Truth comes with its consequences and that is what happened with Manto too. The pain, agony and shame that he tried to reveal by stripping the unnecessary covers were assumed to be obscene by the society. Manto faced trials in Indian and Pakistan for obscenity for Dhua, Bu, Kaali Salwaar, Khol do, Dhanda Gosht and Upar Neeche Darmiyaan. To all the controversy, Manto’s answer was straight-forward:
“If you cannot bear these stories then the society is unbearable. Who am I to remove the clothes of this society, which itself is naked. I don’t even try to cover it, because it is not my job, that’s the job of dressmakers.”
― Saadat Hasan Manto
Category: Books
Samaresh Basu
Thirty two years ago Bengali literature suffered a huge loss. Samaresh Basu died. He alone occupied a large part of the literary territory. He was perhaps the most popular author of the times, not just for his controversial Bibar and Prajapati, both which ran in to court cases on charges of obscenity and were banned…
A Legend Passes Away. A Legacy Remains. Forever.
by Avijit Dutt The most telling image is of this towering intellectual holding up a poster of him being an Urban Naxal too! Protesting the arrests of the innocent Social workers and intellectuals. At the meeting pushing for an enquiry after Gauri Lankesh’s murder he looked more saddened by the circumstances than his own state…
Swapan Kumar and his Sleuth — The Cornerstone of Bangla Pulp Fiction
by Chitto Ghosh I had a collection of the one and only Samarendra Nath Pandey alias Swapan Kumar’s trend-setting crime pulp fictions—120 of them, written between 1953 to the early ’80s. This primarily includes the Crime and Mystery Series, Kaalrudra Series, Biswachakra Series, Rocket Series, Dragon Series, Kaalnagini Series, Baajpakhi Series, Kaalonekde Series and others. More…
Subhas Mukhopadhyay: Portrait of a People’s Poet
Was he the poet Tagore had been waiting for? No idea, although Subhas, like him, posited his faith in man, especially those who constituted the majority…hapeless, homeless, landless, jobless and oppressed always.