As conservatism strikes back in popular culture, it’s time to revisit the works of Ismat Chughtai and Saadat Hasan Manto. Both writers exposed glaring social weaknesses of their times but had very individual styles and approaches to the subject. Over the years, their writing remained fresh, their concerns relevant and their relationship spurred the imagination of creative souls. Delhi-based theatre group Pandies’ theatre has been working on Ismat Chughtai for two years. Following from a hugely successful multilingual play-project on three progressive writers in 2016, their latest offering is “Ismat’s Love Stories”, a full length play in English about Ismat Chughtai’s early writings and her relationship with Saadat Hasan Manto.
Anuradha Marwah, the writer of the script, admits to being fascinated by Chughtai’s writings and her anecdotes about Manto. “By all accounts, the two writers shared a mercurial relationship. Both were Progressive; both wrote about sexuality. Yet they would have frenzied arguments about the role of writers and about women who love and men who betray. The interface is between Chughtai’s instinctive feminism and Manto’s outspoken radicalism.” Marwah’s script was one of the three short-listed for the Hindu Playwright Award 2016.
As Marwah doesn’t read the Urdu script, she relied on the Hindi translation. Inspired by real events, she describes it as a free flowing translation so that the dialogues don't sound stilted. “I have tried to communicate the flavour of the kind of Urdu that they would have been speaking but not in a literal fashion.”
The director of the play, Sanjay Kumar, found immense potential for play in the script. “There is the gentle, homey Manto who washes diapers; there’s also the raunchy Manto who wants to meet Ismat to discuss forbidden aspects of sexuality with her. Similarly, Ismat is sometimes vulnerable, at other times, quirky. ” The group workshops and activises in community settings all over India and has taken its plays on platform children and communal strife to New York and Manchester. Pandies’ members meet at least once a week to discuss, argue, plan, and rehearse and have been doing so for more than 24 years now.
So, Sanjay held many workshops to explore the nuances of these multi-layered personalities. “We had a lot of fun interpreting the characters in different ways – not only Manto and Ismat but also the others. The play contains a fictional interview of Ismat being conducted by a clever young starlet. We did her interaction with the celebrated writer as deferential and quietly funny and then as uproariously funny,” says Priya, one of the actors. “I decided to keep both interpretations for the final performance. Also, Ismat and Manto are slightly different in both. It has been a successful experiment as both versions have enriched each other by comparison and contrast during rehearsals. Besides, everyone in the group is happy as all my veteran actors wanted to be on stage for this one,” Sanjay Kumar added.
The play will be performed by two different sets of cast at 6.30 pm. on February10 at IIC and at 7.30 p.m. on February 12 at IHC
