The Ajoka theatre group will stage a play, Kaun Hai Yeh Gustakh, at Alhamra from May 15 to celebrate the 101st birth anniversary of visionary writer Saadat Hassan Manto.
The play will focus on Manto’s life in Lahore after he migrated to the new country of Pakistan in 1948 up to his death at the age of 42 in 1955. He was born on May 11, 1912.
“The play will highlight Manto’s struggle with his detractors and an increasingly conservative and intolerant Pakistan which he foresees in his writings with amazing prescience,” said playwright Shahid Nadeem.
“What Pakistan has become today Manto predicted with great vision in his short stories and essays. It is about his internal struggle as he himself used to say (Saadat Hassan and Manto).”
The play will begin with readings of Manto by Intezar Hussain, Asghar Nadeem Syed, Naveed Shahzad and Shujaat Hashmi.
The audience at a rehearsal for the play on Sunday suggested that it be included in the schools’ syllabus in Pakistan. First, it would educate children about perhaps the country’s finest writer. Second, they said, Pakistan was currently dealing with extremism and intolerance and Manto’s writings would help combat these.
Madeeha Gauhar, the play’s director, said, “Manto was a mild-mannered person but he was indeed an impudent (gustakh) writer. He never minced words when it came to calling a spade a spade.
“At a time when eminent writers were hiding behind ideologies and flowery language, Manto broke taboos, tore through barriers and exposed the nakedness of the king and the society. The kings and the invisible political and religious establishment have never forgiven him for his gustakhi,” she said.
Artist Nirvaan Nadeem said Manto was “banned, harassed, tormented and vilified. When he did not disappear into the dustbin of history, he was sanitised and then decorated.”
The writer was awarded the Nishan-i-Imtiaz by the government in 2012. His famous stories include Naya Qanoon, Toba Tek Singh and Kali Shalwar. Ajoka has been part of the struggle for a secular, democratic and egalitarian Pakistan for the last 25 years, says the group. It was set up in 1984 during General Zia-ul-Haq’s regime.
“We stage such plays because sometimes reality presented as theatre can make the audience realise the contradictions, injustices and traumas which have been suppressed or ignored by society,” said Gauhar.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 13th, 2013.