The Idea Of Sexuality & Discontent Of Civilization

All developing at different stages in our lives. These are systems, not parts of the brain or in any way physical”. The partition of India and Pakistan exposed the episode of brutal immorality which is unmatched in history. Since the sexual urges of according to Freud are inexplicable, inevitable and unavoidable of all human desires. The concept of ‘sexual violence’ and surmounting of Id over superego needs to be understood and contemplated upon. This paper is initiative on the idea of sexuality (instinct) and discontent of civilization which bounded human desires and turned to sadomasochistic sexuality that has been displayed in the works of Saddat Hassan Manto.

Manto had this impeccable quality of combining psychoanalysis along with human behavior; therefore his characters are not mere names but symbols of circumstantial collective madness. We find the writer’s later works that depict the dark portrayal of human psyche. Manto had very rightly pointed out,” A writer picks up his pen only when his sensibility is hurt.” Therefore characters like Ishwar Singh and Kulwant Kaur are not one or unique but we find such characters in our society, though their Eros. “Eros so clearly betrays the core of his being, his purpose of making one out of more than one; but when he has achieved this in the proverbial way through the love of two human beings, he refuses to go further. Freud(1930).

We find Manto’s writing shattering the taboos and fallacious norms of society. Manto says-“If you find my stories dirty, the society you are living in is dirty. With my stories, I only expose the truth’’. The author is pessimistic about the society in which we are living because what so ever socio-political problems we see around us are caused discontent of civilization which cause the result of hunger-for flesh, power, lust, wealth and blood. Although Manto is now remembered one of the masters of Urdu fiction, he received restrained recognition in his life. His characters are broke, expelled from so called civilized society and disenfranchised. In ‘KHOL DO’ we see how the group of young men who promise to look for the lost girl rape her till she is unconscious. In ‘KHUDA KI KASAM’ Manto writes-“What kind of abduction is it where you clap a helpless and defenseless woman in a dark room?’’. Now coming towards ‘THANDA GOSHT’ the author’s narrations and the usage of certain words give us an idea as to how much sexual violence, the urges of id (Pleausre) overcome upon the mind of the character . ‘THANDA GOSHT’ is not only the outcome of writer’s mind but it is the suffering of civilization and disintegrated society which is filled with sadist ideas. ‘THANDA GOSHT’ is the story of partition time which created havoc in society.

The question that should come into our minds is where is all this violence coming from? Why is there so much of sadomasochism and discontent existing in the sexual attitudes of partition time. We find sadistic and libidinal urges in the time of partitioned India. In sentences like, ‘’he pulled Kulwant Kaur and began to knead her both breasts with both hands.” Further sentences like ‘’He dugs his lips into hers; nibbled at her earlobes, kneaded her breasts, slapped her glowing hip resoundingly and planted big wet kisses on her cheeks.’’ Further in the story, Kulwant out of immense anger and desperation and to know the truth violently kills Ishwar Singh. She has no mercy and regret for the act she does. The sexual fragility of the dead body is put in stark comparison to the cold man who is unable to emerge as a proper sexual performer. Both the dead victimized girl and the protagonist appear to be sufferers of sadomasochistic thoughts and deeds. Through Manto’s plots, it becomes crystal and clear evident that to exist in such violence times, one has to be able to survive such sadistic and erotic (id) intentions. Violence, sexual abuse and physical assault are examples of extreme ‘discontent of civilization’ where human nature is deeply rooted to the pleasure seeking principle, which urge human to be sadomasochist.

It is important for us to understand that the story of grief and loss that followed the partition was never addressed due to the euphoria of independence. If we are to contemplate upon the identity of the modern Indian man, we cannot discard the partition movement from it; it being central to this post-modern identity. This sexual animalistic violence which followed along with all other forms of violence should therefore, not be dismissed as superfluous or unnescary. While reading Manto, we observe that the characters of his story express ‘unconscious’ and deracinating the ego and super ego from oneself. According to manto , ‘bread and hunger, woman and man are two very ancient relationships-timeless and endless. The entire world literature is concerned with these two relationships.

Sigmund Freud remarks that the tendency to inflict and receive pain during intercourse is the most common of all perversions, and ascribed it-as so much else to incomplete / aberrant psychological development in early childhood. Manto’s divided india seems to be full of such dark, violent people for whom expression of sexual violence was just another inevitable form of displaying wrath. We can conveniently relate to manto’s own testimony, where the author himself considers the story to be one that “tells human beings that they are separated from humanity when they become animal-like.” The suggestions of raping a corpse or a young girl opening her ‘salwaar’ on hearing open utterances, by themselves illustrate the extent to which humans contained ‘socio-political’ violence and brutality. The act of sex appears mechanical, and animalistic. Ismat chughtai has pointed out in, ‘’KAGAZI HAI PAIRAHAN’’ , her memoir on Manto that ‘ his stories unsettle us because they take us to the darker, brutal corners of our psyche, to desires repressed and ugliness that settles.’