Free for All | Manto Short Story | India Pakistan Literature

A Book A Day - A Literary Podcast from India

Original called Dekh Kabira Roya (See, Kabir Cried), this short story (now titled Free for All) was published by Saadat Hasan Manto soon after he migrated to Pakistan after the partition. Manto uses the famous 15th century Sufi poet Bhagat Kabir as a protagonist to presciently satirise the emerging trends of intolerance, orthodoxy and cultural chauvinism in the newly-independent state, which are all too familiar in Pakistan in the 21st century. Let's hear the story in this episode.