If there’s one future Indian release, that we will kill to watch right away, it’s Nandita Das’ biopic on Manto. We have seen a short film already, and Nawazuddin Siddiqui seems to have embodied Manto completely.

It’s a bummer that such biopics on writers are rare. We see so many of them on sportspersons.

So producers, if you are listening, get a kickass scriptwriter-director combo to start working on representing these lives on screen.

Ismat Chugthai

One of the greatest female Urdu writers of all times, Ismat Chugthai was embroiled in a controversy over her short story Lihaaf (The Quilt). She was even summoned by the Lahore court, after being charged with obscenity.

Taslima Nasreen

The only Bangladeshi writer on our list, Taslima Nasreen’s life would make one hell of a biopic if made by an able director. She ran into a controversy after publishing her novel Lajja, in which she has presented Islamic philosophy in a bad light.

Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie is famous for being Padma Laxmi’s partner, but the literati in India remember him for his literature and his unique ability to include magical realism in his stories. He also has an affinity towards controversy, and we will love to see a dramatized account of the whole The Satanic Verses episode.

Khushwant Singh

Few writers can be as prolific as Khushwant Singh, and even fewer, can have the same amount of lust for the good life. If you needed an instance of how fun he was, check out this epitaph that he wrote for himself, “Here lies one who spared neither man nor God; Waste not your tears on him, he was a sod; Writing nasty things he regarded as great fun; Thank the Lord he is dead, this son of a gun.”