Manto would make Sarmad immortal

Though the movie could have been better

He is the most controversial and acclaimed short story writer of Urdu literature. He was tried in court on charges of obscenity for six times in his life but never convicted. He once claimed that whatever a write-up comes from his pen, it becomes mandatory for it to be published. Saadat Hassan Manto is still alive in literary circles and his blunt writings are relevant even today after the passage of more than half a century. The idea of making a biopic of Manto came into the mind of Sarmad Sultan Khoosat when celebrations of 100 years of Manto were being commemorated all over the world just two years back. The role of Manto was acted by Sarmad himself and he is also the director of the movie. The premier of Manto was held this week in Lahore in which all the stars of showbiz and giants of Urdu literature of today participated.

In the beginning of movie, Saadat Hasan Manto was presenting his masterpiece short story “Khol Do” (Open It) in the session of Halqa Arbab-e-Zoq and participants started raising objections on the bold theme of story. This made egoistic Manto annoyed and he left the session by saying that those people couldn’t bear his writings [the ideas that his writings presented]. The director presented the character of Sakina and his father Siraj-ud-Din in such a candid way that enthralled the audience. The role of Siraj-ud-Din was beautifully played by veteran actor Irfan Khoosat.

The arrogance of Saadat Hassan Manto was rightly witnessed in the movie as in one scene Sarmad Khoosat cried: ‘I am not an ice seller; the only thing that I sell is fire… fire!’ This dialogue came in the backdrop of an incident when Manto was handed over a license to run an ice factory although he had applied for the license of a publishing house.

Although the showbiz fraternity termed the movie a ray of hope towards the revival of Pakistani cinema, the literary giants were much critical and said that the movie did not come up to their expectations. “The script of the movie was written with the assumption that every single viewer had read the literary works of Manto but that is a wrong assumption. I think this is a low budget movie and therefore some lacunas are left in the story-telling but acting by Sarmad was matchless,” noted playwright and poet Amjad Islam Amjad said.

Masood Ashar, a short story writer and columnist who has written a number of pieces on Saadat Hassan Manto, thinks that the movie has not come up to his expectations and the music was very disappointing. In Ashar’s view, the acting by Sania Saeed who played the role of Manto’s wife, was a good thing in the movie. The poem “Manto” written by Majeed Amjad is regarded as a rich tribute from one legend to the other was also badly rendered in the movie. However, the leading director of Pakistani cinema Syed Noor was of the view that he had never seen such a commendable movie in the history of Pakistan and it was difficult to determine whether Sarmad Khoosat was a brilliant director or an actor.

Another veteran actor Irfan Khoosat, who is also part of the cast and father of Sarmad, thinks that his son has made him proud with the movie and has reinvigorated the dying legacy of his grandfather, the great Sultan Khoosat who was also a legend of Pakistani film industry. The screenplay writer of the movie Shahid Nadeem, who has also written a play on Manto for his theatre company Ajoka, said that in this movie the personal life of Manto had been discussed. He further said that Manto eventually won by defeating censorship as not a single scene was censored by Pakistan Censor Board of the biopic of such a writer whose life was marked with censorship.

In a nutshell, the movie was excellent acting-wise but the music and storytelling was not that great. The movie ended with the scene when all the characters of Manto’s short stories like Sardar Bishan Singh of Toba Tek Singh, Sogandhi of Hatak, Kalwant Singh of Thanda Gosht and Sakeena of Khol Do gathered around him and stopped him from drinking alcohol as this was his way of forgetting the characters that he had created himself.

It was the audacity of Manto that compelled him to write the epitaph of his grave as: “Here lies Saadat Hassan Manto with all the secrets of the art of storytelling in his heart. Under the earth he still wonders if he was the best short story writer or God.”

And curtains.