Upon reading the poem sorry at first, I was very confused and startled by the violence depicted. I was even more confused and shocked when reading Manto’s depiction of the heartwrenching scene where family members are separated and died. I think Manto did a really good job at painting a chaotic scene that creates a vivid image of what the Partition of India would look like. He illustrates the panic people have through his short sentences and phrases, ” A succession of images raced through his mind. Attack…fire…escape…railway station…night…Sakina.”

The ending of the story was even more horrifying. Although Sirajuddin’s father shouts that Sakina is alive, the irony is that Sakina was raped, traumatized, disorientated, and may take a long time to recover. This story shows how horrible acts are done in times of turmoil.

Hi Zachary! I really like how you took a phrase from “The Return” and connected it to similar experiences that the Jewish refugees and African Americans endured at different times in history. Although I focused more on analyzing the short poem, I also felt discontent with the phrase “Total confusion prevailed, with people looking for lost sons, mothers, wives,” from the passage “The return” because it made me think about the long-term consequences of war, riots, and oppressive forces and how they often destroy communities and torn apart different families. It is truly a nightmare to be separated from the ones you love most and live in fear of never finding them again. I also concur with your interpretation of the words “Total confusion” that refugees were disoriented and perhaps were uncertain about their next steps without family members by their side. Great job!

-Adrian Garcia

Your post has provided me with a better grasp of the text and what is really happening in both stories. In my post I tried to connect both “Sorry” and “The Return” coming to the conclusion that one or multiple men that had found Sakina had assaulted her and the scene in the beginning was a description of that event but I now realize that they were discrete stories and, I agree with your take on both pieces and I think Dylan Patel does well to put it into words, stating that the author had employed an element of subversion in both pieces that play on our expectations then sharply disabuses us of them, unveiling the curtain to reality.

The first section under the title of sorry was really fascinating to me. The imagery used, the content of the paragraph, and its relation to the entire story is very interesting to consider. I have only a limited amount of information about the text but from what is given, I am assuming that the man with the knife had stabbed Sakina and this grave injury is what has left the doctor tense in the last sections of the story. It may be that the realization that the father who had just been reunited with his child only to have the wounds of sorrow opened anew is what gives the doctor a “cold sweat.” The interesting aspect about the first paragraph is its play at humor, dark humor, in which after slicing the belly, he slices off the string holding what I assume to be his own pyjamas and has an exaggerated regret at its falling. Whether it was on him when he sliced the belly of the other person or it was on the other person, I think, will help reinforce or disprove the interpretation I’ve taken.

The poem “Sorry” by Saadat Hasan Manto not only surprised me but also made me ponder about the true intentions of the person holding the knife. Straight away, the opening line of the poem surprised me because it paints a gruesome image of a man carefully cutting open another person’s stomach. At first, phrases like “The knife plunged into the stomach” and “Moved down the midriff” led me to believe that the person holding the knife lacked compassion and was nothing more than a soulless human being. However, it was the phrase “Oh no, no! … that was a mishtake!” that made me question whether this person genuinely felt sorry for what he had done, or he simply used the word “mishtake” to mock or show contempt. Other questions that I had were: Did he say “mishtake” because he felt emotional after realizing that he was blinded by his rage? Did he show regret because he was not clear about the gender of the person? 

In the end, after considering the context of the poem and learning more about the partition of British India, I realized that the man with the knife in hand was either Muslim or Hindu. Once he checked if the victim was or was not circumcised, he probably realized that he had killed someone that he wasn’t supposed to.

When reading this short story, the details on Sirajuddin’s traumatic separation from his daughter were very striking. It was clear with the vivid details and imagery that this had a hard impact on the father. However, when reading further down the passage, I was intrigued by how Mottled Dawn led the readers to see Sakina’s point of view without explicitly mentioning the fine details. For example, we can see that she, too, has gone through a detrimental situation during her departure from her father when Dawn states the shift of the relation Sakina had with her dupatta. In the beginning, we are told that she had no care for the falling of her dupatta when her father tried to pick it up off the ground. Yet, later on, she shows desperate needs of it when stated “it was obvious that she was ill-at-ease without her dupatta, trying nervously to cover her breast with her arms”. In addition, Sakina perspective was also spoked and “revealed” at the end of the passage, although the main focus was on the father and doctor’s reaction to her showing her the result and outcomes of her rape. Her perspective was shown through powerful diction of “painful slowness.” While the story is tragic, I thought it was well developed and told fascinatingly because the author purposely alludes and encourages the reader to read in-between the lines to grasp the sense of Sakina also having a traumatic experience. This not only allows for different perspectives to be put into play, but it also allows a grasp of the full picture/story in a riveting way. 

I did not manage to learn or pick up on the background context of “Sorry”, so learning about what you have said helps piece the text in a more fluid way for me. I first had interpreted that the killer had mistaken the man for a person of another gender causing him to apologize. So, learning that the circumcision of men was what differentiated one from being Muslim or Hindu, clarifies the reasoning behind the apology. I would also have to agree with you in that the specific use of diction that the author chooses to use illustrates how ruthless the killer’s intentions are.

In response to your post on “The Return”, I would have to agree with you that the word choice played a significant role in being very subtle and confusing. It is understandable that the first read over would have the reader confused as to Sakina’s actions, but I think this subtlety and downplay of what happened to her helps amplify the severity of what had happened to her.

(I couldn’t figure out how to respond to Dylan’s post directly)

Hi Dylan! I really enjoyed reading your analysis of “subversion” in the the two short stories. I agree completely: Manto uses this subversion and creates a trust with the reader that is then almost broken later on, and it is done very efficiently throughout the stories. This subversion is one of my favorite things about his writing. It almost makes it as if you are experiencing the situations with the Sirajuddin himself: you believe and are trusting of the soldiers when they begin to take care of Sakina. No malicious intent is relayed here, no true foreshadowing. The rape wasn’t directly stated either in the end, the reader can assume that is what happened. Once again, you are experiencing the situation as SiraJuddin is; You only hear the doctor’s reaction, Sakina’s condition, and Sirajuddin’s happiness to be reunited with his daughter regardless of the terrible reality.

I had a very similar response to the ending as you. The Urdu translation makes the story’s message even more effective than I previously thought. I feel like the story itself raises a lot of important points in regards to the aftermath of rescues that take place in war-torn countries. More specifically, it highlights how women get the worse end of it all in these types of scenarios and how their plights are often overlooked in the grand scheme of history. Sakina’s response to the command to open the window captures how she has shut out the world in order to dull the pain, not even recognizing it is her father with who she is reuniting.

In “Sorry”, Manto uses vivid yet unsettling imagery to depict the practice of checking men for circumcision (to clarify whether they were Muslim or Hindu) that was common in the context of the partition era in Indian/Pakistani history. Being Bengali and Muslim, I learned about the horrors of the time from my grandfather at an early age and Manto’s short poem captured it very effectively. He uses words like “plunged” and “slashed” to describe the mutilation of a man at the hands of another in a very casual way. The succession of these words creates a sense of fluidity as if the killer is devoid of emotions while carrying out the commonly agreed upon “cardinal sin”. It is only after he finds out the man he is killing is ideologically on the “same side” as him, does he feel some sense of regret. The nonchalant dichotomy of these two emotions (from hateful to sympathetic) truly paints the perpetrator as the heinous, bigoted monster that he is.

The nuanced message of the second Manto piece, “The Return”, didn’t really hit me until the third read. Once it did, however, I was left in a very uncomfortable headspace for a while. The piece of the text that stood out to me the most was the second to last paragraph depicting Sirajuddin’s reunion with his daughter, Sakina. In my first couple of reads, it completely puzzled me that the young soldiers never reported finding Sakina to her father. It is only when the reader is told of Sakina for the second time can they understand why. Her shift in mannerisms (from shy to desensitized) also supplement this understanding. Furthermore, Manto’s word choice, employing phrases such as “painful slowness” and “groped”, makes the reader thoroughly aware of the sexual abuse she had experienced by her “saviors”. I felt like Manto ended his story on a quite haunting note because the father is overjoyed at finding his daughter safe, but the idea of safety can be contested by the reader and leaves them questioning the meaning of “rescue” altogether in this situation.

Yeah, along the lines of your point, Manto doesn’t use flowery language in the story but when description is given, it helps us just enough to get a picture of what is going on. He uses words concisely and it’s impact on how the plot-building is conveyed helps build interest in the storyline (though the storyline itself is kind of bitter).

When the doctor stated to “open the windows,” I was pretty confused and didn’t gain much from his statement. Your translation into Urdu, however, was very revealing and shows how language is a barrier in some instances and can lead to misunderstandings. The fact that Sakina has a physical reaction to the doctor’s words, someone one trusts for their care, is disturbing and definitely highlights her trauma after such little time with the soldiers. Also, I didn’t realize Sirajuddin picked up Sakina’s dupatta after witnessing such a traumatic event, revealing his immense care for her. Many would simply shut down or escape immediately, but this all the more makes his situation at the end of “The Return” more depressing. Overall, thanks for the translation, it definitely cleared any misunderstanding.

(I really tried to figure out how to comment on the post itself but I couldn’t sorry)

I really liked the point you brought up on how you were expecting a sad ending because with writing I feel like it can really go either way. In movies and writing, you are saying that something could have happened to Sakina because of them men harming her in a way but I feel that a happy ending is common in things like this. I feel that the way you are thinking is actually more realistic to something that would actually have happened to Sakina rather than the movie/writing way of thinking of it. But sometimes movies and writing do end in tragedies so it’s cool to see people not really expect the ending. Great work overall!

When reading through “Sorry” and “The Return” by Saadat Hasan Manto, I found myself confused due to the subversion of expectations within the stories. Starting off with “Sorry,” the graphic and almost methodical description employed by Manto suggested that the killer was painfully aware of his actions- he deliberately carried through with disemboweling this person in sequence. Shifting from plunging, ripping, and slashing the belly would leave readers and myself to expect a malicious and apathetic murderer. Yet, in reality the killer was senseless and seemed to immediately regret his actions, claiming he had just made a mistake. This subversion of expectation occurs again in “The Return,” when the generous and caring soldiers locate Sakina and appear to feed and cover her up before returning to the refugee camp. But then, she arrives unconscious and immediately taken to the hospital, without the soldiers notifying Sirajuddin. At this point, I knew the soldiers had either harmed or raped Sakina, which was confirmed later. I believe Manto subverts the readers’ expectations of the soldiers and their intent to establish a tranquil and calming atmosphere- only to rip that away, revealing the harsh reality of life and how instantaneously it can flip. I believe Manto’s usage of subversion allows him to create unpredictable situations and elicit emotions from readers contrary to their expectations.

 “A succession of images raced through his mind. Attack… fire… escape… railway station… night… Sakina.” (Manto)

This was a passage I really enjoyed in the text because of how I felt like I can picture exactly what is happening to Sirajuddin. At the moment, Sirajuddin was facing a moment of tragedy as he was unconscious waking up to a very chaotic and frightening scene. In this moment, he has no clue where his daughter is from and no recollection of how he even got to this point. This passage really fascinates me because it uses one word sentences to show the little he remembers, yet these all have a big significance when you continue reading. It shows how one word can mean so much. The author is saying so much with so little. By including this sentence, we can get a sense of the fear Sirajuddin must have been feeling and it gives off signs of PTSD that he must’ve gotten from his horrible experience.

This story was a very sad read as it truly showcased the violent and horrific state that the people were in during the aftermath of the partition of India and Pakistan. I believe that the use of English in this passage was because it was introduced as a language in India during the British Raj. During “The Return,” I noticed that Sirajuddin was desperately trying to look for his daughter. I can tell that he truly cares for his daughter as he even picked up her dupatta when it had slipped to the ground despite being in the midst of chaos. Although at the end he finally finds her daughter, it took me several reads to realize that his daughter had been raped by her rescuers. This is foreshadowed when the rescuers tell Sirajuddin that they will find his daughter even though they had already found her previously. In the scene with the doctor, he tells Sirajuddin to “open the windows,” to which his daughter responds by spreading her legs open. After studying the text in Urdu, this line was written as, “Khol Do,” which simply means “to open.” His daughter’s response to the command, as well as the serious condition of her body shows that she had to have gone through some sort of trauma from being raped by the rescuers. I was shocked when I realized what the ending meant, and it was also very bittersweet as Sirajuddin was so happy to have finally found his daughter, however, they were betrayed by their own rescuers and his daughter was left in serious condition. While the reading is very raw, it did a very good job in showcasing the true conditions these people were in.

I thought it was odd that “Sorry” was so short. I figured there would have to be a lot of information packed in, or that the poem( an assumption made based on the formatting of the original passage) would provide context to the longer story. However, the poem spends more than half of its time describing where a person drags his/her knife. From this, we can derive three things. The first is that the person holding the knife has the proximity and control to take a short object and pull it through the contours of a person’s body. The second is that the location of the initial incision is incredibly relevant to the perpetrator’s motivation. The third is how gender plays a role in this short poem. Terms such as belly and mid-drift are not specifically gendered but are typically used to describe either a pregnant woman or an elderly man. So when the sentence concludes with a male gender reveal. It is a surprise to the reader. Apparently, it is also a surprise to the perpetrator. Upon looking down and seeing the penis he exclaims with surprise and guilt “Oh no, no! … that was a mistake!”. This line specifically confirms for me that this person is not a surgeon or a mortician. A surgeon, mortician, or forensic examiner would have been given enough time to examine the patient/body before making any cuts. It also confirms that this man either saw a vagina and was wrong about the gender (which is highly unlikely) or he saw a circumcised/uncircumcised penis. In many religions circumcision is a requirement and you are not considered to be part of the religion if it is uncircumcised. Given that this story took place in India, it could have been about a man who was part of a larger group going around killing people who were not of his religious beliefs. Once he realized he was wrong, he expressed remorse.

In the passage where the young men found Sakina, I was expecting something bad to happen to her at the hands of them. In a lot of movies and even some real world examples, there have been men who took advantage of young girls and women, and that was something I was predicting would happen to Sakina by them. I thought they had other intentions than to safely return Sakina to her aged and worried father despite having given her a jacket to cover herself and food and milk. But seemingly, they did bring her back to the camp as they promised Sirajuddin and other times with other women and children. However, Manto injects the part where Sirajuddin asked if they found her, and yet did not tell him they did. And then, she is found unconscious by railroad tracks and is carried to the camp hospital. So we don’t know if the young men really did have the good intentions they portrayed to Sirajuddin to have had earlier. But at least Sirajuddin’s character seems like a light in midst of the dark events going on in the story.

Hannah, I really your explanation on how the reader is experiencing many of the same emotions as Sirajuddin. If I can build off of this, the string of questions that Sirajuddin wonders also puts the same impact on the reader as we were not aware of these questions before Sirajuddin wondered them. As such, the author’s choice to ask them all consecutively also gives the reader a sense of wild wonder as we also are forced to consider these many questions quickly without any answers.

From the very beginning of “Sorry”, the reader is given a sense of intention; “The knife plunged” implies a purposeful stab, and certainly not one that was accidental. Continuing in the poem reaffirms this sense of intention, or, at the very least, knowledge of what is occurring. Of course, the man with the knife must know that he is ripping the belly and moving down the midriff! However, the reader concludes by learning that it is only after the man with the knife slashes the string holding the man’s pyjamas that the man with the knife realizes what has transpired and apologize. Evidently, the man was either oblivious of his actions the whole time (or, rather, he just didn’t care). It is this reveal that the pyjama string was the waking moment for the man with the knife that makes the poem such a tragedy, as cutting through actual blood and flesh was not what stopped him, but a small string of cloth.

The bottomless pit” feeling that Sirajuddin experiences make him want to die as he feels that he has no point in living. However, that feeling is only temporary, as he desperately latches on to the slim hope that this torment might end. The hope that Sakina might be alive; that despite everything that happened to him, he could finally have one shiny gem of positivity in the sea of negativity.

-Zachary Rosman

In the passage “The Return” by Saadat Hasan Manto, the phrase, “Total confusion prevailed, with people looking for lost sons, mothers, wives,” disgusted and intrigued me as a descendant of Holocaust survivors. This phrase describes what Jewish refugees experienced after the Holocaust and what African-Americans experienced after slavery ended in the US, suggesting a form of extreme trauma took place on the train ride from Amritsar to Lahore. The phrase “looking for lost sons, mothers, wives,” suggests that an oppressive force forcibly separated the refugees from their families, leaving them vulnerable and increasing their loneliness. Those closest to you were torn apart from you, one of the most traumatic things that can happen to a person. To end this nightmare, they were desperately looking for family members. The words “Total confusion” imply that without their family and being in an unfamiliar land, they could not call “home,” the refugees were disoriented. They had no idea what was going on, and they were scared of what would happen to them and what happened to their loved ones. Overall, this phrase describes people’s sheer desperation and confusion after a traumatic event occurs to them.

-Zachary Rosman

Admittedly, I have very little understanding of European and Indian history. I presume that the (fictional?) events of the story and poem are based on the Partition of India and Pakistan. From the short excerpt from “The Return”, we can gather that there is significant civil unrest in Pakistan. Our narrator, Sirajuddin mentions boarding a train at 2:00 PM in Amritsar, a city in India, which arrives eight hours later (10:00 PM) in the Pakistan city of Mughalpura. Given that our narrator refers to the attackers as “rioters”, it is unlikely that an actual war has broken out yet (especially since trains are carrying civilians between the two regions). 

What interests me is that the events of the poem and story are only possible because our narrator arrives late at night, when darkness covers the train. The narrator’s wife is disemboweled in front of him (the graphic details and process are most likely further described in the accompanying poem, “Sorry”). After rereading both the poem and story, I realized the entire situation was pretty funny. In the poem, the attacker slashes out the intestines of a “man” and feels regret after realizing he killed not a man, but a woman (“the man with the knife looked down and said, ‘oh no! That was a mishtake!). This illuminates two important points: 

(1) Women have very few, if any rights in this region. The attacker clearly believes that this conflict is the responsibility of men, which excludes women and children, as though they don’t have any say in the regional conflict. This is important to understanding the second point:

(2) It takes a woman to make the man realize he is killing people. It doesn’t matter that the attackers are killing civilians (instead of, say, soldiers). Had the attacker struck down a man, he would’ve continued without any regrets. I found this point particularly humorous because war necessitates the dehumanization of your enemy. Once you see your enemy as something less than human, it makes it easier to massacre them. This brings out a glaring contradiction in which women and children can be deprived of rights since they exist in a group that isn’t necessarily “human”. After all, if men saw women as equal human beings, they would have second thoughts about depriving them of rights. Simultaneously, however, women and children embody the aspect of “humanity”. It takes someone not seen as a human (a woman) to remind the attacker he is killing actual humans. 

These are just some things I found interesting about the two passages. As I mentioned above, my understanding of the historical context is very limited. Please let me know if my interpretation is historically incorrect or flawed. 

-Chris