meeting manto

My meeting with manto

I was born on 5^th November 1975 in a Punjabi family. My father was a photographer, who had migrated to India from Lahore during partition.

The filmmaker in me was always on the hunt for good stories, during this search is when I met Manto, It was in early days of my career as an assistant director. When I read what manto wanted to say I was taken aback by his writings, especially on partition. It was like those experiences which I had heard in my family, when they spoke about the partition days. For me it was like a grandfather telling his grandson what he had gone thru during partition.

As I read more of him I realized that he had made heroes out of those characters who themselves dint know who they were. He exposed those layers of society which were never spoken about. In the days when people were writing fairy tales he wrote about the panwala, or the prostitute or the pimp.

It is also not what he said but how he said, he never sugarcoated his statements. He painted a very clear picture of the characters and their surrounding. So much so that one could also smell the filth on their door steps while reading it sitting in your drawing rooms.

But Frankly I never thought that manto wrote stories, for me he penned real incidents which over the time became stories…

But as for the people who create controversy about his writings, manto saab just said it right in his own words

“lanat ho sahadat hasan manto par, kambakhat ko gaali bhi salike se nahi di jaati”

People say they haven’t met manto, but I have, I met him thru his stories, his letter, his plays, rather I still meet him and have endless conversations.

I discover new things about him every time I meet him.

As for my short film ‘Black Freedom’ on manto’s “Siyah Hashiye” and “Khol do” Is all what I could produce with all the savings of mine and help of friends. It was made in 2004. Since then I have been saving again.

I am surprised why his writings were never adapted into films. But it wont be long, I will do it.