Manto worked for the All India Radio during the Second World War. His stories about the struggles and the bitter realities of partition set him apart, because he knew how to shred every level of detail and express it powerfully.
On his birth anniversary today, we remember ten of his most powerful quotes that will help you get to know him and bask in the glory of his wisdom forever.
- Manto wrote this epitaph for himself: "Here lies Saadat Hasan Manto, in whose bosom are enshrined all the secrets and art of short story writing. Buried under mounds of earth, even now he is contemplating whether he is a greater short story writer or God."
- “If you cannot bear these stories then the society is unbearable. Who am I to remove the clothes of this society, which itself is naked. I don't even try to cover it, because it is not my job, that's the job of dressmakers.”
- “A man remains a man no matter how poor his conduct. A woman, even if she were to deviate for one instance, from the role given to her by men, is branded a whore. She is viewed with lust and contempt. Society closes on her doors it leaves ajar for a man stained by the same ink. If both are equal, why are our barbs reserved for the woman?”
- “He catches the thieves that lie in the hearts of their pure and respectable wives. And he compares them to the purity in the heart of a whore in a brothel.”
- “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 … slave of barbarity and inhumanity.”
- "War has brought inflation even to the graveyard."
- "But love, whether in Multan or on Siberia’s icy tundra, whether in the winter or the summer, whether among the rich or the poor, whether among the beautiful or the ugly, whether among the crude or refined, love is always just love. There’s no difference."
- “A little ahead was a shop burnt in the riots. A man now sat inside with two large slabs of ice on the floor. A thought came to me: ‘At last the poor shop has the chance to cool itself.”
- “We’ve been hearing this for some time now — Save India from this, save it from that. The fact is that India needs to be saved from the people who say it should be saved.”
- “You would have realized that it wasn't Mumtaz, a muslim, a friend of yours, but a human being you had killed. I mean, if he was a bastard, by killing him you wouldn't have killed the bastard in him; similarly, assuming that he was a Muslim, you wouldn't have killed his Muslimness, but him.”