Veteran TV and film actor Shekhar Suman feels that it is time the youth of India comes out of its false digital cocoon and I care a f*ck attitude to life. “This approach is unbearable, having no mooring.”
Talking to IWMBuzz.com about his new play, Ek Haan, with Suchitra Krishnamoorty, which focuses on the life and short stories of a famous playwright of the fifties, Sadat Manto, Shekhar says, “It is very sad that such greats have been forgotten by gen-next.”
“Manto, who moved to Pakistan after Independence, ripped apart the false sugar-coated narrative about our perceptions towards religions and society. Scores of people left India for Pakistan, while many stayed back. Religious animosity did not allow for peaceful co-existence between the two nations.”
“Manto, who was ahead of his time, had a lot of inner conflicts as his thinking did not match the conservative mind-set, back in the forties and fifties.”
“Similarly, his work on prostitutes was panned as soft porn, being very descriptive. But he also questioned why women alone should be slut-shamed. Should the client also not be pilloried for going to them in the first place?”
“However, I am not all pessimistic, for although most youths don’t want to dig deep into the fault lines of partition that haunt us even today, there are many thinking young men and women around. No wonder, films like Padmavat and Bajirao were also super hits, just like Kabir Singh.”
“Works of art and cinema are the best way to connect to the youth, who might find textbook narratives too boring.”
Coming back to the play, he says, “While we want the youth to get Manto, if they don’t, so be it. We are speaking to other TG as well.”
“Anybody who enters the Audi after watching Manto’s conversations with a journalist will be forced to view him in a different light.”