On an early May evening in 2024, I paid a whirlwind visit to Lahore’s historic culinary hub: Lakshmi Chowk. Carving time out of a grueling business schedule was a challenge, but I managed it—driven by an intense craving to experience a famous local delicacy: Kata-kat.
A rich dish made from offal, Kata-kat (interchangeably called Tak-a-tak) features a seasoned mixture of brain, kidney, heart, liver, lungs, testicles, and lamb chops, all seared in generous amounts of butter.
My local host, Nawaz Bhai, guided me to a specialized Kata-kat restaurant on the first floor of Gita Bhavan, a building on McLeod Road. Stepping into the area, I found myself quite literally in Manto ki Gully (Manto’s neighborhood). The legendary Urdu litterateur Saadat Hasan Manto spent the final years of his short, tumultuous life in a flat at the historic Lakshmi Mansion —now a heritage site located in this very vicinity.
Lakshmi Mansion sits between Beadon Road and Hall Road, just off the Mall Road, a 10 to 15-minute walk from Gita Bhavan at Lakshmi Chowk along McLeod Road and Nisbat Road.
The realization that Manto had walked these streets decades ago transported me back to my childhood. During those formative years, Manto’s work—alongside that of Anton Chekhov, Bimal Mittra, Nihar Ranjan Gupta, Krishan Chander, and Victor Hugo—made up my favorite after-school reading.
Standing in Manto’s Lakshmi Chowk as a hungry soul waiting for a plate of Kata-kat, I pictured how this junction of McLeod and Abbott Roads once bustled with rows of film distributors' offices.
Manto, often hailed as the great rebel of Urdu literature and arguably one of the subcontinent's most masterful storytellers, penned his most iconic, brutally honest short stories in Lahore after migrating from Mumbai during the 1947 Partition. His post-Partition work deeply explored the psychological trauma and absurdities of communal violence.
Among his masterpieces from this era are Khol Do, a haunting tale of a father searching for his teenage daughter amidst the chaos of Partition; Toba Tek Singh, a searing satire about mental asylum patients in Lahore being transferred across newly formed borders based on their religion; and Thanda Gosht, a chilling psychological exploration of the aftermath of communal violence.
While drafting this piece, I stumbled upon a digital discussion hosted by the Kolkata Centre for Creativity. I listened to Abdul Kafi, a professor from Jadavpur University, offer a fascinating analysis of the historical context behind Toba Tek Singh. He noted that following Partition, India and Pakistan did indeed exchange asylum patients based purely on religious identity.
In another poignant story, Tetwal ka Kutta (The Dog of Tetwal), Manto uses a stray dog's tragic demise between opposing military lines to symbolize how innocent, neutral lives are destroyed by the senseless hatred and arbitrary borders humans create.
While I can now boast of visiting Manto ki Gully in Lahore, the writer's life on the other side of the border features its own alleys of inspiration. In South Mumbai, Manto ki Gully prominently refers to Arab Gully, where he lived and gathered raw material for his realistic narratives. His writing was deeply shaped by the vibrant underbelly, cinematic circles, and crowded alleys of Mumbai before his forced migration.
As I stood lost in these literary reflections, the rhythmic chopping of a chef's spatula snapped me back to reality. I watched with rapt attention as he demonstrated a highly skilled technique, using two heavy, flat metal spatulas to simultaneously chop, shred, and mix ingredients on a massive tawa (iron griddle).
Kata-kat is an onomatopoeia named after the sharp, rhythmic "taka-tak-taka-tak" or "kat-kat-kata-kat" clanging sound of metal hitting the iron grill. This aggressive chopping instantly shreds whole cuts of meat into a fine, scoopable mince right before your eyes, forcing spices, green chilies, ginger, and butter deep into the meat as it cooks.
The incredible speed exhibited by the chefs isn't just for show; it allows them to cook, flip, and process massive quantities of meat over high heat without burning.
Today, numerous eateries at Lakshmi Chowk cater to the indulgence of locals and tourists alike. Some of the most celebrated names include Butt Karahi, Desi Karahi, Nishat Cafe Tak-a-tak, Sheefa Tak-a-tak, and Kaka Gurda Kapoora Tawa Champ.
Dining in the area, I became fascinated by how Lahore has preserved several of its pre-Partition names tied to Hindu community heritage. Lahore held a sizeable Hindu population prior to 1947. Lakshmi Chowk gets its name from the historic Lakshmi Building, constructed in the 1930s by the Lakshmi Insurance Company and named after the Hindu goddess of wealth. Similarly, Gita Bhavan was a prominent pre-Partition building constructed by Sewak Ram, son of Rai Bahadur Sir Ganga Ram. Sir Ram was a visionary Indian civil engineer, architect, and philanthropist whose monumental contributions to the urban landscape of undivided Punjab earned him the title of “The Father of Modern Lahore”.
Encouragingly, a renewed effort was launched late last month under the Lahore Heritage Areas Revival (LHAR) initiative to restore and preserve several other pre-Partition locality names across the city, keeping Lahore's rich, multicultural history alive.
Let me conclude with an anecdote that reveals Manto’s true character. On August 18, 1954 – just few months before his death, a broke and ailing Manto penned a fiercely proud, defiant, and controversial epitaph for himself: “Here lies Saadat Hasan Manto and with him lie buried all the secrets and mysteries of the art of short-story writing. Weighed down by tons of earth he wonders still: Who is the greater short-story writer, God or he?"
This comparison of his creative power to God's was the ultimate manifestation of his lifelong rebellion against a hypocritical and judgmental society.
Manto succumbed to liver cirrhosis on January 18, 1955, at the young age of 42. Following his death, his friends and family grew deeply fearful that the original, audacious quote comparing a human to God would provoke severe religious backlash or desecration of his grave.
They opted to use apparently a ‘safer’ second text – “This epitaph belongs to the grave of Saadat Hasan Manto, who still believes that his name was not a repeated word on the tablet of the world.” These lines inscribed on the headstone of Manto’s grave is inspired from a Mirza Ghalib couplet – “Ya rab! zamana mujh ko mitata hai kis liye? Lauh-e-jahan pe harf-mukarrai nahi hoon main.”
