Theatre

WAJOOD - MEN WITHOUT SHADOWS (2016)

The play is an attempt to showcase two stories of Saadat Hasan Manto, namely Naya Qanoon and Toba Tek Singh. Saadat Hasan Manto, a playwright, an author and a noted writer on South Asian history, has many collections of short stories, novels, series of radio plays, collections of essays and personal sketches to his credit. His work including Toba Tek Singh and Naya Qanoon are held in high esteem by connoisseurs wherein Manto talks about people who are slaves to the whims of their own mind and society in general. Naya Qanoon is set during the pre-independence days wherein a tonga driver, Mangoo, while despising the British, dreams about new Act which he believes will rid India from the clutches of slavery. His dreams shatter when no such new Act came and he is arrested for assaulting a ‘Gora Sahib’. Toba Tek Singh set in post-independence era, describes the mental anguish Bishan Singh goes through when he is deported to India only to find himself uprooted from his hometown of Toba Tek Singh which has since been territorially integrated with Pakistan. It is significant to note from the play that attaining independence wasn't the end, but just another beginning of a long arduous road where the undercurrent is that “Hindustan had become free, Pakistan had become independent soon after its inception, but citizens were still slaves in both the countries” - slaves of prejudice and inhumanity.