Safiah understood Manto ‘like no one else’

KARACHI: For Pakistani actress Sania Saeed, one of the best parts about playing Safiah — Manto’s wife — in the film Manto, is the very real off-screen relationship that has developed between her and his three daughters.
So much so that short personal message exchanges — a sort of “chit chat” — often take place between her and Manto’s middle daughter Nuzhat (Nuzzi), where Nuzhat playfully refers to her as “Ami Jaan” and to which Saeed responds with an equally naughty “Beti Jaan.”
Playing Safiah was not easy. Saeed told Dawn it was both scary but also a “treat,” and that she would have accepted any role just to be part of a film celebrating Manto.
“Both I and Nimra Bucha (who plays Manto’s alterego) said we would have accepted the role of an inanimate object like a vessel standing in one corner of a room,” Saeed said.
However, after Manto’s daughters gave her performance their resounding nod of approval, telling her “this was exactly how” their mother was, Saeed said she was “so relieved and overwhelmed” she started crying loudly.