Not many have captured the violence and madness of partition with the intensity, that Saadat Hasan Manto did in his stories. Toba Tek Singh, published in 1955, is the story of a victim of partition. It critiques the relationship between Pakistan and India after partition, where a line on the map drawn by British determined the existence of people living in the lands for ages!
Directed by National Award winner Ketan Mehta, Toba Tek Singh stars Pankaj Kapur, who plays the protagonist Bishan Singh, Vinay Pathak and others. Bishan Singh is in a dilemma when he is informed that his hometown Toba Tek Singh is now in Pakistan but he is being sent to India by police escorts. Here starts Bishan’s journey of being a displaced lunatic trying to make sense of the present situation through his memories of the past.
In this story of lunacy and displacement, the audience could expect to spend 73 minutes (the run time of the film) of real good experience considering the team behind the feature film. The screenplay is written by the director himself.
Here’s the trailer of the adaptation of Manto’s classic short story,
Feature image source
