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The recent retrospective on two famous
writers, Saadat Hasan Manto and
RETROSPECTIVES of films are a regular feature but August-end saw a unique literary retrospective at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi with a day and a half devoted to deliberating on the contribution of two towering writers of Urdu fiction, Ismat Chughtai (1911-1991) and Saadat Hasan Manto (1912-1955). This event, conceptualised by writer Namita Gokhale, was not a cut and dried academic affair but a vibrant celebration of the writings and lives of these two writers by poets Gulzar, Javed Akhtar and Padma Sachdev along with historians, academics, publishers and other writers. To get into the struggle of these writers who were laying bare the soul of the Indian society as it struggled for independence from British rule, one could well begin from a January afternoon in the Bombay of 1942. Ismat Chughtai had prepared the feed for her two-month-old baby girl Seema and was waiting for the milk to cool when a policeman arrived with the summons from a Lahore court. Ismat read the title and burst into peals of laughter, for it said: "Ismat Chughtai vs the Crown". Later she was to write: "Ya Khuda! I wondered what complaint the exalted King had against me that he had filed the suit?" The suit charged her with obscenity in her story Lihaaf (Quilt) which spoke of same-sex relations in zenana as seen through the bewildered eyes of an adolescent girl. The same evening, Manto, who too lived in Bombay then, telephoned her that he too had received summons on similar charges for a story of his. It is interesting to note here that Manto was charged as many as six times for obscenity, thrice before Independence in India and thrice after Independence in Pakistan. However, he was acquitted each time, whereas Ismat was accused twice for the same story. One case was dismissed and in the other she was convicted and had to pay a fine of Rs 50 or so. Once Manto had written: "If Ismat had been a man, she would have been me, and if I had been a woman, I would have been Ismat." However, literary critics pointed out that there was a difference as one went into their writings. Ritu Menon, publisher, Women Unlimited, said: "While Ismat wrote about women’s sexuality, Manto wrote about the sexual exploitation of women." Padma and Javed regaled the houseful audience of their memories of the brave and bold Ismat Appa. Gulzar said he did not know her too well, but he always made it a point to go and wish her when he saw her. Sukrita Pal, who was one of the organisers of the event, also recounted how the Progressive Writers’ Association was often at odds with these wild children of literature. When one talks of Manto and Ismat, it is but natural to address the problem of censorshiop which those days need not come from the Crown but the mob, an individual or a jealous contemporary of the same tribe. The second emphasis was on Partition. Whereas Manto is regarded as the chronicler of the pain as well as the shame of Partition, an amalgamation of Ismat’s stories led to the making of the most authentic film on the theme: M.S. Sathyu’s Garam Hava. The event included a
film called Ismat and Annie which looked at the fondness the
two shared in spite of ideological differences between Ismat and
Qurratulain Haider. There were some very evocative dramatic readings
from Ismat and Manto by Ghazala Amin. It was a surprise to many that
the audience came in aplenty braving the heavy rain. The event was a
success and as Namita summed up: "The event was celebrating the
legacy of these two writers who could look critically at their times
and gaining strength from them to be able to look critically at our
times."
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