"It was an endeavour at visualising Manto’s short stories in Indian contemporary theatre. No improvisation. It is word by word presentation of his writings," says Mushtaq Kak, artistic director of SRC, who has directed and designed the play. Manto’s daughters Nusrat Jalal, Nigha Patel and Zuzhat Arshad had given their joint consent in writing to Mushtaq Kak from Lahore to adapt their father’s short stories.

In Pakistan, Manto was branded as smut writer for which he had to face criminal cases. Manto had never visited brothel house but was gallant towards women. He has always depicted women as heroines in his stories showing them as helpless weak element that were treated as a source of pleasure in a male- dominated society. In Tangewaley ka Bhai, Manto has shown man’s starvation for sex when an aged man pounces upon a burqa- clad woman who later turns to be a young smart boy. In another play, Mr Hameeda he shows the plight of a college -going girl who has hair on her face and uses a razor to shave daily. But one day when she is confined to bed, she requests one of her boy friends to help her in shaving. That is the real stroke in the play. Ek Khat depicts Manto’s platonic character. The character falls in love with a shepherd girl in Batote but has no physical relations with her. The Sadak ke Kinare story also pertains to a woman, who after having physical relations and passing through nine months of rigorous pain, leaves her new born-baby on the roadside.

Manto was a tippler. He gives his explanation of the drinking habit in the play thus: "I write these stories because I have to write something. As a drunkard cannot stay without going to drinking place, similarly my fingers cannot stop my thoughts from being written."