displacement, poverty or threats to our lives and well being. Very humbling and cathartic and helpful.

This author was a very prolific South Asian writer that died much too young at the age of 43 in 1965. He wrote in Urdu and is considered by many to be one of the greatest short story writers.

This is a collection of 33 stories and they are multifaceted and includes hyper realistic drama, satire, romance, war stories and even some tragicomic soapy fun...oh and a really excellent noir or two. He writes about the underclasses, the forgotten, prostitutes, lay-abouts and patriots. A wonderful concoction that make you feel that you are right there in the action as you seep up fear, sadness and a great smattering of laughter.

My partner gives this five shining stars and considers it one of the greatest collection of short stories that he has read (well heard) My feelings are more measured but equally enthusiastic.

As well the translations were absolutely superlative....probably the most consistently superb that I have read.

There was not a bad story in the bunch and they ranged from average good (2.5 stars) to perfect (5 stars).

In this review I will only list my 5 favorites with a brief thought/description:

5. Kingdom's End (4.5 stars) a romantic tale of a homeless lay-about and his young female telephone paramour

4. Mummy (4.5 stars) a long magical story of an aged madam and her entourage in the city of Poona

Bronze : Barren (4.5 stars) a shockingly excellent story of a writer and his desperate acquaintance...one of the finest literary depictions I have read of somebody with Avoidant personality disorder

Silver: Mozail (4.5 stars) a crazy tragicomedy of religious intolerance, lust and love between a Jewish woman and a Sikh man.

Gold: Ten Rupees (5 stars) a teenage prostitute makes herself joyful for an evening spent with three men at a beach....tremendously beautiful and sad

A most worthwhile read for those of you that love world literature !