"TOBA TEK SINGH"
(An adaptation of Manto's stories)

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May - 1992 (Lahore)


Dramatized by: Shahid Nadeem
Directed by: Madeeha Gauhar

An Adaptation of Manto's masterpiece short story about the exchange of mental patients between India and Pakistan at the time of partition. "Toba Tek Singh" is the nick name of a sikh inmate in Lahore mental asylum who hails from "Toba Tek Singh" and refuses to be sent across the border. There is one lunatic claiming to be Jinnah, another, one calling himself Nehru and yet another one calling himself Master Tara Singh and God is sitting on a tree. The play as well as the story is a powerful indictment of the insanity and inhumanity which accompanied partition of 1947.

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Review: "Toba Tek Singh" is opened to an eager audience, spell bound by the 'dare and bare' sensitivity of the story writer as it was presented by the theatre group 'Toba' set in the Lahore Mental Hospital of the day when two newly formed countries were deciding to exchanging assets, even the lunatics of society, could be taken as a metaphor of the age. "Toba Tek Singh", a Sikh character Bishen Singh, played by Aslam Shaheen against the minimal of backdrops was effective to say the least.
(THE NATION: January, 1997.)