Manik and Mushtaq Shoro Were literary Abused For Their Writings: Shoukat Hussain Shoro

Sindh’s legendary short story writer and dramatist Mr. Shoukat Hussain Shoro has claimed that Manik and Mushtaq Shoro were literary abused for their writings and were accused of polluting the minds of young Sindhis through their stories.

This he said in an online live session under the title “Manik: His life and work” organized by Sarangaa Publication and hosted by Dr. Ishaq Samejo, on Wednesday evening.

Mr. Shoro said that Manik was a pure creative writer, who started his writing career with stories influenced by social realism and nationalism but later on became an existentialist writer. Mir Thebo was planted by Communist Party to befriend Manik and convert him to communist ideology.

“We used to share books and also used to discuss on world classics, like Dostoevsky’s Notes from underground, Sartre’s Nausea and Camus’ The Stranger. Manik had more philosophical approach and he was moved by Sartre’s Nausea, while on the other hand I enjoyed Camus’ The Stranger, and when he asked me whether I liked Nausea or The Stranger, when I told him I was moved by The stranger, he became silent,” Mr. Shoro said.

He further said that Manik was a very sensitive individual and was very disturb in his last days and committed suicide.

“We used to sit at Café George of Hyderabad, in those days we were editing a magazine named “Agtay Qadam” owned by Madad Ali Sindhi, and Manik wrote a very hard editorial. So Mohammad Ibrahim Joyo came to Café George and accused us of polluting the minds of young Sindhis through our writings,” Mr. Shoro added.

Mr. Shoro claimed that they presented themselves to be angry young men and the reason behind that was the repetition of subject in the writings of progressive writers, while they wanted to represent the feelings and emotions of humans.

Mr. Shoukat also said that they were moved by modernism and it was introduced by Mushtaq Shoro in Sindhi literature. But after One-Unit ended their dreams faded away and they were caught by disillusionment, the Sindhi youth of that time was facing unemployment and frustration as Sindh fell in the hands of feuds and landlords. Manik’s novel “Loohrander Nasal” portrays that very time period.

Mr. Shoro further said that Manik’s novel “Patal Main Bagawat” was actually reply to Camus’s Myth of Sisyphus, in which he tried to claim that Sisyphus should revolt against the decision of taking the burden of rock on his shoulders.