Saadat Hasan Manto has the distinction of much maligned and yet widely read short story writer in the Indian subcontinent. Some of his short stories were even branded lewd and he was considered a reactionary. This debate regarding obscenity and moral concerns has shifted the critical focus away from his aesthetics. The present paper attempts to form a comprehensive view of his aesthetics from a modern philosophical perspective. It uses the idea of aesthetics, as elaborated by Jacques Rancière, in order to undertake a comprehensive analysis of Manto’s short story “Kali Shalwar” (“Black Shalwar”).