| Written & Directed by Mahmood Farooqui Produced by Anusha Rizvi Dastango - Mahmood Farooqui & Darain Shahidi |
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| This Dastangoi presentation on the life and times of Saadat Hasan Manto borrows quotes from people who worked with Manto, were friends or related to him, or witnessed the man he was. The narrative rotates from the third person to first person and back to third-person accounts of the life of the great Urdu short story writer. Right from the mischievous boy, he was in his childhood to his rebellious ways during the peak of his career, Manto is showcased as a person who reflects every possible shade a human being can have. Saadat Hasan Manto was one of the greatest Urdu writers of the last century. He led a rich life, the last years of which, sadly, were given to trials for obscenity, financial troubles and, finally, a liver cirrhosis that was the cause of his death at age 42, in 1955, in Lahore, Pakistan. |
In happier years in Bombay, Manto was also a film journalist and a radio and film scriptwriter. As an insider in the Bombay film industry, he had a ready window into the lives of the brightest stars of those times. Here, Mahmood Farooqui reads what Manto had to say about the devastatingly handsome actor Shyam, a close friend of Manto’s, who, if not for his untimely death at 31, could have been one of Hindi cinema’s biggest stars. |
