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Saadat Hassan (Vinay Pathak, whose character’s name serves as a nod to the author who wrote the story the film is based on) arrives at the Lahore Mental Hospital in 1947, just prior to Partition and the subsequent independence of India and Pakistan. He serves both as a narrator of events outside the hospital, and a witness to events inside it.

Ketan Mehta (perhaps best known for Mirch Masala and Bhavni Bhavai)’s film is an adaptation of Saadat Hassan Manto’s short story, “Toba Tek Singh”, which deals with the exchange of the patients of a mental institution several years after Partition. The Lahore Mental Hospital’s most curious inmate is Bishan Singh (Pankaj Kapur), a man who never sits, never lies down, and who, it is said, has not slept for ten years. Bishan Singh, generally quiet, does, nevertheless, have a bit of nonsense that he babbles every so often,...

One more year after five amazing editions the 6th London Indian Film Festival closed its doors on Thurday with the world premiere of Toba Tek Singh, based on the story written by Saadat Hasan Manto.

Toba Tek Singh follows the story on Bishan Singh (Pankaj Kapoor), a Sikh inmate of a mental institution, who hasn’t slept for 15 years and always asks the same question “Where is Toba Tek Singh?”, the name of his home village. The new warden (Vinay Pathak) takes delight on Bishan and the other patients’ eccentricities. However, with the Partition of India and Pakistan it seems that the world outside is more insane then the people inside, and the institution must give up all its Hindu and Sikh inmates. Singh is marched to the new border, but in which country is his beloved home?

The film, directed by Ketan Mehta, is part of Zeal For Unity,...

Vidyarthy Chatterjee remembers Saadat Hasan Manto on his 101st birth anniversary

Saadat Hasan Manto

May 11, 1912-January 18, 1955

If Saadat Hasan Manto had been living, he would have been a centenarian, thirty-five years older than the Indian nation he loved deeply and which he did not wish to leave for an unknown land called Pakistan, but had to under tragic circumstances. As Ahmed Rahi, a close friend, said in April 1990 at Lahore in course of a conversation with other friends of Manto: “In my opinion, Manto began to die the day he set foot in Pakistan.”

Manto who? That would have been the reaction of even a well-read person if you had mentioned the writer’s name two decades ago. But no longer. In fact, these days it is fashionable to drop his name at least once in course of an intense literary evening brought to life by alcohol and cigarette fumes.

New Delhi, Sep 6: Urdu writer Saadat Hasan Manto's popular short story 'Toba Tek Singh' is being turned into a play, which is being produced by Sunil Bohra.

The play is being directed by actor Vipin Sharma, who played Darsheel Safary's father in 'Taare Zameen Par'. The story revolves around Bishan Singh, a Sikh inmate (played by Vipin) in a Lahore asylum who is going to be transferred to India from the town Toba Tek Singh following the partition.

'I was thinking of this for a long time but things were not working out as.

London, Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan is set to star in his first Hollywood film alongside Oscar winning actress Kate Winslet, if reports are to be believed. Helmed by acclaimed filmmaker Pan Nalin, the film will show the funny side of an Indian mental asylum in 1947 during the partition of India. The film is based on a Pakistani play "Toba Tek Singh" by Sadat Hasan Manto, reports femalefirst.co.uk. Winslet is lined up for the film but if she rejects, Nalin has plans to approach actress Rachel Weisz to play the role. "Either Kate or Rachel will be doing my film. I will be meeting both of them after my Cannes trip to finalise the casting. Either of them will be able to do justice to this marvellous story," said Nalin. Aamir is said to have been ...