Thread by @khawar_achakzai

MANTO AND KASHMIR:

After being displaced from Kashmir, in 19th century, his ancestors moved to Punjab. They had lived in Kashmir as 'Shawlbafs' (shawl weavers). Manto was always proud of his Kashmiri roots. In a letter to Nehru he wrote, "To be Kashmiri is to be beautiful"
(1/n)

Manto's writings were a lucid blend of his Kashmiri roots, his gnawing Punjabi past, his excursions in markets of Delhi, alleys of Mumbai and his being a 'Mohajir' in Lahore.

In 1952 Manto wrote a preface to the collection of (2/n)

Mehjoor's urdu translations by Naseer Anwar. The piece was however published in 1960 in a magazine called Nusrat. In this piece called 'Teen Hato', Manto spoke through the poet Mehjoor, and described his love and administration for Kashmir, a land which was in his blood, (3/n)

but of which he had only heard about, through his father. Manto would often recall stories related by his father about the landscape, the people, society of Kashmir. He would call the Kashmiri workers home and would tell them, "I am also Koshur". The latter would tell (4/n)

stories about Ghani Kashmiri, the Kashmiri poet, which Manto later mentioned in his letter to Nehru. He narrates an indcident where a famous Persian poet seeks Ghani's help to complete his couplet which had been incomplete for a long time. (5/n)

Manto had great admiration for Mehjoor, an admiration that mainly stemmed from rooh-e-Kashmir that both of them shared.

"I have not seen Kashmir, but Kashmiris, I have seen
But alas! I have not seen Mehjoor...", he would say.

Haunted by memories of partition (6/n)

manto would lament, "Mehjoor sustained all the oppression. He suffered the biggest oppression, the mental torture but he didn’t waver and remain steadfast. The idea of migration didn’t cross his mind. He stayed where he was."

Manto mentions in his piece that if Mehjoor (7/n)

was brought back there would be no need left for Dr Graham, the UN mediator on Kashmir.

Fourth volume of ‘Poora Manto’, includes two short stories on one of the hottest issues of today: Kashmir. One is "Akhri Salute" (The Last Salute) and (8/n)

the other one Tetval Ka Kutta (The Dog from Tetval). These stories were written in the month of October (1951), presumably to commemorate -- in a Mantoesque way -- the first war on Kashmir which erupted in October 1947 - soon after India and Pakistan came into existence. (n/n)