Revolutionary! Saadat Hasan Manto

From
Saleem’s repeated failure, people conclude that he is a wanderer and
incompetent… This is completely slander. As a close friend of Saleem, I can
say with confidence that Saleem’s mind is very bright. If he had paid even a
little attention to his studies, there was no reason why he would not have been
first in the entire province. Now the question arises here that why did he not
pay attention to his studies?

As far as my
mind works, I know that the whole reason for this is the thoughts that were
slowly permeating his heart and mind for a long time.

By the time
he entered the tenth grade and college, Saleem’s mind was free from all the
confusion that had confined him to the confines of the mental asylum. During
his college days, he used to participate in every game like other students. He
was the darling of all the boys, but suddenly the sudden death of his father
covered his smiling face with a veil of sadness… Now, games were replaced by
contemplation.

What were
the thoughts that arose in Saleem’s troubled mind? I do not know. Studying
Saleem’s psychology is a very important task. Besides, he himself was
unfamiliar with his own inner voice. Many times, while talking or just walking,
he suddenly grabbed my arm and said. “Abbas ji wants to…”

“Yes,
yes, what does ji want?” I asked, focusing all my attention on him. But
the unusual change in his face and the clash of breath in his throat on my
inquiry clearly showed that he could not express his heartfelt desire in words
without recognizing it himself.

The person
who can present his feelings in some form and transfer them to another mind
actually has the power to lighten the burden of his heart. And the person who
feels but does not understand his feelings well and then does not have the
power to express this anxiety is equivalent to the person who is trying to pull
out a lump stuck in his throat but it keeps going down the throat… This is a
mental torment that cannot be described in words.

Salim has
been unfamiliar with his own voice from the very beginning and how could it
happen when a crowd of thoughts used to gather in his chest and sometimes it
has happened that he has stood up from his seat and started walking around the
room and taking long breaths… Probably, he was tired of his inner turmoil and
tried to expel the thoughts that were circulating in his chest like steam
through his breath. In these painful moments of anxiety, he often addressed me
and said. “Abbas, this khaki boat will one day not be able to withstand
the strong waves and will crash into the rocks and break into pieces… I fear
that… “

He could not
fully express his fear.

Salim was
certainly waiting for some expected accident, but he did not know in what form
that accident would appear on the screen of appearance… His eyes had been
seeing an illusory shadow in the form of blurred thoughts for a long time,
which was moving towards him, but he could not tell what was hidden in this dark
form.

I have tried
very hard to understand Salim’s psychology, but with his turbulent habits, I
have never been able to know to what depths he was diving. And what he wanted
to do for his future while living in this world, while after the death of his
father, he was deprived of all kinds of capital.

I had been
watching Salim’s turbulent life for a long time, his habits were changing day
by day… Yesterday’s playful boy, my classmate, was turning into a thinker…
This change was a great surprise to me.

For some
time, an unusual calm had overshadowed Salim’s nature. When you see him sitting
quietly in his house, holding his heavy head on his knees and thinking about
something… He himself, like me, did not know what he was thinking. At these
moments, I have often seen him rubbing the iron lid of a metal or the outer
part of a glass over his hot eyes… Perhaps he wanted to reduce the heat of
his eyes by this action.

Saleem had
started studying a huge number of works by foreign authors as soon as he left
college. At first, I saw a book on his desk. Then gradually, books began to
appear in the cupboard where he kept chess, cards and other similar games…
Apart from that, he used to go out of the house for many days.

As far as I
am concerned, the extraordinary calmness of Saleem’s nature was the result of
the tireless study of these books that he had arranged in the cupboard with
great care.

As Saleem’s
dearest friend, I was deeply troubled by the extraordinary calmness of his
nature. I feared that this calm was the prelude to some terrible storm.
Besides, I was also very concerned about Saleem’s health. He was already very
weak, and he had gotten himself into God knows what kind of trouble. Saleem was
barely twenty years old, but he had dark circles under his eyes from staying up
all night. His forehead, which had been perfectly smooth before, was now lined
with wrinkles… which indicated his mental distress. They used to show it. The
face that had been so youthful some time ago now had deep lines between the nose
and the lips that made Salim look prematurely old. I have seen this
extraordinary change take place before my eyes. It seems to me nothing less
than a miracle. How strange it is that a boy of my age should grow old before
my eyes.

Salim is in
a madhouse. There is no doubt about it. But that does not mean that he is
rotten and crazy. He has probably been sent to a madhouse because he makes loud
speeches in the markets. He grabs passers-by and asks them for answers by
telling them the difficult problems of life, and takes off the clothes of the
children of the nobles dressed in silk and dresses them up for the naked
children… It is possible that these actions are signs of madness according to
the doctors, but I can say with certainty that Salim is not crazy, but those
who have imprisoned him in a cage of iron bars, considering him a disturber of
public order, are no less than a mad animal.

If he wants
to convey his message to the people through his incoherent speech, is it not
their duty to listen to every word of it carefully?

If he wants
to exchange ideas on the philosophy of life with passers-by, will this mean
that his existence is harmful to the social circle? Is it not the duty of every
human being to be aware of the true meanings of life?

If he strips
the children of the rich and covers the naked children of the poor, does this
act not make those people aware of their duties who are living a comfortable
life at the expense of other people in skyscrapers? Is covering the naked an
act that should be attributed to madness?

Salim is not
crazy at all, but I admit that his thoughts have definitely made him crazy. In
fact, he wants to send some message to the world but cannot. Like a young
child, he wants to express his heartfelt feelings, but the words fall apart as
soon as they come to his tongue.

He was
suffering from mental torture before, but now he has been put under even more
torture. He is already caught in the confusion of his thoughts and now he has
been imprisoned in a prison-like cell. Isn’t this injustice?

I have not
seen any movement of Saleem till date from which I can conclude that he is mad,
but for some time now I have definitely been observing his mental revolutions.

At first,
when I found all the furniture in his room moved from its place, I did not pay
much attention to this change. In fact, I thought at that time that perhaps
Saleem had found the current location of the furniture more suitable and the
fact is that my eyes, which were accustomed to seeing chairs and tables in one
place for many years, that unexpected change was a very good teacher.

A few days
after this incident, when I entered Saleem’s room after graduating from
college, I saw that two pictures of film actors that had been hanging on the
walls of the room for a long time and which Saleem and I had provided after
much difficulty were torn in a basket outside and in their place, pictures of
different writers were hanging in the same frames… Since I myself was not
that fond of these pictures, I liked Saleem’s choice very much, so we even
talked about these pictures for a long time that day.

As far as I
remember, after this incident, no significant change took place in Saleem’s
room for a month, but after this period, one day I suddenly found a big couch
in the room on which Saleem had spread a cloth and selected books, and he was
busy writing something on the floor nearby with the support of a pillow. I was
very surprised to see this and as soon as I entered the room, I asked Saleem
this question. Why, Mian, what is the meaning of this couch?

Salim, as
was his habit, smiled and said. “My health has become tired of sitting on
chairs every day, now this floor routine will remain.”

The matter
was reasonable, I remained silent. Indeed, using the same thing every day
definitely makes one’s health worse, but when after fifteen or twenty days I
found that the chair with the pillow missing, there was no end to my surprise
and I suspected that my friend had really gone mad.

Salim has
become very hot-tempered. In addition, his heavy thoughts have made him more
irritable than usual. Therefore, I usually do not ask him such questions that
would disturb his mental balance or that would make him itch.

The change
of furniture, the revolution of pictures, the arrival of the chair and then its
disappearance are indeed somewhat surprising and it was necessary that I should
have found out the reason for these matters, but since I did not want to upset
Salim and interfere with his work, I remained silent.

After a
while, it became my habit to see some change in Saleem’s room every second or
third day… If the throne is in the room today, it has been removed from there
after a week. Two days later, the table that was lying on the right side of the
room some time ago was lifted from there overnight and placed on the other
side. The angles of the pictures kept on the mantelpiece are being changed. The
clothes pegs have been pulled from one place and attached to another. The sides
of the chairs have been changed, as if a kind of rule was being made with every
item in the room.

One day,
when I found all the furniture in the room facing the opposite direction, I
could not help but ask Saleem. “For a while, Saleem “I’ve been
watching this room change color like a chameleon. Tell me, is this some new
philosophy of yours?”

“You
don’t know, I’m a revolutionary.” Salim replied.

I was even
more surprised to hear this. If Salim had said these words with his usual
smile, I would have definitely thought that he was just joking, but while
answering this, his face was a witness to the fact that he was serious and
wanted to answer my question in those same words. But still I was in a state of
hesitation, so I said to him. “Are you kidding, man?”

“You’re
such a big revolutionary.” Saying this, he laughed openly.

I remember
that after that he started a conversation like this. But both of us had started
expressing our thoughts on some other topic… It is Salim’s habit to hide many
things under the veil of interesting conversation.

These days,
when I sometimes think about Salim’s answer, I realize That Salim has actually
become a revolutionary. This does not mean that he is seeking to overthrow an
empire or that he wants to spread terror by throwing bombs at intersections
like other revolutionaries. This is the reason why his eyes could not see the
objects lying in his room in one place. It is possible that my appearance is
wrong to some extent, but I can say with certainty that his quest refers to a
revolution, the traces of which are visible in the daily changes in his room.

At first
glance, turning over the objects in the room every day is tantamount to
semi-madness. But if Salim’s meaningless movements are studied in depth, it
will become clear that behind them a force was working that he himself was
unfamiliar with… This force, which I call mental prejudice, created turmoil
in Salim’s mind. And the result was that he, unable to withstand this storm,
spontaneously went crazy, and was imprisoned within the four walls of a
madhouse.

A few days
before going to the asylum, I suddenly found Salim drinking tea in a hotel in
the city. He and I sat in a small room. Because I wanted to have a conversation
with him. I had heard from some shopkeepers in my market that Salim was now
giving speeches like a madman in hotels. I wanted to meet him immediately and
stop him from doing such things. Besides, I was afraid that he might have gone
mad. Since I wanted to talk to him immediately, I thought it would be
appropriate to talk to him in the hotel itself.

While
sitting on the chair, I was looking carefully at Salim’s face. He was very
surprised to see me staring at him like that. He said… “Perhaps I am not
Salim.”

How much
pain was in his voice. Although this sentence may seem completely simple to
you, God is my witness, my eyes became moist involuntarily. “Maybe I’m not
Saleem.”…as if he had always expected that one day even his best friend
would not be able to recognize him. Maybe he knew that he had changed a lot.

I restrained
myself, and hiding my tears in a handkerchief, I placed my hand on his shoulder
and said.

“Saleem,
I have heard that after I went to Lahore, you have started giving speeches in
the markets here, you know, now the children of the city call you crazy.”

“Crazy,
the children of the city call me crazy… Crazy… Yes Abbas, I am crazy…
Crazy… Crazy… Demented… People call me crazy… Do you know why?”

Having said
this, he started looking at me questioningly from head to toe. But getting no
answer from me, he became speechless again.

“Because
I show them the naked children of the poor and ask them what can be the cure
for this increasing poverty? They cannot give me any answer, that is why they
consider me crazy… Oh, if only I knew how a ray of light can be provided in
this time of darkness. How can the dark future of thousands of poor children be
brightened.”

“They
call me crazy… Those whose lifeblood is indebted to the blood of others.
Those whose paradise has been built with the borrowed bricks of the hell of the
poor, those whose every string of their instrument of pleasure is laced with
the sighs of widows, the nakedness of orphans, the cries of orphaned
children… Yes, but a time is coming when this same Lord of Poverty will dip
his fingers in the common blood of their hearts and write his curses on the
foreheads of these people… The time is near when the gates of earthly
paradise will be open to everyone.”

“I ask,
if I am at ease, why should you live a life of suffering? Is this humanity that
I, the owner of a factory, watch a new dancer dance every night, spend hundreds
of rupees gambling every day in a club, and make myself happy by spending money
on my futile desires, while my workers do not get their daily bread. Their
children yearn for a clay toy. Then the joy is that I am civilized, I am
respected everywhere, and those whose sweat prepares jewels for me are looked
down upon in the circle of society. I myself hate them. Tell me, are these two
oppressors and oppressed people unaware of their duties?”

“I want
to make them aware of their duties, but how can I do it? I do not know.”

Salim gasped
after saying this, took a sip of cold tea, and without looking at me, he
started speaking again.

“I’m
not crazy I am… Think of me as a lawyer, without any hope, advocating for
something that has been completely lost… I am a suppressed voice… Humanity
is a mouth and I am a scream. I try to make my voice heard but it is drowned
out by the weight of my thoughts… I want to say so much but I cannot say
anything because I have so much to say, I do not know where to begin my
message. I offer scattered fragments of my voice. I try to present a few
thoughts as a preface out of the hazy mist of mental anguish. I bring a few feelings
from the depths of my feelings to the surface to be transferred to other minds
but the fragments of my voice are again scattered, the thoughts are again
hidden in the darkness. Feelings are drowned again, I cannot say
anything.”

“When I
see that my thoughts are gathering again after being scattered, wherever my
power of speech is useful, I address the leaders of the city and say:

“Makino
of the marble palaces, you see only the light of the sun in this vast universe,
but be assured that there are also shadows… You know me by the name of Salim,
this is a mistake… I am the trembling that comes over the body of a virgin
girl when, fed up with poverty, she begins to step into the house of sin for
the first time… Let us all tremble.”

“You
laugh, but you must listen to me, I am a diver. Nature has sunk me into the
depths of the dark sea so that I may find something… I have brought back a
priceless pearl, that is truth, in this search I have seen poverty, endured
hunger. I have suffered the hatred of people. I have seen the blood freezing in
the veins of the poor in winter, I have seen young girls adorning themselves
with luxurious clothes. Because they were forced to… Now I want to vomit this
in your face so that you may see the dark side of the picture of life.”

“Humanity
is one heart, there is only one kind of heart in every person. If your boots
stumble on the bare breasts of poor laborers, if you cool the blazing fire of
your sensual feelings by raping a poor neighbor girl, if through your negligence
thousands of orphans are raised in the cradle of ignorance and populate
prisons, if your heart is black as soot, then it is not your fault. The house
of society itself has been built in such a way that each roof presses against
its neighboring roof, each brick against another.”

“Do you
know what the current system means? …that it makes people’s breasts awash
with ignorance, that it makes the boat of human dignity float on the waves of
wind and lust. That it robs young girls of their virginity and forces them to
sell their beauty openly in the Chamber of Commerce. That it sucks the blood of
the poor and turns them into the same mass of ashes in the soil of the
grave…Is this what you call civilization…a terrible butchery, a dark
evil.”

“Ah, if
you could only see what I have seen. There are many people who are breathing
their last in the grave-like huts. There are people who are dying in front of
your eyes. There are girls who start prostitution at the age of twelve and
cling to the cold of the grave at the age of twenty… But you… Yes, you, who
spend hours thinking about the cut of your clothes, do not see this, but on the
contrary, you steal from the poor and increase the wealth of the rich, you give
it to the worker and the lazy. You take off the clothes of a man wearing a
cloth and hand them over to a man dressed in silk.”

“You
laugh at the endless suffering of the poor. But you do not know that if the
lower part of the tree is growing thin and dead, one day it will fall, unable
to bear the weight of the upper part.”

Having said
this, Salim fell silent and began to drink the cold tea slowly.

During the
speech, I sat silently like a man in a daze, listening intently to the words
that came out of his mouth, which were pouring down like rain. I was deeply
surprised that Saleem, who had been completely silent a short while ago, had
been able to continue such a long speech, how much his thoughts were based on
truth and how much impact his voice had. I was thinking about his speech when
he spoke again.

“The
families of the city are swallowed up by these naked bodies, the morals of the
people are distorted by laws. The wounds of the people are healed by fines. The
poverty is cut off by taxes. The darkness of ignorance is darkened by a
destroyed mentality. Everywhere there are the trembling sounds of the breath of
the state of emergency, nudity, sin and deceit. But the claim is that the
people are living a life of peace… Does this not mean that a black bandage is
being tied over our eyes. Molten lead is being poured out of our ears. Our
bodies are being made insensitive with the whip of suffering, so that we cannot
see, hear or feel…. Is not the man who was supposed to fly on high being
forced to crawl on the ground by plucking his hair and wings?… Are not the
buildings that deceive the eyes of the nobles made from the flesh and skin of
the workers?… Is not the seal of crimes stamped on the life certificate of
the people? Is the blood of evil in the veins of the assembly body Isn’t it a
joke? Isn’t the life of a citizen a mixture of struggle, tireless work and
endurance? Tell me, tell me, why don’t you tell me?”

“That’s
right.” I blurted out.

“Then
it’s your duty to cure it… Can’t you tell me some way to stop this human
humiliation?”

“But
ah, you don’t know, I don’t know myself.”

After a
while he held my hand and said in a confidential tone. “Abbas, the people
are suffering terribly. Sometimes when I see a sigh rising from the chest of a
burnt person, I fear that the city will burn down…. Well, I’m going now. When
are you going back to Lahore?”

Saying this,
he got up and started walking outside, taking his cap.

“Wait,
I’ll go with you too. Where are you going now?” Seeing him suddenly ready
to go somewhere, I immediately told him.

“But I
want to go alone. I’ll go to some garden.”