Let’s get one thing straight – Manto is the sort of film that will most definitely divide its audience. But even its most searing critic will have to agree that the one undeniably great moment from the Nandita Das film is its last scene. It showcases the last bit of Manto’s most celebrated short story, Toba Tek Singh. A man lies dead between the barbed wires of Hindustan and Pakistan. A powerful image to depict those displaced overnight during the 1947 partition, the scene keeps shifting between this image and the visuals of the author (played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui) looking straight into the camera, with a reluctance that mirrors the internal conflict of the lead character of Toba Tek Singh.
Manto too, lay in no man’s land. Too outspoken to belong to any particular tribe, rejected by society for writing ‘obscene literature’ and even disowned by his fellow writers who found his prose ‘too crude’ to be called literature at all.
This technique to draw parallels between Manto’s stories and his own life between 1946 to 1950, may not be the most inventive (many biopics of literary figures have used the same) but is definitely effective. Mostly because Manto, more than any Indian writer of his time was a man writing about his time- ‘he wrote about what he saw’. And like many geniuses, he didn’t find the fame and respect which he perhaps deserved. In retrospect, Manto’s writings which are considered as one of the finest in the subcontinent, didn’t nearly do justice to the man as he lived and breathed. Das’s film, however, is more intent on bottling the spirit of the writer without necessarily apologising for his contradictions. Das, like a good biographer, is ready to embrace Manto in all his complexities-a one-of-a-kind writer, a difficult husband, a doting father, a raging alcoholic and a stray wolf – all at the same time.
Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Manto, is hardly a revelation for anyone who witnessed him in action in Das’s riveting short film, In Defence Of Freedom. You already know he is going to be great, and yet… he surprises. In a scene where he’s addressing a few budding writers, witness him as he proclaims – MAIN EK ARTIST HOON! Or that scene where Siddiqui’s Manto is fed up of being ill-treated by unprofessional editors, which results in him tearing his column into pieces in front of the editor and his minions. The righteous anger in Siddiqui’s eyes, is almost a force of nature. Das is also possibly trying to comment on the lack of respect awarded to artists while they’re alive, and their unnecessary deification in retrospect. Siddiqui’s vulnerable moments as Manto, is what reinforces his reputation as one of the finest of his generation.
Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Siddiqui’s towering Manto, is an ensemble of actors. Rasika Dugal, who plays Safia, is a perfect foil to Siddiqui’s Manto. Dugal speaks with a childlike innocence, and yet she is extremely firm when it comes to laying out the facts in front of her iron-willed husband. Tahir Raj Bhasin, as 1940s superstar Shyam Chadha, gives the film one of its finest moments when he holds up a bottle of whiskey and asks his good friend packing for Pakistan – “you’re not *that* much of a ‘Muslim’. Are you?” To which Manto replies, “I’m Muslim enough to be killed”. The film is peppered with many, many surprisingly colourful cameos by the likes of Rishi Kapoor, Neeraj Kabi and Javed Akhtar.
Nandita Das’s film is immaculately designed and professionally mounted, replete with Zakir Hussain’s score and Sneha Khanwalkar’s songs. And while it manages to capture flashes of its subject’s provocative-nature, there are times when aesthetic overpowers the raw, graphic intensity of a moment. It does become exhausting to be a part of a world where all characters speak in profound metaphors. Or maybe it’s Urdu, that makes everyone sound like a shayar. Das uses Manto’s technique of inverting expectation beautifully into a scene where Manto is driving through a Muslim neighbourhood with Bollywood star, Ashok Kumar. This is an unsettling time leading up to the partition, and the consequence leaves you with a big, foolish smile.
In an age, where Rajkumar Hirani is busy manufacturing sympathy for his good friend, Manto is an affecting and a worthy biopic from Bollywood. It doesn’t claim to distill its subject’s life into under two hours, but the film manages to replicate the gritty world of Manto’s stories . The incessant smoking and the continuous swigs of alcohol are both suffocating and leave a bad taste in the mouth (literally!)
The film also uses Manto as a vessel to ask more pressing questions about the present. Are we more liberal and progressive than this man, who lived in the 1940s? Why haven’t things evolved? Why is it that we need radicals like Manto to remind us about speaking truth to power?And most importantly, where is the Manto of our times?
