Manto - a victim of LOC

The NAPA Repertory Company was in India this week to perform their play, MANTORAMA, at the Bharat Rang Mahotsav Festival, an annual event at the National School of Drama, New Delhi. 

Four hours before the performance, which was sold out (all 500 seats), the NAPA troupe was informed that their play will not go on as scheduled. 

So much has been going on in Pakistan at the moment that the incident at the LOC (line of control)and India's reaction to it has not made waves here. In India though, the case is different. Their media has blown this issue to such gigantic proportions that all bilateral relations between the two countries have come to a halt. We already know about the hockey players and the women's cricket team. But the arts and cultural activities, too, have come under attack. And it was this very reason that the NAPA Repertory was refused permission to stage their play.

It seems that the Indian media and Government conveniently used the LOC incident to sweep their own problems, especially the inefficiency of the Government to handle the grotesque rape case, under the carpet.

This whole episode seems like a chapter from Manto's stories or his life itself. During his lifetime he was persecuted for his stories. And even after his death, he remains the center of conflicts between the two countries. 

Poster: NAPA Repertory Theatre Official Page (Facebook)

Literary treasures of the past

From the pages of the Urdu literary magazine Seep (oyster shell), an illustration by Jamil Naqsh. This is from Issue no. 39,  April & May 1979. 

On the final eve of December last year...

...I jotted down notes to myself on a piece of ordinary lined paper.

The tone of each note varied. Some were admonishing, others forgiving. It was very difficult to write a few because they spelt guilt no matter what the words.

I didn’t stop writing till I had poured out all my unfulfilled dreams, my regrets, my sorrow and my helplessness.

Then I took this piece of ordinary lined paper and tore it, once, twice, thrice and then over and over again till there was nothing left.

End the Silence

I am a Muslim.

But are you Shia or Sunni?

Does it matter?

Whenever I was asked this question in school, I tried to give a neutral answer. But some curious classmates won’t take a neutral answer. And then they asked the most bizarre questions. Do you sacrifice children during the month of Muharram? Or the red sherbet you sell outside Imambargahs, is it the blood of little boys and girls? I would laugh at these questions and tell them that the sherbet was certainly good old Rooh Afza and the only creatures we sacrificed in the name of religion were goats/cows/lambs etc., just like Sunni people on Bari Eid.

It doesn’t seem so any longer. Our sacrifice, in the name of religion, is not just limited to Eid-ul-Azha.

While thousands are protesting on Alamdar Road in Quetta beside their dead, the rest of us are going on with our lives. Imagine, for one horrific second, yourself standing in the cold beside the body of a loved one. It is something you will refuse to imagine. The old men in Quetta, fathers standing against the bodies of their young sons, never imagined it too.

They are Muslims.

They are Shia.

They are also Pakistanis.

And it seems that they are paying a price for all the above.

If we don’t raise our voice for them today, it shall be us tomorrow, regardless of our religion or beliefs.

Raise your voice against this injustice today, now. That is what matters most!

A web of inspiration?

The artist is a receptacle for the emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web. 
                                                                                     Pablo Picasso

Quote source: thinkexist.com

Miss Jean Brodie in Bhurban

"Give me a girl at an impressionable age, and she is mine for life".

One of the perfect books to read on a holiday...or otherwise. 

My thoughts - DSC 2013

The books shortlisted for the 2013 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature are, minus Our Lady of Alice Bhatti and Narcopolis, all about war. The Bangladesh war, the Afghanistan war and the Opium wars dominate the list. And my simple question is, why so much talk of war?!

War, for writers, is a great temptation. Old Tolstoy could not resist it; he even put the word in the title! But even though War and Peace is a brilliant work, it is Anna Karenina which is considered one of the greatest novels of all time. And there isn't any mention of war in it (unless you count Vronsky’s departure right at the end to fight against the Turks).

I haven’t read all the books that were long-listed but the ones I was rooting for had nothing to do with war and everything to do with ego, loss, family, traditions, values, rebellion, failure, defeat, death and of course, love. Although I have a non-war favorite in the short-list, I want to mention two long-listed books which touched me deeply.

Between Clay and Dust- A novel that exposed me to a new world, the wrestlers’ akhara  and the courtesan's crumbling house. It also revealed to me that time and place are, sometimes, inconsequential in the face of emotions, moods and relationships.  

Em and the Big Hoom- A story not just about depression, but about love – unconditional, unquestioning, immeasurable love.

‘The enduring problems of life are not political; they’re existential, they’re psychological and there are no answers to them, certainly no satisfying answers’. Woody Allen