Cut, copy, paste.

Since nothing original is imminent seeing as how my relatively overworked yet highly underused brain is currently on strike… I decided to share some of my current readings. These are sketches on the partition by Sadat Hasan Manto, undoubtedly one of the best partition writers. At the time he was heavily critiqued for these sketches, which were labeled pornographic and sensationalist. Inherently ironic and hard-hitting.

Jelly
At six in the morning the man who used to sell ice cream from a push-cart next to the service station was stabbed to death. His body lay on the road, while water kept falling on it in steady driblets from the melting ice.
At a quarter past seven, the police took him away. The ice and blood stayed on the road.
A mother and child rode past the spot in a tonga. The child noticed the coagulated blood on the road, tugged at his mothers sleeve and said, ‘Look mummy, jelly.’

Invitation to action
When the neighborhood was set on fire, everything burnt down with the exception of one shop and its sign.
It said, ‘ All building and construction materials sold here.’

Ungrateful Lot
‘What an ungrateful nation! After all the trouble I went through, slaughtering 50 pigs in this mosque and what happens? Not one bloody customer! And do you know, on the other side there are people queuing outside every temple to buy beef!’

Luck
“That is what I call rotten luck. All I was able to lay my hands on was this one lousy case… and you know what was in it? Pork if you please!”

Mishtake
Ripping the belly cleanly, the knife moved in a straight line down the midriff, in the process slashing the cord which held the mans pyjamas in place.
The man with the knife took one look and exclaimed regretfully, ‘Oh! no … Mishtake.’