Through Manto, how Nandita Das understood fence-sitters better, and employed cinema to evoke empathy

Nandita Das’s debut book Manto & I is a comprehensive exposition of her journey with the 20th century Urdu writer, Saadat Hasan Manto, through celluloid and beyond — a tale spanning six years of uncovering the man, bit by bit, every bone and sinew that made — and more often than not — unmade him. Only a year since her film Manto (2018) took her across the world to a myriad festivals and meets, Das is on the road yet again, with Saadat Hasan continuing to keep her faithful company. “What is it about Manto that doesn’t leave you, or you don’t leave him?” writer and lyricist Niranjan Iyengar asked the freshly-minted author at the Tata Steel Kolkata Literary Meet. A couple of hours before that, Das was sitting in a sunny poolside-cafe at The Taj, talking to us over lunch. “This is my breakfast, lunch, and dinner, as I am flying out right after my session,” she informed me, having landed from Jaipur (after a session at the Zee Jaipur Literature Festival) barely hours before our meeting. “Don’t you wish there were a term for such an all-in-one meal, like ‘brunch’?” I asked. With a nod and a laugh, she insisted we join her for the meal, warning us that she would only stop eating when the interview was over. “You might hear me go ‘chomp chomp’ in your recording,” she joked, as I set my phone down next to her plate, and dove right in. [caption id=“attachment_7964331” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Manto & I, by Nandita Das[/caption] In Manto & I, you mention, right at the outset, that after the gruelling 44-day-long shoot, you weren’t quite sure if the film you’d imagined would emerge. But on seeing the stills taken on set, you finally felt like there was a film there. Now that it’s been around a year-and-a-half since Manto released, do you think people have perceived the film you’d envisaged? I think so…largely. The feedback was very, very overwhelming for me. What really worked for me was that I made the film respond to what is happening today, and people were able to see the parallels in the film. Even though it was about something that was happening 70 years ago, people could see that it was coming from the concerns and the angst of today. For me, that was really important — how people could immediately see the parallels, and not perceive it as just a biopic. People could see the troubles of the times, Manto’s own struggles, issues of identity and censorship. At the end of the day, the audience’s response tells me more about them, than it does about the film. Film toh jo hai, so hai — good, bad…I know more about all the things that need to be fixed. But when people share what they like, didn’t like, what they felt, they are, in some ways, telling me more about themselves. To see how different people have reacted to the film across continents has been interesting. And thanks to Netflix, people across the world are watching the film. So, whether I take it to a campus in the US, or I show it in a small college in India, it really proves the power of art and cinema. It transcends boundaries and cultures, because at the core, human experiences are universal. [caption id=“attachment_7964341” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Nandita Das. All photos by Tanumay Naskar for Firstpost, except where indicated otherwise[/caption] In the book, quite interestingly, you mention that Manto reminds you of your father. Did this epiphany, if I may call it that, contribute to your process of understanding the writer any better? I don’t know if it was an epiphany, but I think that since I could immediately see the parallels between Manto and my father [painter Jatin Das], I felt emotionally more equipped to do the film, because otherwise, everything has to be understood from the written word. His family did tell me a lot about him, but most people who knew him are not even there anymore, as he passed away in 1955 at the young age of 42. So, to understand what he must’ve been as a human being beyond the written word that was available, became possible only because I realised my father was so ‘Mantoesque’ in so many ways. There were so many similarities between them — whether it’s about being a misfit, being too blunt, or telling the truth in ways that can almost be perceived as being rude at times, or having no relationship with money and being totally driven by one’s passion for work, being very generous and keeping the house doors open, — those were the same stories I would hear about Manto. He would constantly feed people even when they had no money, and his wife would complain. Manto would write in the middle of chaos when his children would be playing — my father would work like that…I work like that! So, in many ways, I felt that Manto was familiar to me. He wasn’t a quirky someone out there — I would’ve still made a film on him, because you can always imagine a character. So in some ways, knowing my father helped me understand Manto. And being with Manto for so long also helped me understand my father better…there is a connection.

Did your father also read Manto? No, he didn’t know much about it till I told him. I mean, he’d heard of him, because he had seen some plays of Manto in Delhi. But he didn’t know much about him. You’ve interacted extensively with the Manto family over the years now for your research, travelling to Lahore quite often. While unearthing so much about Manto and his history, did you, at any point, feel daunted about making the film? Especially because there are so many people who have studied him, and you also mention in Manto & I that people with half-baked knowledge about the writer were the toughest to please. I was daunted, yes. And yes, such people think they know more than they actually do. For instance, one journalist praised the film, and then he said that she has used English words. But those were words Manto had actually used! So the journalist just assumed that since he is an Urdu writer, he can’t use English words. But I was daunted from time to time. Initially, I felt that this man’s story deeply resonates with my concerns, he’s very familiar, people should know him as one of the role models. We need people who can give us courage and have strong conviction — ones who can put their necks on the line. We are living in so much fear, and so I felt he would be a great inspiration. But I am not an Urdu-speaking person. There was so much to read, and some of it wasn’t translated well, I couldn’t find a proper dictionary. Then, I had to recreate the times in which the film is based, for which I would go see some places in Bombay, and think that I won’t ever get that kind of money to make such sets, or do it in post-production. You know, how people take out wrinkles from the faces of actors these days? Similarly, you have to take out hoardings and satellite dishes. In fact, the day I was going to get my first funding, the previous night I told my close friend — and I think I have mentioned this in the book as well — that I am not going to do this film… But you also mention right after that you wouldn’t have regretted a single moment you spent researching for the film… Yes! I still enjoyed all of that. And then my friend said, “Are you crazy? You’ve lived with it for 4-5 years!” And I was like, doesn’t matter. It’s too difficult, I don’t think I can do this film. So, yes, I had my moments. But once you mount the tiger, there is no looking back. Once you’ve taken the money, you’re responsible for a big crew, and then you don’t revisit your decision. After that, you work towards making it the best possible film. And not everything that you want or imagine happens the way you want it. You learn to let go, and that’s also a great learning. [caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Nandita Das with Saadat Hasan Manto’s daughters in Lahore.[/caption] So once the film went on floors, how much did you have to let go and trust the process? But that’s every single day, right? There will be new challenges every single day on set. There’s this location of an Irani cafe in the film with all the writers, called Kayani in Bombay, whose technical recce and all were done much in advance. It’s a really old Irani cafe. So, just about a week before we were due to shoot at Kayani, and that too while we were mid-shoot, the cafe decided to stop night shoots. And we had to do it at night, because that’s when the surroundings are quiet and it’s a sync sound film, otherwise people are honking car horns on the street. And that’s also the only time when we would get the darkness that we wanted. So, in the middle of the shoot, I had to go look for other Irani cafes. And then I found this really tiny one, called Koolar, in Matunga, where we ultimately shot. In retrospect, maybe it worked out well, because the day we were shooting at the Irani cafe, it poured and poured, and it was the last day of shoot. There was a full scene that we had planned for over 12 hours, and that had to be shot in six hours now. It was just miserable, but since it was a small Irani cafe, we didn’t have much space and we could finish it in six hours. Had it been in Kayani, we couldn’t have even finished it in that much time. In the chapter on casting, I found what you wrote on Paresh Rawal quite interesting — about how, despite subscribing to a diametrically opposite political ideology, he respected your opinion and accepted the part he was being offered, even though he may not have necessarily agreed with it… But he read the whole script for both Firaaq (2008) and Manto. He gave sky-high praise to both the scripts, and said he’ll do them. In fact, I was afraid that if he reads the whole script he may not want to do the film (Manto). He knows my perspective on these issues, and what the film stands for, and I don’t want to be bigoted by saying I don’t wish to work with certain actors or certain directors, and be a part of these camps. You don’t want to bring in politics to everything. [caption id=“attachment_7964371” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Paresh Rawal in a scene from Manto (2018). Photo courtesy Aditya Varma[/caption] I have two questions based on this observation. First, as an artist, how important is it for you to align your politics with your work, considering public figures are expected to be responsible for their actions and choices? For me, I absolutely have to align it. I don’t see them as separate. Even with Paresh Rawal, what I meant is that I would not write him off when it comes to his work. I might not sit and hang out with him, but I wouldn’t write him off as an actor and say, ‘I’m never going to work with you’. That also displays a kind of bigotry. But, having said that, I do think the art and the artist are quite inseparable. The reason I have written the book is because I wanted to understand the artist better, and that’s why, even in the film, I’ve weaved Manto’s stories in, as I feel they are inseparable from the man and the writer himself. Knowing who he was helps you understand the stories better, and to show the stories makes you understand the writer better. But then, there are artists and writers who’ve led terrible lives, or have been cruel or morally corrupt, and yet, have been great at their craft. So, those kinds of things happen as well, but I can only speak for myself, and for me, my work and life are not separate, let alone the art and the artist. For me, it’s all very intertwined, and is the same. Secondly, do you think it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find people who respect others with differing world views, especially during such polarising times?

Yes, these are very polarising times. Everything has become a binary, a sound bite or 140 characters — there’s really no space for nuances. So, even if I say that yes, I am fine working with Paresh Rawal, I can be completely misunderstood, and be asked as to how can you say that the art and the artist are inseparable, when you’re fine working with him? But what I am saying is that I would like to engage with that disagreement, and I have engaged with him on multiple occasions. I am not brushing it under the carpet. However, I don’t want to be screaming and shouting — I have done that too in my younger days, and have gone on television debates and screamed at marches and have held posters.

I am in a different place in my life right now, and I feel like the only people I want to engage with now are the fence-sitters. For that, I need to listen in order to be able to understand why they feel a certain way. Because otherwise, we are only talking in our echo chambers, and posturing to each other as to how liberal we are. What’s the point in that?

So, how is your plan of engaging with fence-sitters going so far? What have you discovered through your interactions with them? Especially through the film, I think it’s a good catalyst for a conversation. I know people who are completely right of centre who’ve come to me and talked about the film, and have, in fact, praised the film. It so happened that I met Vani Tripathi Tikoo, — who was the former national secretary of the BJP, — who was my classmate in college, at the Jaipur Literature Festival. She told me that she loved Manto. And this made me think that someone who has a diametrically opposite view on politics, social policies, and life in many ways, feels this way…and if I was able to invoke some kind of empathy in them for the ‘other’, the one you’re planning to put in camps. I have fictional scenes too, like the one with Gandhi. I don’t know what Manto went through when Gandhi died, and how he reacted. In that scene, it brings out that element of religion, and who killed Gandhi, and that’s an important question that we have to revisit today. So, I think when you’re not self-conscious, and it isn’t about the ‘ism’ and the politics, and if you can invoke empathy, compassion, and allow people to think and feel without judgement, that’s what creates conversations. And through that, we change our responses. I was so angry about injustice earlier — I feel the same now as well, but I don’t have to necessarily articulate it through anger. I don’t feel the need to do that anymore. People often ask me as to why they don’t see me on television debates anymore. If someone asks me about something, I am not going to hide my opinion or be diplomatic, I don’t even know how to be that way. But, I am not going to scream and shout. I do go to protests, but I don’t have to stand at the celebrity corner and go on stage to speak. I can happily be among the students, because I am going there for my own conscience too. However, we do need people who can scream and shout, and I applaud people who are putting their necks on the line, and are very vocal on social media. But, it is also your personal journey. I retweet articles that I think people should read, and by doing that I have made my position very clear. Coming to your directorial debut Firaaq, do you think you would’ve been able to make and release it in 2020, considering it dealt with the Gujarat riots of 2002? I don’t think so — whether it’s Firaaq or Fire (1996), both my debut films may not have been able to see the light of day if they were made today. Definitely not without 100 cuts. In fact, so many people are asking me to re-release Firaaq now. But luckily, they’re all on various platforms. After Manto, many have watched Firaaq, because it was made during pre-social media times, and a lot of people hadn’t watched it back then. I’ve been getting positive feedback on Firaaq consistently, and it feels good. Something that you made 10 years ago suddenly has a new lease of life. And people are using both Firaaq and Manto in classrooms to teach students about the subjects they talk about. A lot of film studies and other courses are using these films to talk about, say, Partition. In history or sociology, they are showing Firaaq to teach communal strife. [caption id=“attachment_7964401” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Nandita Das, on the sets of Manto. Photo courtesy Aditya Varma[/caption] Talking about Partition, the subject is finally receiving its much-deserved attention, and with the ongoing debate on citizenship in the country, a lot of parallels are being drawn with Partition. A writer like Manto is extremely crucial to this moment in the subcontinent’s history, considering his contribution to Partition literature. What lessons do we learn from writers like him, Ismat Chughtai, Bhisham Sahni, Nitish Sengupta, and their peers, especially during such a tipping point in India’s political history? Manto was a victim of Partition. In fact, someone asked me the other day that what do you think Manto would’ve said had he been alive today. I said he would’ve very rudely scolded us for not having learned anything from the Partition, as we are being divided on religious lines yet again. He would’ve said that I can’t believe even after 70 years, you’re talking about the same things, and limiting people just by their religious identities, as if that’s all they are. Besides his relevance, how do you think the life and works of writers like Manto and his peers can be used to spread the message of communal harmony? When I decided to do Manto, I could’ve done a film about what’s happening today. But I was sure that doing so would polarise the conversation. People who agree with me would’ve commended me for showing the reality of our times, and on the other hand, a whole lot of people would have had their shutters down. They would’ve just not watched it, or even if they did watch it, they would not have taken from it what I would’ve intended for them to understand, simply because they would’ve come with a preconceived notion about it. So, I feel, taking refuge in telling Manto’s story actually allowed me and the audience to not worry about the fact that it’s about today, and that they have to take a stand. They felt that they were reacting to something that had happened in the past. So, in some sense, I feel these kind of films can become good means of sharing what you want to talk about today. However, conversely, do you think this approach dilutes the actual message of the film? It doesn’t, because people are coming to see the story of a great writer.

I don’t want people to think they are coming to attend a lecture. We seldom celebrate our writers and artists. There’s really no film made on them. In fact, a journalist told me that there’s not a single Hindi film on a writer, besides Manto. And I was wondering, how can that be? And then I realised that there is one more film on a writer, and that is the one that Manto wrote on Mirza Ghalib. How sad is it that we don’t celebrate these people, who are the mirrors of our society.

 I feel that when people come without guards and become vulnerable to the story, that is when they start absorbing what the film is trying to say. What cinema does is something very subtle — we can’t calculate or quantify a film’s impact. It seeps into our subconscious so subliminally that we don’t even know which books or films exactly have impacted us. But these are the things that actually change us. So, my core has been the same throughout, but I know I am not the same person I was 20 years ago. You have always been very vocal about your politics, like you mentioned earlier. However, several artists and actors across India, and not just in Bollywood, have refused to take a stance on political matters, and have identified themselves as ‘apolitical’… …Yeah, I don’t understand what that means. There are journalists who say that too. They think calling themselves ‘apolitical’ makes them objective. Yes. So do you think writers and artists have the luxury of being ‘apolitical’, without running the risk of being termed irrelevant today?

See, saying that I am ‘apolitical’, or that these issues don’t concern me, or I am not concerned about them, also shows your politics. It means you don’t care.

Do you think such statements reflect a kind of privilege, where said public figures can afford to not engage with issues that affect the common man? But in some sense we can all be that. Anybody who’s not having to toil for their daily bread is privileged — you and me, and some others. In some sense, we are all privileged, not just because we’ve had access to education, clothes, and a roof over our heads, but also because we are doing what we love to do. That in itself is such a privilege. Most people don’t have an option but to do what they have to do. So, I don’t think it’s so much about privilege, as it’s about a convenient way to distance yourself from what’s happening around you. We don’t live in isolation or on an island. If you want to be peaceful, even for selfish reasons, you’ve got to have a peaceful world. It’s not a ‘choice’, to be conscious of the environment, or the fact that the world is becoming more violent and bigoted. That should be your default response, your instinct. And that is what I am appealing to everyone, that it’s about being a human, a citizen. Please, show your humanity. Would you not want to be dealt with equally irrespective of your caste, the colour of your skin, your religion, sexual preference, or gender? It’s insane, the number of ways in which we are creating the ‘other’. This way, every person can be the ‘other’ for someone, right? [caption id=“attachment_7964511” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Nandita Das with Nawazuddin Siddiqui on the sets of Manto. Photo courtesy Aditya Varma[/caption] However, who are we to decide if someone is relevant or not? It makes us too righteous if we say that, “oh, you and I are relevant, because we’ve taken a certain stand”. These are celebrities, but there are also very regular people who are struggling with their daily lives — they are not putting out a political stand either. I think that if you believe in freedom, you must believe in other people’s freedom as well. You may disagree with them, and say that I can never see myself being that, but somewhere down the line, you should also give them the freedom to be the way they are. I don’t want to waste my time flogging others; I want to spend my time working towards another narrative that I believe in, and let people decide which narrative they want to subscribe to. This is true of films as well, right? There are so many hardcore commercial films, and people ask me as to what I think of the masala films that are regressive, and have item numbers, objectifying and stereotyping women. We are not going to be able to change that. And even people who watch it sometimes say that what do we do, those are the kind of films that come our way. It’s a vicious cycle, and only you can break it. Like the entire debate centred around the film Kabir Singh (2019), and the message it tried to convey… Right. I haven’t seen it, but I’ve heard it’s very, very misogynistic. But if it’s doing well, for me that is of greater concern, and not why somebody made it. That is that person’s perspective. However, if so many people are watching it, and if the channel that is spewing so much hatred is garnering the highest TRP, then the finger has to be pointing more towards us than them. For the corporates, it’s a business, and if it’s working, then why not go ahead with it. Finally, what are the projects you’re currently working on? I am developing a couple of projects — there’s a feature film I am writing, a short film that I am working on, a documentary idea that I am toying with. Nothing is a 100 per cent complete yet. I am getting a lot of acting opportunities, and I might work on some of them. [caption id=“attachment_7964521” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Nandita Das on the sets of Manto. Photo courtesy Aditya Varma[/caption] You know, it’s only one life, and I don’t want to be busy just for the sake of it, I’ve never done that. Also, with the digital boom, there was suddenly so much work just after I finished Manto, with people asking me to direct this, and show-run that, and direct two episodes of a show. There was so much money coming my way that all my friends thought I was being completely foolish, considering how nine-tenths of my work is pro bono. I don’t associate work with money as such — work doesn’t necessarily mean what you get paid for. For me, film is not really a business. I want to earn also, I am not saying I don’t need money. But if you keep your needs in check, you don’t need too much. And when are we seeing you on screen next? There’s this series I might do in March, I am not sure. Talks are still on. But directing is what I think I really enjoy. I am developing a few projects, and some producers are interested in funding them…I am doing them at my pace. I work from home, and my dining table doubles up as my work station. Now, for the first time, I feel like I want to get a separate space where I can work, and then come back. Otherwise, I am a distracted mother and a distracted working person. And I think that is the first step in the direction of instilling some method into my madness.