Free WHY I WRITE: ESSAYS BY SAADAT HASAN MANTO by AAKAR PATEL Page B

Islamic flags of the Muslim League were visible. When I went there in the morning, I noticed something bizarre. The bazaar was covered in green flags. There was a painting of Jinnah (made by an amateur) which was put up in a restaurant. I cannot get these sights out of my mind.
    The Muslims were ecstatic that they had got their Pakistan. But where was this Pakistan? Not in Bhendi Bazaar. And what was this Pakistan, if not India? This they did not know.
    They were happy, perhaps for no reason other than they finally had a reason to be happy about.
    At the Rampur Dada restaurant, many cups of tea and Passing Soap cigarettes were consumed amid delight at the creation of Pakistan.
    As I said, I had no idea what to make of it, but the strange thing is that on 14 August, nobody was killed in Bombay. People were busy celebrating their freedom.
    What this freedom was, how it had been achieved and what it would mean to their lives — not much thought was spent on it. There was only shouting. “Pakistan zindabad!” on one side, “Hindustan zindabad!” on the other.
    And now listen to something about our new Islamic republic.
    On last year’s independence day, a man was cutting down a tree in front of our house. I said to him: ‘What are you doing? You’ve no right to cut this tree.’
    He replied: ‘This is Pakistan. It belongs to us.’
    I had no reply to this.
    Once upon a time, before Partition, our neighbourhood was very pretty. Now the park in it is dry and in which naked children play vile games and scream abuse. A large ball belonging to one of my daughters was lost. I thought it must be somewhere in the house, and forgot about it. Four days later, I saw some boys playing with it. When I confronted them, they said: ‘It’s ours. We paid one rupee and four annas for it.’
    It had cost me four rupees and fifteen annas. But apparently it’s “finders-keepers” in Pakistan, so I left my little girl’s ball with them for they had a right to it.
    Another story about the neighbourhood. A man was removing the bricks from the path to our house. I went out and said: ‘Why are you doing this to us?’ He replied: ‘This is Pakistan — who are you to stop me?’ I had no reply to this either.
    I had sent a radio for repairs and forgotten. When I remembered a month later, I went to pick it up. The man said: ‘I waited for you, and then I sold it to recover the cost of repairs.’
    And recently, I got a notice from the government. ‘You’re an unwanted person,’ it read, ‘vacate the house that has been allotted to you as refugee property or tell us why we shouldn’t evict you from it.’
    If I am now declared an “unwanted person”, the government perhaps also reserves the right to declare me a rat and exterminate me. Anyway, for now I’m safe here in Pakistan.
    In the end I want to tell you this important story.
    When I left Bombay at Partition, I first came to Karachi. Things were so nasty here that I immediately decided to flee to Lahore. I went to the railway station and asked for a first class ticket to Lahore.
    The booking clerk said: ‘All the seats are booked, there’s no ticket for you.’
    Now I was used to the environment of Bombay, where everything is available for a price. So I said ‘Look, why don’t you take something and give it to me.’
    He stopped his work and looked at me. He said in a stern voice: ‘This is Pakistan. I would have done such a thing before, but now I cannot. All the seats are booked. You can’t get a ticket at any price.’
    And I didn’t.
     
    – (Originally published as Yom-e-Istiqlal in Oopar,
Neechay aur Darmiyan, 1954)
     
     

 
    A Stroll Through the New Pakistan
    What happens when the city you’re familiar with suddenly becomes a new country? Manto tells us by taking a walk through the lanes of Lahore, a city that was once in India and later became something else.
    It was a strange season and a strange morning.
    The thought kept coming to me: “Get out of the