LAHORE: Saadat Hasan Manto’s 61st death anniversary is being observed today, quietly by his friends and admirers. Manto died in Lahore in 1955. He was forty-three years old. The life of one of our greatest short-story writers had been always remained grey.
He was the Indian born, Pakistani short writer who had jolted the genre and also the norms and taboos existing in his genre. Here are the few facts regarding him,
Rebellion was Saadat Hasan Manto’s second nature: As a teenager he was the only person to step up and assist a magician in a fire walking drill.
Manto lived for just 42 years but managed to write 230 stories, 67 radio plays, 22 graphical stories and 70 articles.
He stood trial on different occasions for obscenity in six of his stories. He was never convicted though.
He suffered from chronic abnormal anxiety and lived under the perpetual fear that all close to him hated him secretly.
Manto penned his magnum opus ‘Toba Tek Singh’ while he was being treated at a mental asylum.