The Girls In The Rickshaw !

By Manuwant Choudhary

For local errands I prefer taking the rickshaw..especially the battery-operated Hawa Garee...the ride is  smooth and it makes no noise..even the autowallah appears calm...with four passengers full..he does not have to stretch his neck into alleys or shout.

As I climbed into one I notice I had three other co-passengers - all girls.

They were all well-dressed in jeans and shirts, handbags....but seemed unsure about their shopping.

Two of them sat right across me and seemed quiet mostly. They spoke only when they were asked something by the third girl who sat beside me.

All three were pretty but the third the prettiest..and she had a way with words.

She asked the first girl if she would like to shop at a store nearby or go to Pantaloons as well.

The first girl, shy, would reply in mono-syllables.

The second girl wanted to buy a pair of sandals.

"Is this for pujas?" The third girl asked. "I will take you to this shop I know tomorrow."

The third girl looked affluent...she had a nice cellphone...and as the breeeze got into her hair...she would straighten it....

And then she took some 5 selfies !

Just then the red light !

And we could all hear a girl and boy arguing on a rickshaw alongside..The girl tells her boyfriend..."If you don't let me study then my mummy will not allow me to stay here beyond first year !"

The third girl beside me was all ears and then she blurts..."Agar padhai nahin kee to  meree mummy bhee humein bas first year hee hone dengeen."

We all laughed.

The guilt showed and she adds, "Abhee to raat bakee hai,,padh lengen.."

Then they spoke about some technical stuff even I could not follow....they said, "Bahut tough tai...samajh mein nahin aatee hai.."

Out of nowhere the third girl remembered something..."On Tuesday I have to go to the temple. Will you come?"

The other two girls said no as they had classes.

The third girl wanted the other two to talk more but when they didn't she broke off into a song or poem..something like..."Please don't mind me because I want you to talk.."

Just then a car passed us by...

The third girl went.."Oh wow...whats that car..the black one..its so beautiful...."

The other girls asked her.."Batao naam uska.."

All the third girl would say..."I don't know...I just liked it...the black colour..."

The other two knew..."Its a Jaguar !"

Mujhe kya bechega rupaiya !

I feel like Manto

By Manuwant Choudhary

This Sunday evening I watched Nandita Das's film Manto.

I had been looking forward to the film ever since the trailers were out.

Because Sadat Hassan Manto's short story Toba Tek Singh featured in our ICSE school text book and it left its mark.

The mad sardarji who kept uttering gibberish ..oh pad dee gir gir dee...moong did daal deee..but one thing he was clear on was he came from a village called Toba Tek Singh, except he did not know where it was - in India or Pakistan !

I grew up wondering who the writer was?

To be frank I do not know Nandita Das except having met her once at a wedding in Bombay.

But I could relate to her Manto completely.

Especially the Manto in Bombay - a city that asks no questions, as he put it.

Manto loved Bombay and his own life as a writer in a city where he could write freely and get paid for what was his...and drink...



The film is a bit slow but life in those days must have been just that way - a walk on the beach was all that mattered and an evening party with the top film stars.

I had grown up wondering how and why a writer like Manto would choose to leave Bombay and India for Pakistan.

Nandita Das's film explores just that and very sensitively.

Its painful seeing Manto leave Bombay.

You must watch the film.

Unfortunately, the hall was mostly empty, a few rows were booked thats all.

It seems our audiences have somehow become identical to the Muslims who wanted Pakistan.

So in the film when two Muslims in Lahore announce the killing of Gandhiji with a glee, an old man scolds them, but I found two men sitting beside me laugh.

70 years later we have become them.

Manto was lonely in Pakistan, and a wreck. He had no freedom to write what he wanted...the remunerations were even lower...and then a jail term...for his short story 'Thanda Gosht' (Cold Meat)

The last scene is from the story Toba Tek Singh.  Two months after the partition...both the Indian and Pakistani governments realise they are yet to divide the mental ayslums - Hindus and Sikhs to be sent to India and Muslims to Pakistan.

I thought the mad house was exactly how I visualised it as a child reading that story...even the characters - the sardarji - just amazing.

If he was alive today, I wonder what Sadaat Hassan Manto would have written on the lynchings in Modi's India ?