Manto Kahaniyan – منٹو کہانیاں

Before @parh_likh so graciously sent me منٹو کہانیاں to read, I had only heard about him. If half of the world raVed about his افسانے, the other half raGed at his audacity to not only write explicit content but publish it as well.

I vowed to myself to read a hundred pages a day of this 700 plus paged book, and it didn’t prove to be difficult. The book entails seven(!) anthologies of Manto. One of those anthologies is published for the first time in print!

While I didn’t quite get a few endings ,(منٹو کو سمجھنا آسان تو نہیں) I enjoyed a lot of stories. شہید ساز was my absolute favorite in which a man starts killing people in creative ways so they’ll face an accidental death, granting them the rank of a martyr (سیدھا جنت میں اینٹری), and in that way he’ll do some very unwelcome khidmat-e-khalq.

If I keep our regional literature in mind, there were a few things that some people may find objectionable, but what’s literature if not the truth of the life that surrounds you?

All in all, I immensely enjoyed reading منٹو کہانیاں and would recommend it to every adult who reads.