Movie cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Rasika Dugal, Tahir Raj Bhasin,Rishi Kapoor,Danish Husain
Director: Nandita Das
Saddat Hasan Manto was born to be filmed. His life and much-too-early-death teems with so much drama, and is drenched in so much history, that it is surprising the movies took so long to put Manto in the centre of his own narrative , on the face of it, there couldn’t have been anyone better than Nandita Das to helm the movie.Manto the movie goes back to a time when the subcontinent was being hacked apart, and carved into India and Pakistan, with Manto embodying the tragic senselessness of the Partition, leading to those crucial questions: where did he belong? Was he condemned to rootlessness and restlessness? And finally, damnation? Bombay, 1946. Our man Manto (Siddiqui) is on the cusp of everything that’s interesting in town. He is part of the progressive artists’ movement, bantering with Ismat Chugtai (Deshpande). He spends a great deal of time with the up-and-coming handsome star Shyam (Bhasin), trawling through Bombay’s burgeoning film industry and bustling studios, searching for inspiration and paying work. Manto’s talent is never in any doubt, but his streak of self-destruction is clear early on in his flashes of temper and willfulness: he is a handful, for his friends, and his wife and constant companion Safiya (Dugal). And then comes 1947, and Manto is forced into making a choice. India or Pakistan? He chooses the latter. His struggles with narrow-minded authority figures and binge-drinking, and we see the downward slide of a man squandering his prodigious talent, and the affection of his loved ones. Interesting movie to watch
Dr Anthony Fernandes
Editor
