Manto - the writer behind the writer

The word is partition literature in itself. But who was Manto behind those stories? Behind Thanda Ghosht, Toba Tek Singh, who was this bespectacled man who was against partition and believed Bombay (now, Mumbai) was the love of his life? Can he be confined to being a writer who put his flesh and blood to write about he flesh and blood during the 1947 partition? And that what’s the movie does. A writer is a writer even beyond his books—his life are the pages of his life that he writes them. It isn’t a nine-to-five job—even when Manto was a father, husband, brother, he was a writer in motion—his thoughts, his words entered pages through the humdrum of daily life. He never wrote about silver linings or about freedom struggle but wrote about struggle for freedom of ordinary people living in the belly of our cities—things that people wouldn’t talk about.

And Nandita Das has molded her cinematic expression like a poet would mold words into a poem and let the actors add assonance and consonance with their stellar performances, Nawazuddin, of course steals the show, but Rasika Duggal is exceptional too. And so is the rest of the star cast. But what you’d love the most is the relation of Manto with his peers, like Ismat Chugtai (famed writer), Shyam Chand (actor). You know its 1940s because the friendships were deep like an ocean and their hearts were large like its basin.

Manto’s life wasn’t easy—he was charged with obscenity in his stories, his supportive wife couldn’t take his alcoholism, after a certain point. Even the book launches were a potboiler of heated discussions. Watch the film to get a glimpse of what Manto-the writer is.