Second Letter to Uncle Sam

31 Laxmi Mansions,
Hall Road, Lahore

Most respected Uncle,

Greetings,

It has been a while since I wrote to you but while there was no acknowledgment from you, some days earlier, a gentleman from your embassy whose name I do not recall right now, dropped in to see me in the company of a young local. A brief resume of my conversation with these gentlemen follows.

We introduced ourselves in English. I was surprised that he spoke English, not American, a language that I have been unable to follow my entire life.

We spoke for nearly three-quarters of an hour. He was pleased to meet me as every Americans pleased to meet a Pakistani or an Indian. I also gave him the impression that I was pleased to meet him, when the fact is that I do not derive any pleasure from meeting white Americans.

Please do not take my blunt words to heart. During the last War, when I was living in Bombay, one day I found myself at Bombay Central, the train terminus. All one could see in the city those days was Americans. Nobody any longer gave a damn about poor Tommies. All the Anglo-Indian, Jewish and Parsi girls of Bombay who slept around by way of fashion were now to be seen walking hand in hand with the Americans.

Uncle, believe me when one of your soldiers with a Jewish, Parsi or Anglo-Indian girl on his arm would walk past these Tommies, they would burn to a cinder with envy. You truly are different from the rest of the world. Our soldiers here don’t even make enough to buy half the food they need, but you pay even your office boy so much that he can fill not one but two bellies, from bottom to top.

Uncle, forgive me for my impertinence, but is it not really something of a fraud? Where do you get all the money from? I know it is not my place to say so, but your actions have only one purpose and no other: show off. Maybe I am wrong, but it is human to make mistakes. I think you are also human and if you are not, then there is nothing I can do about that.

I am digressing. I was talking about Bombay Central where I used to see many of your soldiers, mostly white, although one also ran into blacks. If truth be told, these black soldiers looked far tougher and in much better health than white ones.

I can never understand why so many of your people wear glasses. The whites wore glasses and the blacks, whom you call Negroes, wore them too. Why they needed glasses, I have no idea. Maybe, it is all part of some grand strategy of yours because since you favour five freedoms, you want those whom you can easily put to eternal sleep-and you do- should look at your world through your glasses.

At Bombay Central, I saw a Negro soldier who was so muscular that at his very sight I shrank to half my size. In the end, I gathered my courage and walked up to him. He was resting his back against the wall, his kitbag was lying next to him and his eyes were half closed. I made a noise by rubbing my shoes on the floor which made him open his eyes. I said to him in English, “I was passing this way when I stopped, so impressed was I by your personality.” Then I offered him my hand.

The soldier who was wearing glasses took my hand in his vice-like grip and before he could crush every bone in there, I begged him to let me go. A big smile appeared on his dark lips and he asked me in his pure American accent, “Who are you?”

“I live here,” I said, massaging my hand. “I noticed you at the station and felt like exchanging a word or two with you.”

“There are so many soldiers around, why did you pick me out?” he asked.

It was a tricky question but I answered it quite effortlessly. “I am black, so are you. I love black people,” I told him.

He flashed a big smile at me. His dark lips looked so attractive that I wanted to kiss them. End of story.

Uncle, your women are so beautiful. I once saw one of your movies called ‘Bathing Beauty’. “Where does uncle find such an assemblage of pretty legs?” I asked my friends later. I think there were about two hundred and fifty of them. Uncle, is this how women’s legs look like in your country? If so, then for God’s sake (that’s if you believe in God) block their exhibition in Pakistan at least.

It is possible that women’s legs out here may be better than legs in your country but, uncle, no one flashes them around. Just think about it. The only legs we see are those of our wives: the rest of the legs we consider a forbidden sight. We are rather orthodox you see.

I have digressed again but I will not apologise because this is the sort of writing you like.

I wanted to tell you that the gentleman who came to see me belonged to your consulate here. He wanted me to write a story for him. I was taken aback because I do not know how to write in English, so I said to him, “Sir, I am an Urdu writer. I do not know how to write in English.”

“We need the story in Urdu because we have a journal that is published in the Urdu language,” he replied.

I did not want to probe any further, so I said, “I am willing.”

God is my witness, I did not know that he had come to see me at your bidding. Perhaps you made him read the letter I had sent you.

But let’s drop this. As long as Pakistan needs wheat, I cannot be impertinent to you. As a Pakistani (though my government does not consider me a law-abiding citizen), I pray to God that a time may come when you find yourself in need of millet and edible greens and, provided I am alive, I will send it to you.

This gentleman who asked me for the story wanted to now how much I would charge for it.

Uncle, it is possible that you lie- and you actually do, having turned it into an art- but I don’t know how to.

That day, however I did lie. “I will charge Rs.200 for my story.”

The truth is that the most publishers here pay me is forty to fifty rupees a story, so when I said I would charge two hundred, I felt bad and quite ashamed of myself, but it was too late.

But uncle I was really surprised when the gentleman you had sent replied, sounding equally surprised (real or artificial, I do not know), “Just two hundred… you should charge at least five hundred for a story.”

I was really thrown because I could not imagine even in my wildest dreams that I could be offered five hundred for a story. But I was not going to go back on what I had said, so I repeated, “Look, sir, it will be two hundred and further discussion on this matter I am not prepared for.”

He left, obviously in the belief that I was drunk. I drink and what I drink I have described in my first letter.

Uncle, I am surprised that I am still alive, although it is five years since I have been drinking the poison distilled here. If you ever come here, I will offer you this vile stuff and hope that like me you will also remain alive, along with your five freedoms.

Anyway, next morning as I was on my veranda shaving, the same gentleman of yours appeared and said, “Look, don’t insist on two hundred, take three hundred.”

I said fine and took the three hundred he had offered. After putting the money in my pocket, I said to him, “I have charged you an extra one hundred but let me make it clear that what I write will not be to you liking, nor will I give you the right to make changes.”

He has not shown up since. If you run into him or if he has sent you a report, please do let your Pakistani nephew know about it.

Those three hundred rupees I have already spent. If you want the money back, I will pay you at the rate of a rupee a month.

I hope you are happy with your five freedoms.


Your obedient nephew,

Saadat Hasan Manto