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Debbie Gurung

Badri Prasad Acharya

Literary Criticism 553

June 12, 2019

Realistic Representation in Manto's "Cold Meat"

Realism an artistic movement was against the notion of romanticism and its exaggerating

feature. Realism is the episode of actual experience. It is the work of art and literature in which

we find naturalistic description of reality. It emphasizes on presenting incidents naturally without

entertaining artistic conventions and supernatural elements. The purpose of using realism is to

depict the actualities of ordinary life and common place and that fact is sometimes stranger than

fiction. Also, realism is a strong form of storytelling as the remarkable realist Mark Twain said,

“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” Stories representing realism have

plots that highlight social problems of contemporary time.

Cold Meat is one of the finest works by Manto. We can see how purely and strongly he

depicts his work of art and literature presenting the real incident that has happened in the society.

Saadat Hasan Manto was a Pakistani writer but born in Ludhiana, Punjab. He mainly wrote in

Urdu which was later translated into other languages. He is well known to write about the harsh

reality of the society that no other writer dared to do. His stories are about the partition of India

even after it got Independence in 1947. For his daring work, he was even charged of his

indecency and vulgarity in presenting the reality due to which he had to face the criminal court.

The real picture of the society during the partition of India is presented which is sensible as well

as realistic. The story at the beginning seems to be vulgar to the readers but actually is not so. It

is about the communal violence in 1947.

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Cold Meat is totally based on the social violence such as rape, robbery, murder that took

place in India-Pakistan border. In the first paragraph itself, we can sense the eerie feeling that

was present in the city because of turmoil. ‘It was past midnight and a strange and mysterious

quietness seemed to have gripped the entire city.’ The story opens up with the appearance of

Ishar Singh and Kalwant Kaur. Ishar Singh seems to be very tired and depressed. Manto provides

a physical description of both Ishar and Kalwant Kaur and we can sense that Kalwant is a

desirable strong lady who has got a perfect match. Actually we can see the vagueness of physical

relationship here. Superficially, Ishar and Kalwant seemed perfect together but there was a

growing mental tension between the couple. Also we can see that the one of the meanings title

‘Cold Meat’ could be a negative connotation to the nature of relationship between Ishar and

Kalwant. That despite the seemingly perfect attributes, there could still be downfalls and

mishaps.

Ishar is in his room with Kalwant Kaur who is interrogating him about his absence and is

unsatisfied with Ishar’s response, which is slowly elevating her anger and frustration. She is

irritated with him for not answering or responding to any of her questions. Instead, Ishar tries to

create distraction by playing the card game. Card game here can be seen as the process of sexual

intercourse involving foreplay.Ishar throws all the cards he has on the table but in vain because

despite all his attempts, he fails miserably in throwing the trump card (of reaching a sexual

climax), which solidifies Kalwant’s suspicion of him having an affair with another woman.

We can make our conclusions that Kalwant is a dauntless woman with no intention of

letting the topic rest without having definite answers. Kalwant almost knows the answer but

wants it out of Ishar’s lips. Ishar’s silence is only adding to her disapproval and elevating her

frenzy.
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Manto has depicted the situation with honesty. We can visually imagine the scenario and

find the naturalistic approach of storytelling here. The dialogues and the numbers of dialogues

exchanged are not for embellishing the story and the narrative moves forward without allowing

the readers to build an imaginative world. The only world we are looking at is the desolate and

sultry room where Kalwant was questioning Ishar. Also, the movement of the story and its events

are unpredictable and flow like human nature; one moment Kalwant is questioning Ishar while

the other, they are trying to make love.

In the turn of events, Ishar makes the mistake of affirming that there was another woman.

Suspicions confirmed and filled with agitation and jealousy, Kalwant grabs the dagger and stabs

him on the neck. It is only after being stabbed till the moment he dies that Ishar gets the

opportunity to unfold the events that had happened. He had broken into a house where there were

seven people but he killed only six, as the seventh was a beautiful girl who he carried along with

him. He thought of playing the card game with her has he had gotten bored of enjoying only

Kalwant. Upon trying to play the card game with the girl, Ishar finds out that she is already dead.

He transmits his trauma to his wife Kalwant before his last breath.

The story shows the perversion of Ishar Singh, a representative of youths of the

contemporary society. Ishar Singh is presented to have been suffering not just by the physical

pain given by his wife Kalwant Kaur but more by the mental trauma of attempting to rape a dead

body committing necrophilia. The impotent nature of masculinity is exposed through the

character of Ishar. At the same time, the writer tries to reflect the suffering of the victim by

presenting Ishar as a character who is traumatized and affected so bad that later he is left just a

lifeless piece of meat similar to the lifeless corpse he attemped to rape. Manto has very

dramatically shown the encounter of the reality and appearance. As George Luckacs says that the
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true, fundamental inter relationship in any novel or story or drama can be disclosed only at the

end. Being a good writer, Manto has followed the very notion of Luckac’s view on realistic

representation by depicting the main truth only at the end of the story. The writer tries to create

misunderstanding among the readers while reading the story at the beginning. The work

presented seems to be very vulgar and manipulating. Instead the sexuality and the tension portray

the characters in their raw and unmasked form. The story carries a notion of

realisticrepresentation, as it is an accurate depiction of life forms and perspectives. Manto

emphasizes on the mundane and ugly picture of the society in India-Pakistan border. He presents

the everyday activities and life, primarily among the middle or the lower class society. Manto is

not racist but a storyteller who refuses to fabricate the truth because it destroys the art of

storytelling as Dr. AlokBhalla states

Even from the fragmentary example taken from the Urdu text, it should be clear

that Manto’s concern is not with laying blame on a particular community, but with

trying to record a world in which anyone can drift in cruelty and slaughter. He

crafts nightmares, not communal texts; he is difficult precisely because he doesn’t

suggest a religious solution to the politics of pain that was enacted during the

partition. (10 )

Manto here is not about inspiring the world or solving a problem nor is he taking sides with a

race or religion. He presents the real suffering of the victims with very little modification to the

story. He depicts the conditions of the proletariats who were victimized during the partition. As

George Luckacs believes that the goal of a good realistic writer is to provide a picture of

contradiction or contrast between appearance and reality. Manto in the Cold Meat has beautifully

presented the contradiction between India-Pakistan during the partition in 1947. It was the time
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when India got Independence, everyone should have been enjoying and celebrating the great

achievement but instead they were having war among each other, murdering, looting, showing

inhuman behavior, separation, turmoil was taking place which shows the difference between

reality and appearance. The writer has successfully been able to take up a specific incident that

took place during the war and has generalized the particular event. The India-Pakistan war had

different physical as well as psychological threats, loots, rapes and murders that we can find in

this story too. Manto has aesthetically drawn the plot showing the humanitarian values that were

social and realistic rather that ideological through unscathed yet beautiful storytelling. Baqar

Mehdi states

Manto was such a storyteller. He was consumed the passion to know the secrets of

the social and physical relationships of the underworld-the daily lives of poor

prostitutes, pimps and the so-called anti-social people. Several times, like

Lawrence, he was questioned by the protectors of public morals, before and after

the partition of India………

…..Many of the characters of his stories were neurotics and it seems he also

suffered from nervous breakdowns. It is said that often he behaved as if he was a

character who had escaped from one of his stories- a hypersensitive person who

knew the complexities of human relationship, its loves and hatreds, jealousies and

affections, its perversities and boredom. He was true to his stories. (23)

Manto knew the intricacies of the art of story-telling. His technique was simple

narration with the traditional psychological plot- the black and white did mix

properly, the gap between two colors gave a typical charm to the ethical colors of

good and evil and the plus or minus. His motto was, 'Don’t condemn any one'. Do
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we know the ins and outs of anyone? No one should be allowed to throw the first

stone, as everyone is a sinner consiciously or unconsciously. Temptation is there

in every heart for crimes, whether one has the courage to commit it or not. (24)

Therefore, Cold Meat has been a strong example presenting the events in the story from a

realistic perspective. Manto has very creatively rendered the characters of a single incident and

through them, has been able to conceptualize this story. He has been able to characterize the

ordinary people and their problems. The story doesn’t contain any fantasy or any supernatural

elements; the plot is fresh and original. Hence, realism in this story is unmistakably depicted by

Saadat Hasan Manto.

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Works Cited

Bhalla, Alok. “The Politics of Translation: Manto's Partition Stories and Khalid Hasan's English

Version.” Social Scientist, vol. 29, no. 7/8, 2001, pp. 19–

38. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3518123.

CDE, TU, Kirtipur, "A Course Packet of Primary Texts" for Literary Criticism (Eng 553.3)

MEHDI, BAQAR. “Twenty Years of the Urdu Short Story (1955-1975).” Indian Literature, vol.

19, no. 6, 1976, pp. 23–50. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24157504.

Shelden Raman. . "Art and Objective Truth". The Theory of Criticism, pp.59-66.