‘That Manto, Why Do They Keep Making Movies About Him?’ by Naima Rashid
The barrier crept up between us, a barricade of mist. The force of unsaid urgencies and silent understandings suddenly condensing into truth, becoming a thing you had to watch out for, plan around, be careful not to bump into. One moment, he was like the rest of us, the next, he was the one who might have to leave any minute, something the rest of us didn’t have to think about.
Because he had always done what was right and hard and difficult, sometimes outright impossible, his stories made us feel guilty, like our lives were too easy, like we hadn’t earned what we had.
“I haven’t been employed in over a decade, but I haven’t been idle for a single day.” That summed up his life. Enterprise. Steady, forward motion. At 70, he taught himself how to use the computer. Late to the party, but always making a place for himself. At 80, his new project was to learn Gurmukhi. He had had the books flown in from his Sikh friends in India.
That’s why it didn’t pass at first.
Our retinas registered it, but our minds rejected it. The sight of him in a wheelchair, steered off into an ambulance by hurrying helpers. There was defiance in his features, jaw set grim, disdain (not surrender) in his eyes for the claustrophobia ahead.
The twist was that he always came back. Came back like a victor. Came back with that confidence that was his hallmark. Discharged on Eid day, he entered demanding seviyaan, not allowing any concession that the family had been fraught with worry for him the past few days and had only had time to breathe now, cutting no corners on how hot he liked his food, how strong he liked his tea, questioning why the milk was lukewarm and not steaming hot, tolerating no laxity in standards.
That was the thing. He always came back to tell the story. He always had the luxury of time and perspective to look back upon what had just happened - grim, gruesome or hilarious, spin it into a story and make it immortal. He would tell it so many times it became the stuff of legends. Told by him and by others so many times that it became something tasty to go with tea.
From the hospital, he would come back, shower and change into a crisp white shalwar kameez (always pressed by the dhobi and hanging ready to wear), then laugh at his time at the hospital. They had Aaayat-ul-Kursi framed above all hospital beds. “Like a man couldn’t expect better. Or maybe it was a sign of how little confidence they have in their own abilities as a hospital.” Then he chided the cook who had dared to send dry chappatis with his food while he was admitted. “Did you think I was too weak to notice? Or did you really believe I wasn’t going to come back?”
We improvised midnight snacks often. We had discovered early on that we were both night owls and often bumped into each other when the rest of the household was asleep. We made ludicrous combinations of incongruent leftovers, forced them into an unlikely union in a sandwich or on a plate, then slapped on a rhythmic flair in its name to make it passable. Saag sandwich, chowmein rolls, puri parcels .
I don’t remember when it started. Maybe it was simply a function of the hour and the camaraderie of a shared snack from salvaged bits in the fridge, but it became a tradition. Ask-anything and tell-all sessions over midnight snacks. At one of these, I asked him what it had felt like to have such a close brush. “Angry”. “Petty. I caught myself thinking, ‘Why is this happening to me? Not now, not yet.’ Like a petulant child who couldn’t accept that his turn was up.”
His life and matters — he liked them neat and finished. He would always go back to finish the conversation that had to be cut short because guests had shown up unexpectedly. He would answer the question you asked casually and forgot. He would return calls he didn’t have to because it wasn’t his standard to ignore or overlook. He kept promises made to grand children in the margins of his tax register where they had scribbled an invitation and four years later, he had flown across a continent to keep his word.
Perhaps it was only natural. Perhaps, he had grown tired of the frequency at which his plans were beginning to be aborted, left unfinished. Maybe it was tiring just to keep wanting to come good on all plans and promises.
I wonder at what point a man begins to overlook things, lets them slide, makes peace with not doing as well as he set out to.
We often spoke of second chances, what each of us would do if given one. He would have finished all the books he was capable of writing, published more in newspapers, been less involved in household matters, listened to people less, listened to his heart more.
We knew the film was on. It was all over the papers. We had discussed stories by Manto and their translations endless times between us. The tickets were selling out so I bought two for a week night. The cinema was close to home, so I could drive us both together even after the last screening which ended past midnight.
There were people in wheelchairs at the screening. Several families with old parents because how could Manto by Sarmad Khoosat be playing in your city and two generations that bonded over it not go to see it together?
The hospital was on the way. When we called after the screening, the caretaker by his side who answered his phone told us he was awake. He had had troubled nights since he was admitted this time, and was only able to sleep in the morning.
Head shaved, catheter by his side, blue hospital scrubs strangely playful and comical for a man who woke up every day and changed into a safari suit during his retirement. In his hands was a book he had been attempting to read. He was a man out of place in that landscape of misery and chaos. It reeked of endgame in here, an insult to his vitality.
I hesitated a little. Then I remembered how he wouldn’t just ‘forget’ to mention something like that. In the end, I banked on his largesse, on the promise of him always being the bigger person, larger than life.
I tried to strike a tone that did not make my visit sound like a privilege. “We just came back from seeing Manto, Abbu.”
His face didn’t light up the way it did when I spoke of our things. He looked away and threw the book angrily on the bed.
“That Manto. He was just a man who wrote short stories. Why do they keep making movies about him?”
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Naima Rashid is a writer, poet and translator. Her first book was 'Defiance of the Rose' (OUP, 2019). Her writings have been published in Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal, Asymptote, Wild Court, The Aleph Review and other places. Her forthcoming works include translations with Penguin India and Les Fugitives.
www.naimarashid.com
Twitter: @NaimaRashid_