ABSTRACT
Manto is the chief of storytellers, a past master in the art. There is candour, alacrity and finesse in the construction of his sentences. His writing is sharp and incisive and, with seemingly innocent oblique stratagems; he has the ability to give fresh insight into human misery, pain, sorrow and helplessness. Manto had rightly gauged the exact temperature of the heat, the spark or even of the embers that he picked up from the hot ashes of society. The shimmering waters, in which Manto would have seen the reflections of his characters, Gopinath and Sugandhi, and created the accompanying images of their friends to complete the picture, are certainly not just a miracle of craftsmanship. In Manto’s works, spiritual love finds absolutely no place. Manto never tells a bare story. He implies a deeper layer of meaning, distinct from any overt ‘message’.
