The Urdu Ghazal Podcast

IndiStories Episode 26: Open! by Saa'dat Hasan Manto

December 22, 2022 Surinder Deol
IndiStories Episode 26: Open! by Saa'dat Hasan Manto
The Urdu Ghazal Podcast
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The Urdu Ghazal Podcast
IndiStories Episode 26: Open! by Saa'dat Hasan Manto
Dec 22, 2022
Surinder Deol

Saadat Hasan Manto’s name should be familiar to listeners of this Podcast because his short story Toba Tek Singh was the first story to be featured in this Podcast. Manto gained great fame as a playwright and a short story writer in pre-partition India, but his greatest achievement was how he captured the brutality unleashed by India’s partition and how women suffered the most in this carnage. Khol Do or Open! is truly a very short story consisting of 3 ½ print pages but it encapsulates more than anything written about the animality and brutality of partition. 

Show Notes

Saadat Hasan Manto’s name should be familiar to listeners of this Podcast because his short story Toba Tek Singh was the first story to be featured in this Podcast. Manto gained great fame as a playwright and a short story writer in pre-partition India, but his greatest achievement was how he captured the brutality unleashed by India’s partition and how women suffered the most in this carnage. Khol Do or Open! is truly a very short story consisting of 3 ½ print pages but it encapsulates more than anything written about the animality and brutality of partition.