I recently finished Bitter Fruit, the Saadat Hasan Manto omnibus. I would tell you how the man is probably the most brilliant South Asian person to put pen to paper, but I encourage you to read some his work yourself. Writing in Urdu, he wrote incredibly incisive and controversial short stories, many of his works landing him in court on obscenity charges. Besides, there is nothing that appeals to me more than a Muslim intellect with a mad streak of blasphemy. Here's Manto's Prayer:
Dear God, master of the universe, compassionate and merciful:
we who are steeped in sin, kneel in supplication before your throne
and beseech you to recall from this world
Saadat Hasan Manto,
son of Ghulam Hasan Manto,
who was a man of great piety.
Take him away, Lord, for he runs away from fragrance and chases after filth.
He hates the bright sun, preferring dark labyrinths.
He has nothing but contempt for modesty but is fascinated by the naked and the shameless. He hates sweetness, but will give his life to taste bitter fruit.
He will not so much as look at housewives but is in seventh heaven in the company of whores.
He will not go near running waters, but loves to wade through filth.
Where others weep, he laughs; and where others laugh, he weeps.
Faces blackened by evil, he loves to wash with tender care to make visible their real features.
He never thinks about you but follows Satan everywhere, the same fallen angel who once disobeyed you.
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Thank you sir. For the pain of having to look at a page stuffed with what looks like gorgeous Urdu poetry, without being able to read any of it. My Urdu, alas, is impoverished, and of the Arabic script I know woefully little. Give me a year, hoping to polish on that lingual deficit soon.
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