Wonder (Karamaat)

Saadat Hasan Manto

The police commenced raids to recover looted goods.

Folks got afraid and started throwing away their loots in the cover of the night. Some took it a bit further and threw away some of their stuff to avoid legal action.

One guy got scared. He had two sacks of sugar lying about. He had looted them from a wholesaler.

He managed to throw away one of them down a nearby well. But while trying to throw the second one, he went down with it.

He started shouting. A crowd gathered. A rope was let down. Two youthes went down and pulled him up…

But after a few hours the guy was dead.

The next day, when people fetched water from the well, it tasted sweet.

On the same night, a candle was burning on the dead man’s grave.