SANA MAHMOOD

KARACHI: Nonconformist Saadat Hasan Manto (who died at the age of 43 : 1912-1955) was born to poor parents based in Kashmir.

Manto grew up in a hard-up Amritsar home listening to tales narrated by his mother and sister.

Malingerer Manto, who  fared hopelessly in school, opted to learn from the university of life. His teachers were street urchins, substance abusers, photographers, writers and radicals.

Impoverished existence, blended with the stories imbibed since infancy, transformed him into an untamed rebel who penned 22 collections of short stories, a novel, five radio play series, three collection of essays and two collections of personal sketches.

His work is drenched with the wretchedness he observed around him. Since he wrote without any reverence  for established orthodoxy, he was criticized for obscenity.

But, Manto shut the critics up by saying that if they found his stories dirty the society itself was dirty. He said that his stories only exposed the truth. 

Predictably he was shunned by his friends as the state tried him as many as half a dozen times for obscenity.

Though he paid the penalty for it, due to his contentious short stories – often manifesting his frankness about sex and sexuality –  Manto  is today known as one of the greatest contemporary writers.