The License- By Dr. Neelam Mansingh
The play is based on Manto’s story ‘The License’, with certain references from Bertold Brecht story ‘The Job’. Both these stories talk about the implication on people in an economy that is industrializing at a fast pace. A man unemployed find a place as a watchman in a factory – parallel to this is the story of a self employed Tongawala. The sudden death of the provider in both the stories drives the family to the brink of starvation. The loss of the job along with the loss of the husband constantly trails them. The only thing that matters was to salvage the job at all cost. Both in the Job and The License the women adopt a plan that becomes as desperate as the situation. To slip into the male identity and take over the husband’s job disguised as the man/husband, becomes the choice available to the protagonist as a survival tool. Wearing her husband’s clothes clumsily, she practices his walk, his way of sitting, eating etc. On the other hand in The License- the woman without erasing her femininity – takes on the mantel of driving the Tonga- a job associated with the male. Both these jobs are normally associated with what is considered ‘manly ‘activities. ’ The riding of the Tonga, the nightly customers, juxtaposed against the nightly rounds of the watchman, the reliability and courage required for hard labour – qualities that have been since time immemorial been associated with the male. The fact that both these women were equal to the demands of their changed identity and new way of life is what forms the crux of the story. In these two stories the two women become men, in the same way as men have become men over the millennia, through the production process. Both these stories could be considered as feminist stories and both have an androgynous undertone. Pitted against the hideous strictures of a conventional and poverty stricken society, these women confront life which ultimately defeats them and crumbles their courage. This is framed against short vignettes that are written by Manto’s Called ‘ Sketches’, that draw upon the political history against which the story has been contextualised.
