Phatan khamosh rahi-- Minahil

“Phatan khamosh rhi”.  The ending line of ‘Sahib-e-Karamat’ has a profound effect on the reader because of the apathy from the narrators voice. In both ‘Hatak’ and ‘Sahib-e-karamat’ Manto highlights the silence of the women. In ‘Sahib-e-karamat’ the women don’t speak. We see Gina struggling to break free from the maulvi’s grasp repeatedly without uttering a word. Moreover, the absence of Phatan’s say in her own divorce, nikkah and reconciliation catches the reader’s attention. In this story the silence is like a language of the women, it is a reaction in itself. Compared to this subdued silent existence of women, Saughandi in Hatak reacts to her lie of a life in a completely different manner. She takes a stand, makes a decision and even though she comes alive through the ultimate insult, in the end even she is left with silence - the “haulnaak sanata”. Nothing changes; their lives go on in the same way. It is as if both a women’s action and passivity is equivalent.  The end is the same- the hollow empty silence that is their existence. As a reader the silence is very important, it tells you the story and highlights the social difference through which it makes them the central figures of the story. Both the stories show women as existing in the underground world - without which the world doesn’t work, but they aren’t given a say. In the end the silence is overwhelming.