Forever the magician, forever the enfant terrible

Here lies Sa'adat Hasan Manto and with him lie buried all the secrets and mysteries of short-story writing. Under tons of earth he lies, still wondering who between the two is a greater short-story writer, God or he.

Manto, arguably the greatest short-story writer of the Indian subcontinent, wrote this epitaph for himself a few days before he died in Lahore, Pakistan, in 1955. At the ripe young age of 42.

For millions, Diego Armando Maradona is to soccer what Manto for me is to short stories. You could replace Manto with Jorge Luis Borges, Lu Xun or Maxim Gorky－albeit for short-story writing. But dare not do so with Maradona for soccer.