This is somehow an unwritten law of the society that whoever speaks the truth is punished by the group of people who call themselves the most pious of all.
In his book, he is blunt, he is harsh, he is very straight forward. But the fact is, he is right.
Second collection of Manto's short stories written / published in 1940s before partition. If you have read stories written after partition like 'Toba Tek Singh', 'Gurmukh Singh ki Wasiyat' and 'Thanda Gosht', stories in this collection does not impress you to that extent. In my view, if partition had not happened, Manto would not be Manto. Stories in this collection can be termed average. Some stories like 'Pahaa' and 'Blouser' sounds cheap and shallow. May be these stories were considered ahead of time when they first published due to their shocking topics, but I personally think that if Manto had not written such stories, readers would not have missed any thing at all.
This man had been mistreated and misunderstood all his life by the so-called "shareef" society.He knew how to place the naked realities with ornamented fallacies. He knew, that moral degradation, prostitution, and sexual frustration wasn't initiated by a female, males were the sole carriers of all these things but they got away prowessly with every allegation. He was also well aware of the fact that how poor people were being forced to eat the crust of the humanity. Anyone who doesn't think like the majority and is a born rebel should read this book.
منٹو جس بے دردی سے معاشرے کی غلاظت کو بیان کرتے ہیں اس کا مقابلہ اردو ادیب تو کیا کؤی بھی نہیں کر سکتا۔ اس کتاب میں ان کے افسانے اور مضامین دونوں شامل ہیں۔ ہر کہانی کے کردار منفرد ہیں اور ان کے لئے ہمدردی محسوس کرنا مشکل نہیں۔ منٹو کو عورتوں کی فطرت اور جذبات کا بھی درست اندازہ تھا جس کی وجہ سے ان کے افسانوں میں خواتین اصلی اور مستند ہوتی ہیں۔
Manto has been reduced to the writer of sexual perversion but in this work he explores a wide variety of characters and themes. From the restless, mischievous 8 year old to a teen-aged boy dealing with puberty, a man suffering from depression to working class Indians' struggle with the colonial oppression, although he does circle back to his favourite themes several times.