It is said that Manto once told his wife Safia, “Saadat Hasan will die; Manto will live!” Although Saadat Hasan Manto opted to leave the place of his birth and migrated to Pakistan, he still has a lot of following in the subcontinent even today. Born in a village near Ludhiana in Indian Punjab, the turning point in Manto’s life came at the age of 21 in 1933 when he met Abdul Bari Alig, who encouraged him to write. Later, he started his career at the All India Radio and then moved to ‘Bombay’ (now Mumbai) in the ’30s to make his mark in the film industry as film journalist and story writer. He wrote about the private lives of the men and women of the Bombay film industry in ‘Stars From Another Sky’— Manto’s Bollywood ‘confidential’ — a mixture of drunken memoirs and scabrous gossip.

Since he knew Bombay as a multicultural hub, as nexus between India’s colonial past and industrial future, the gritty realism and overt sensuality of Manto’s stories is evoked through an unadorned, colloquial voice.

Many a time, he was criticised for and even had to face legal problems for his bold and obscene writing both in India and Pakistan.

Is Boota pehlwan more famous than Manto?

On Manto’s birth anniversary several Indian cities organised drama festivals where plays based on his stories not only in Hindi, but also in Bengali were staged.

Upcoming director Ayetullah Khan’s theatre group Rangrez Sarokar successfully staged a play based on Manto’s life, Badnam Manto, to packed audiences in both Hyderabad and Mumbai. The theatre group has been approached by several promoters who want to stage the play on a pan-India scale.

The story behind the conception of the play is interesting.

Manto is buried in the Miani Sahib Ka Qabristan in Lahore. But unfortunately few people are aware of Manto’s grave or even Manto himself. Surprisingly people are aware of the whereabouts of Boota Pehelwan’s tomb. As Boota’s grave lies next to Manto’s, one has to first ask and search for Boota’s grave in order to find Manto’s.

“Famous Indian Bollywood writer, Atul Tiwari, a great lover of Manto’s writings, wanted to offer prayers at Manto’s grave during his visit to Lahore. Tiwari spoke to one of Manto’s daughters and expressed his desire to go to the graveyard, on which she told him to ask for Boota Pehelwan’s tomb and the grave next to Boota’s is of Manto. Tiwari asked some of the shopkeepers outside the graveyard gate, but nobody could direct him to Manto’s grave. But when he said it was next to Boota Pehelwan’s grave, everybody knew about it. Tiwari was upset that an author and writer who inspired people with his writing and who was also decorated with Nishan-i-Pakistan was less known than a wrestler. He also heard that a number of people by mistake offer prayers and place flowers on the grave of Boota Pehelwan instead of Manto’s grave.

“On his return from Lahore, Tiwari told me about this incident and I immediately sensed the dramatic element here. So I discussed the possibilities with my friends if this could be adapted into a full length play,” said Ayetullah Khan.

However, researching about Manto and Boota, one could easily find material on Manto but not much about Boota Pehelwan. It was after a lot of effort that the writer’s team in the theatre group could find some stuff on Boota Pehelwan. Lahore being a city known for its pehelwans, it also is the birth place of Rustum-i-Hind. Boota Pehelwan’s school of pehlwani is the Akhara Khalifa Boota. Boota won the coveted title of Rustam-i-Hind off Ramzi who was probably the only opponent who hardly gave him any trouble.

On a visit to England in 1870, Boota was honoured by Queen Victoria. As an indication of his popularity, poets like Mirza Dagh Delhvi, Munshi Mohammad Din Fauq, Fasahat Jang Bahadur, Jalil Manakpuri, Wajahat Jhujhanvi and others wrote poetic tributes on his death.

Boota was born in 1844 and passed away in the year 1904, whereas Manto was born in 1912 and died in 1955.

“We at the Rangrez Sarokar were moved by the fact that a lot of people who go and offer prayer at Manto’s grave mistakenly take Boota’s grave as that of Manto’s and read afsanas there, so we built our storyline around this fact. Manto was a gifted writer while Boota was a wrestler who won his bouts because of his strength. Both belonged to different poles and it was brain vs bravery which we wanted to compare. So Manto and Boota one day confront each other. Boota is also frustrated when people come and offer prayers mistakenly at his grave instead of Manto’s. Hence, the play revolves around the dialogue between the two, which has its hilarious moments and also speaks about the stark realities of life and that’s how the play progresses,” explains Ayetullah Khan.

The play begins with the morning azaan and a woman who is a great lover of  Manto reading lines from his story ‘Mombatti ke Ansoo’. Then a boy comes and reads Manto’s story ‘Sher Aya’, ‘Sher Aya’. By sunset, an Indian couple comes and reads ‘Thanda Ghosht’ in the typical Qissa-goi style of theatrical narrations.

Enraged, Boota emerges from his grave and confronts Manto, and a heated dialogue starts between the two. They debate on various issues from writing to wrestling and also about the miseries and pains in regard to Partition. The entire play is based on their dialogue which has numerous serious and humorous elements.

As the play sets itself in the afterlife of these two characters in their tombs, it packs a lot of untold surprises for the audience which kept them pondering over his current existence — considering the fact that Manto is dead ... he has not ceased to live. And keeps the audience pondering on what comes next. The play also involves a presentation of a few short stories and plays written by Manto in narrative form as well as in the traditional theatrical format.

“One can still find traits of Manto’s existence in his writings, the society and of course, in you and me. Based on the most primitive and the inevitable relations of mankind’s histories, his stories have proved to be valid in all the directions of time,” said Ayetullah Khan.

The play has only two main characters — Devroop Sharma as Saadat Hasan Manto and Ayetullah Khan who apart from directing the play, has also portrayed the role of Boota Pehelwan.

“Manto has always influenced me and I learnt Urdu only to understand him and his work better,” says Sharma.

Ayetullah Khan excelled both as a writer and director and also as an actor in his role of Boota. The characters of the two murids were played by Mayur Ghai and Ajay Munshi and the role of buzurg was played by Sandeep Rawat and the supportive role by Shivkant Agrahari.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, December 27th, 2015