Rasika Dugal meets wives of writers to prepare for film role of Manto's life pa...

Actor Rasika Dugal is trying hard to get into the skin of her next film’s character. She plays late Pakistani writer Saadat Hasan Manto’s wife in his biopic. In order to understand her role better she’s in talks with wives of other writers.

“I once saw a very interesting video of this lovely and spirited woman, who was married to a well-known poet, who is now dead. She recited beautifully a romantic poem he had written. She claimed that she was the muse for this poem and then wistfully added that at least that’s what she thought. It made me wonder about families, lovers, spouses of well-known artists or writers,” says Dugal, who plays the role of Safiyah Manto.

Since Safiya’s narration is not well-documented, Dugal went out to meet real case studies because she had a lot of questions in her mind.

“I was very curious about the lives of the wives of acclaimed writers. How do they view their husbands’ work, what respect they get, do they despise their husbands for it and how involved are they or do they feel? After all they have to live with the mundane as well as the artistic,” she says.