Amar Jaleel Was Afraid To Lose His Popularity Among Fans: Manoj Kumar

Critic and columnist Manoj Kumar has said that Amar Jaleel was afraid to lose his popularity among his fans that was the reason he compromised with his art and only wrote those things that were popular among readers, on the other hand Manik was not afraid of losing popularity and he only wrote what he felt should be written.

Mr. Kumar said that Manik and writers like him were tremendously pressurized by the society to write what the society or readers wanted to read but according to him it was unfair with one’s art when the writer was suffering from society, having financial and other crisis and was not allowed to pen down that suffering and everyone expected hopeful writings from him.

Mr. Kumar was talking on Manik’s life and work in an online session organized by Sarangaa Publication, hosted by Dr. Ishaq Samejo on Wednesday evening.

He said that Manik only wrote what he felt should be written, Manik was facing same problem, what Manto was facing in Urdu literature. On one hand state was not accepting them as their writings were against the narrative of state at that time, while the society was not accepting them as they bluntly wrote on those issues that were totally against the so-called moral values of the society.

“Manik got threats from so called moralists when he wrote short story titled “Haveli Ja Raaz”, what effected Manik the most was the literary establishment of that time, and most of the writers called themselves progressive writers, who always wanted that literature should always serve politics and promote a certain ideology and any writing that doesn’t promote that ideology shouldn’t be considered literature, that was the tyranny of progressive literary movement on writers at that time. Manik was not a writer, who used to write for readers, he was an artist in true sense, Amar Jaleel was widely accepted because rather uplifting approach of his readers, he compromised his art and came down to the level of his readers, but Manik was not like that, he only wrote what he wanted to write without caring about readers or his image,” Mr. Kumar added.