What do you think?
Rate this book
Train to Pakistan Penguin Premium Classic Edition
Mano Majra is a place, Khushwant Singh tells us at the beginning of this classic novel, where Sikhs and Muslims have lived together in peace for hundreds of years. Then one day, at the end of the summer, the 'ghost train' arrives, a silent, incredible funeral train loaded with the bodies of thousands of refuges, bringing the village its first taste of the horrors of the civil war. Train to Pakistan is the story of this isolated village that is plunged into the abyss of religious hate. It is also the story of a Sikh boy and a Muslim girl whose love endures and transcends the ravages of war.
Regarded as one of the most heart-rending testimonials of the partition of 1947, the Train to Pakistan is an ideal novel for those who wishes to learn more about India's past and is looking for more than the socio-political scenario behind the partition.
Regarded as one of the most heart-rending testimonials of the partition of 1947, the Train to Pakistan is an ideal novel for those who wishes to learn more about India's past and is looking for more than the socio-political scenario behind the partition.
200 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1956
2058 people are currently reading
32783 people want to read
About the author
Khushwant Singh
298 books1,431 followersKhushwant Singh, (Punjabi: ਖ਼ੁਸ਼ਵੰਤ ਸਿੰਘ, Hindi: खुशवंत सिंह) born on 2 February 1915 in Hadali, Undivided India, (now a part of Pakistan), was a prominent Indian novelist and journalist. Singh's weekly column, "With Malice towards One and All", carried by several Indian newspapers, was among the most widely-read columns in the country.
An important post-colonial novelist writing in English, Singh is best known for his trenchant secularism, his humor, and an abiding love of poetry. His comparisons of social and behavioral characteristics of Westerners and Indians are laced with acid wit.
An important post-colonial novelist writing in English, Singh is best known for his trenchant secularism, his humor, and an abiding love of poetry. His comparisons of social and behavioral characteristics of Westerners and Indians are laced with acid wit.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,576 reviews
November 19, 2017
India has not changed much even after 70 years of independence when it comes to religion. it's sad and heart-breaking. :(
September 26, 2022
every time i want to write a review, I am just, struck, plain and simple. but this time i decided to write anything or something.
why I give this book five stars? Because it's Indian literature? and about us- Indians?. no, certainly not, because its about characters, which are, u know, are fictitious, but situated in non-fictitious and hard-core reality, struggle to maintain balance consistently between whats good and bad.
Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh is a story about the
violence during Hindustan and Pakistan creation(1947). so naturally we can assume it as a story about Hindu-Muslim communal violence, where there are some good people and bad people in both parties, some heroes and some villains also there, good people trying to save good people from opposite side, people turning bad towards their own side people.
In between all this chaos,
there was
a character, who was a magistrate, held high position, not by politically, but socially in the minds of illiterate and socially under achievers, but good people. He picked a sixteen or less years old girl (she herself not sure about her age) to have physical sex and she reminded him as his dead daughter and he drove it from his conscious mind by drinking whiskey. This man became responsible to save hundreds of people (not related to him by blood, caste, religion and by any other social means except they are humans) and to stop to turn a train into corpse carrier.
a dacoit socially a wrong man and morally good one, fallen love with a girl of opposite side(according situation the, one side had to kill opposite side), also pregnant-ed her, and also sacrificed himself(physically means killed) to save her and to stop to turn a train into corpse carrier.
a comrade, atheist, and a Sikh preached about morals highly, about government's inability, about rich and poor and he also morally good and but failed to do anything to stop to turn a train into corpse carrier.
a river, its water increasing, crossing its borders and ready to eat villages, standing beside her(its metaphor, i think, indicating growing evil)
Khushwant sir put all these things and several others, transformed it into a black-humored, suspense story(because till the end i don't is the turn going to turn a train into corpse carrier? i wished Train to be turned into train into corpse carrier and then its give an another reason simply to dislike the religion, and i dislike religion) about some people living in a village, beside Hindustan and Pakistan borders, not affected by Hindustan and Pakistan splitting-hating-raping-butchering reality, but going to be affected soon and about the trains were carrying corpses which were crossing from both countries to respective countries.
Khushwant sir given a clear picture of social, political, physical and mental atmospheres, during that period,of people who must be happy that they got freedom, instead they like to cleanse opposite side of their respective homes.
i don't know its a review or something or anything. just wanted to write something or anything about this book.
if anyone read this review or something or anything, please do not forget to mention grammar mistakes, i know i did, but don't know where
why I give this book five stars? Because it's Indian literature? and about us- Indians?. no, certainly not, because its about characters, which are, u know, are fictitious, but situated in non-fictitious and hard-core reality, struggle to maintain balance consistently between whats good and bad.
Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh is a story about the
violence during Hindustan and Pakistan creation(1947). so naturally we can assume it as a story about Hindu-Muslim communal violence, where there are some good people and bad people in both parties, some heroes and some villains also there, good people trying to save good people from opposite side, people turning bad towards their own side people.
In between all this chaos,
there was
a character, who was a magistrate, held high position, not by politically, but socially in the minds of illiterate and socially under achievers, but good people. He picked a sixteen or less years old girl (she herself not sure about her age) to have physical sex and she reminded him as his dead daughter and he drove it from his conscious mind by drinking whiskey. This man became responsible to save hundreds of people (not related to him by blood, caste, religion and by any other social means except they are humans) and to stop to turn a train into corpse carrier.
a dacoit socially a wrong man and morally good one, fallen love with a girl of opposite side(according situation the, one side had to kill opposite side), also pregnant-ed her, and also sacrificed himself(physically means killed) to save her and to stop to turn a train into corpse carrier.
a comrade, atheist, and a Sikh preached about morals highly, about government's inability, about rich and poor and he also morally good and but failed to do anything to stop to turn a train into corpse carrier.
a river, its water increasing, crossing its borders and ready to eat villages, standing beside her(its metaphor, i think, indicating growing evil)
Khushwant sir put all these things and several others, transformed it into a black-humored, suspense story(because till the end i don't is the turn going to turn a train into corpse carrier? i wished Train to be turned into train into corpse carrier and then its give an another reason simply to dislike the religion, and i dislike religion) about some people living in a village, beside Hindustan and Pakistan borders, not affected by Hindustan and Pakistan splitting-hating-raping-butchering reality, but going to be affected soon and about the trains were carrying corpses which were crossing from both countries to respective countries.
Khushwant sir given a clear picture of social, political, physical and mental atmospheres, during that period,of people who must be happy that they got freedom, instead they like to cleanse opposite side of their respective homes.
i don't know its a review or something or anything. just wanted to write something or anything about this book.
if anyone read this review or something or anything, please do not forget to mention grammar mistakes, i know i did, but don't know where
December 28, 2018
Read on blog
The story takes place in an isolated village Mano Majra where people from different religions like Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims co-exist in peace. The village stands as a symbol of ignorance and peace until the harmony is threatened by an incident which raises suspicion, chaos, and animosity that ensues from the rift created among different communities.
The story is told from the point of view of three major characters: Jagga, an infamous robber, Hukum Chand, a magistrate who’s responsible for the peace in the village and Iqbal, a political activist and a mysterious identity who visits the village with a purpose of triggering proletariat revolution.
Despite having a slow pace, the book is very engaging. The scenic descriptions and the depiction of the daily lives of the people in the book are so vivid and detailed, it feels like I was present there and experiencing things myself.
I loved the use of symbolism to depict the events happening in the village. The disruption of the day-to-day activities like the train schedule shows the disruption of the rhythm of their daily lives.
The author, at various places, criticizes the different aspects of society like people’s moral codes, religious beliefs, inequality, corrupt practices, and points out the hypocrisy of the people. The situation in the village shows how easy it is to manipulate people on religious grounds.
Since they abused and beat him without anger or hate, they were not human beings with names. They were only denominations one tried to get the better of. If one failed, it was just bad luck.
The ending just brought tears to my eyes. The author neatly depicts the complexity of human nature and points out the difference between one’s beliefs and actions. The book stays relevant even now as things haven’t changed much in today’s age. It’s a beautiful book worth reading.
The story takes place in an isolated village Mano Majra where people from different religions like Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims co-exist in peace. The village stands as a symbol of ignorance and peace until the harmony is threatened by an incident which raises suspicion, chaos, and animosity that ensues from the rift created among different communities.
The story is told from the point of view of three major characters: Jagga, an infamous robber, Hukum Chand, a magistrate who’s responsible for the peace in the village and Iqbal, a political activist and a mysterious identity who visits the village with a purpose of triggering proletariat revolution.
Despite having a slow pace, the book is very engaging. The scenic descriptions and the depiction of the daily lives of the people in the book are so vivid and detailed, it feels like I was present there and experiencing things myself.
I loved the use of symbolism to depict the events happening in the village. The disruption of the day-to-day activities like the train schedule shows the disruption of the rhythm of their daily lives.
The author, at various places, criticizes the different aspects of society like people’s moral codes, religious beliefs, inequality, corrupt practices, and points out the hypocrisy of the people. The situation in the village shows how easy it is to manipulate people on religious grounds.
Since they abused and beat him without anger or hate, they were not human beings with names. They were only denominations one tried to get the better of. If one failed, it was just bad luck.
The ending just brought tears to my eyes. The author neatly depicts the complexity of human nature and points out the difference between one’s beliefs and actions. The book stays relevant even now as things haven’t changed much in today’s age. It’s a beautiful book worth reading.
December 11, 2021
The setting is 1947 in an Indian village during Partition. This is a story about greed, anger, helplessness, hatred, discrimination, betrayal, but in the end (without giving too much away), love conquers all!
I found the line "... criminals are not born. They are made by hunger, want and injustice," to be quite profound!
As an aside, Khushwant Singh's description of a monsoon - its lead-up and intensity - was extremely descriptive.
Thank you, Tamoghna, for recommending this book! It was very illuminating!
I found the line "... criminals are not born. They are made by hunger, want and injustice," to be quite profound!
As an aside, Khushwant Singh's description of a monsoon - its lead-up and intensity - was extremely descriptive.
Thank you, Tamoghna, for recommending this book! It was very illuminating!
August 2, 2020
Once again, Goodreads proves to be the perfect place to find books. Train to Pakistan is a book I probably would never have learned about, or considered reading if I did, had it not been for a friend's review of this classic novel.
It is set during India's Partition, in a small, fictional village. For hundreds of years, Sikhs and Muslims have lived together peacefully.
We witness on a small scale the inter-religious hatred and violence that tore apart India in the 1940s.
When reading about historical events, we can sometimes forget that real people lived through them. We see them from afar and through the long lens of history. We are divorced from the personal struggles and suffering, see the tragedy on a large scale instead of from the point of view of the people.
In Train to Pakistan, author Khushwant Singh takes us into the heart of the Partition. We witness history from the perspective of the individual, see how easily hatred and discord can spread. We observe how fear of the other proliferates, how easily people can be coerced to turn on their neighbours.
Singh introduces several characters to us and writes from their various points of view. This made the story all the more real as we see these people in all their humanity, good and bad. The characters are complicated and well-fleshed out. Some you feel compassion for, others disgust at their mistreatment of others. There is an educated social reformer with false accusations against him, a young Muslim woman in love with a Sikh man, bandits, and corrupt policemen. Normal people going about their lives, thinking their small village was safe from what was happening in the rest of India.
When a train full of corpses arrives, we see how quickly fear spreads and how quickly people can be swayed by rumors and begin to distrust people they've known their entire lives.
This is a tragic story, dark and dismal... and yet brilliant. It is a book I will not soon forget.
(August 2020 classic-of-the-month)
It is set during India's Partition, in a small, fictional village. For hundreds of years, Sikhs and Muslims have lived together peacefully.
We witness on a small scale the inter-religious hatred and violence that tore apart India in the 1940s.
When reading about historical events, we can sometimes forget that real people lived through them. We see them from afar and through the long lens of history. We are divorced from the personal struggles and suffering, see the tragedy on a large scale instead of from the point of view of the people.
In Train to Pakistan, author Khushwant Singh takes us into the heart of the Partition. We witness history from the perspective of the individual, see how easily hatred and discord can spread. We observe how fear of the other proliferates, how easily people can be coerced to turn on their neighbours.
Singh introduces several characters to us and writes from their various points of view. This made the story all the more real as we see these people in all their humanity, good and bad. The characters are complicated and well-fleshed out. Some you feel compassion for, others disgust at their mistreatment of others. There is an educated social reformer with false accusations against him, a young Muslim woman in love with a Sikh man, bandits, and corrupt policemen. Normal people going about their lives, thinking their small village was safe from what was happening in the rest of India.
When a train full of corpses arrives, we see how quickly fear spreads and how quickly people can be swayed by rumors and begin to distrust people they've known their entire lives.
This is a tragic story, dark and dismal... and yet brilliant. It is a book I will not soon forget.
(August 2020 classic-of-the-month)
August 2, 2022
This book, particularly this version with photographs from Margaret Bourke-White (a pioneer in photojournalism) was fantastic. It is short but a powerful story about the Partition of India in 1947—an event I am sorry to say I had not known much about until coming on this field study to India. I began it on my own train ride to Pakistan.
Okay, so maybe not Pakistan, but a train to Amritsar and the Pakistan border. That has to count for something, right?
Reading this during that experience both impacted my experience and my reading. The Indian train system itself is something to marvel at. When this still functioning colonial train first pulled up to the station I just stared. People hanging out of windows, out of the open door frames, crammed to the roof. I think that Khushwant Singh’s description was remarkably parallel to my journey. Compartments made for fifty with “almost two hundred people, sitting on the floor, on seats, on luggage racks, on trunks, on bed rolls, and on each other,” the oppressive “heat and smell… tempers frayed [because] someone had spread himself out too much or had trod on another’s foot on the way to the lavatory” (59). All of the above happened on the short two hour crawl to Amritsar.
But as I started to read more I thought more about my first train ride. Amritsar probably had the highest volumes of trains come through filled with dead corpses from both sides of the Pakistan border. Could my train, my very seat, once been full of dead bodies?
My experience in Amritsar was probably most profoundly altered from this reading at the Indian Pakistan border. Only 30 minutes away from the Golden Temple, it is something of a tourist attraction. There are two triumphant looking arches on both sides and two gates in between the two dividing the countries. Each side has a few rows of hot cement stadium seating for people to come and observe the lowering of the flags ceremony conducted by the military. People were taking turns running their countries flags to the middle gates and back, blazing their own music, and having competitions to see who could hold out the longest shout. At the bottom of the stadium on the Indian side there were people dancing and screaming, “Hindustan, Hindustan!” Some of my friends joined them. I stayed in my seat.
I couldn’t get over the fact that we were celebrating this great divide. The ceremonies were identical on either side. Everything seemed the same expect for one thing. One big thing.
Religion.
The flags were lowered, a handshake was exchanged between the guards, and the gates were slammed shut for the day. I do not know enough about what has happened since Partition when this book was set to understand what the current situation is between these two countries with a rocky history together, but in the moment I just could not stop thinking about this book.
The themes of this book crept up again during my experience in Amritsar. We went to one restaurant and the owner was sat beneath three pictures—one of Lord Shiva, one of Guru Nanak, and the third of his late father. One of the girls in our group straight up asked him if he was a Hindu. He gave her a blank look and held up his middle finger, “there is only one God.” I get that the middle finger means something different in this context, but I thought there was a rich irony to that in a location that probably has not scarred over from a very recent wound. What is the legacy of Partition in India today, especially here on the border?
The end message of this book was profound. It is individuals who change the world. You don’t have to be a politician, have twenty degrees, a strong religious background, or even a lot of friends or support; you just have to make the right decision even when no one else will stand up with you.
Pictures of my experience can be found on my academic blog http://rachelspassagetoindia.blogspot...
Okay, so maybe not Pakistan, but a train to Amritsar and the Pakistan border. That has to count for something, right?
Reading this during that experience both impacted my experience and my reading. The Indian train system itself is something to marvel at. When this still functioning colonial train first pulled up to the station I just stared. People hanging out of windows, out of the open door frames, crammed to the roof. I think that Khushwant Singh’s description was remarkably parallel to my journey. Compartments made for fifty with “almost two hundred people, sitting on the floor, on seats, on luggage racks, on trunks, on bed rolls, and on each other,” the oppressive “heat and smell… tempers frayed [because] someone had spread himself out too much or had trod on another’s foot on the way to the lavatory” (59). All of the above happened on the short two hour crawl to Amritsar.
But as I started to read more I thought more about my first train ride. Amritsar probably had the highest volumes of trains come through filled with dead corpses from both sides of the Pakistan border. Could my train, my very seat, once been full of dead bodies?
My experience in Amritsar was probably most profoundly altered from this reading at the Indian Pakistan border. Only 30 minutes away from the Golden Temple, it is something of a tourist attraction. There are two triumphant looking arches on both sides and two gates in between the two dividing the countries. Each side has a few rows of hot cement stadium seating for people to come and observe the lowering of the flags ceremony conducted by the military. People were taking turns running their countries flags to the middle gates and back, blazing their own music, and having competitions to see who could hold out the longest shout. At the bottom of the stadium on the Indian side there were people dancing and screaming, “Hindustan, Hindustan!” Some of my friends joined them. I stayed in my seat.
I couldn’t get over the fact that we were celebrating this great divide. The ceremonies were identical on either side. Everything seemed the same expect for one thing. One big thing.
Religion.
The flags were lowered, a handshake was exchanged between the guards, and the gates were slammed shut for the day. I do not know enough about what has happened since Partition when this book was set to understand what the current situation is between these two countries with a rocky history together, but in the moment I just could not stop thinking about this book.
The themes of this book crept up again during my experience in Amritsar. We went to one restaurant and the owner was sat beneath three pictures—one of Lord Shiva, one of Guru Nanak, and the third of his late father. One of the girls in our group straight up asked him if he was a Hindu. He gave her a blank look and held up his middle finger, “there is only one God.” I get that the middle finger means something different in this context, but I thought there was a rich irony to that in a location that probably has not scarred over from a very recent wound. What is the legacy of Partition in India today, especially here on the border?
The end message of this book was profound. It is individuals who change the world. You don’t have to be a politician, have twenty degrees, a strong religious background, or even a lot of friends or support; you just have to make the right decision even when no one else will stand up with you.
Pictures of my experience can be found on my academic blog http://rachelspassagetoindia.blogspot...
January 4, 2017
It is interesting to read historical novels where history is written as fiction.
Here is a novel that tries to record a memorable phase of Indian history through fictional route but the essence is hardly lost in the process.....
We come to know a village at brink of Sutlej that is littered with equal majority of Sikhs and Muslims living together since a long past ago.That is the time of partition, the summer of 1947. Muslims leave India and their exodus to Pakistan is not free from human sufferings.and so is the case with Hindus and Sikhs leaving Pakistan.
Story is one very simple in nature if viewed as a love story of a Sikh Scoundrel and a Muslim girl, that ends tragically as the hero sacrifices his own life to save that of her beloved(typical eastern acclaim of "true-love")
but,if viewed from a broader canvass,Mano Majra is the one main character that influences the whole lot of events that follows and lead us to other more lucidly placed characters..
We come to learn the psyche of A village Magistrate,his convictions and conventions,his conflicts and confusions,his resolutions and improvisations his conscience leaden with sins and his Morales of a saint!
And we come to know the head of Sikh temple,Meet Singh naive in manners but very a pacifist in thoughts,his appearance is of a village-dweller but his sayings outwit the so-called western-returned Babu Sahib.
Babu Sahib,the spokesman of author,plays a role of a critique,his name alone is an ambivalence for others, He is a rebel, sentimentally attracted to Socialist thinking, but he is primarily concerned with personal leadership. The central quality of Iqbal is that he does not belong anywhere and, what is worse, he pathetically desires to contribute to the mass upsurge of India’s rural committees. When the time comes for his action, he does nothing.(nobody seems to does nothing when needed desperately)
Singh has a simple way of telling complicated things,The novel has simple text, not so long-winded in sentence structures, easy to go through and especially lucid for those readers that resist a large mass of text and labyrinthine plots.a dozen more characters,some violence,mindlessness,sex,bigotry,and more violence.
But no doubt,author weaves a heart-wrenching story in the backdrop of Partition..
Here is a novel that tries to record a memorable phase of Indian history through fictional route but the essence is hardly lost in the process.....
We come to know a village at brink of Sutlej that is littered with equal majority of Sikhs and Muslims living together since a long past ago.That is the time of partition, the summer of 1947. Muslims leave India and their exodus to Pakistan is not free from human sufferings.and so is the case with Hindus and Sikhs leaving Pakistan.
Story is one very simple in nature if viewed as a love story of a Sikh Scoundrel and a Muslim girl, that ends tragically as the hero sacrifices his own life to save that of her beloved(typical eastern acclaim of "true-love")
but,if viewed from a broader canvass,Mano Majra is the one main character that influences the whole lot of events that follows and lead us to other more lucidly placed characters..
We come to learn the psyche of A village Magistrate,his convictions and conventions,his conflicts and confusions,his resolutions and improvisations his conscience leaden with sins and his Morales of a saint!
And we come to know the head of Sikh temple,Meet Singh naive in manners but very a pacifist in thoughts,his appearance is of a village-dweller but his sayings outwit the so-called western-returned Babu Sahib.
Babu Sahib,the spokesman of author,plays a role of a critique,his name alone is an ambivalence for others, He is a rebel, sentimentally attracted to Socialist thinking, but he is primarily concerned with personal leadership. The central quality of Iqbal is that he does not belong anywhere and, what is worse, he pathetically desires to contribute to the mass upsurge of India’s rural committees. When the time comes for his action, he does nothing.(nobody seems to does nothing when needed desperately)
Singh has a simple way of telling complicated things,The novel has simple text, not so long-winded in sentence structures, easy to go through and especially lucid for those readers that resist a large mass of text and labyrinthine plots.a dozen more characters,some violence,mindlessness,sex,bigotry,and more violence.
But no doubt,author weaves a heart-wrenching story in the backdrop of Partition..
July 29, 2017
3 June 1947 – Viceroy Mountbatten announces the plan for the Partition of India into two independent states. Independence Day for the new countries will be 14 and 15 August.
Journalist : Do you foresee any mass transfer of population?
Viceroy Mountbatten : Personally, I don’t see it.
Why did Jinnah and Nehru accede to such an insane, precipitous, huggermugger plan?
The truth is that we were tired men and we were getting on in years…the plan for partition offered a way out and we took it. – Nehru in 1960
Yasmin Khan, from her book The Great Partition:
By August 1947 all the ingredients were in place for ethnic cleansing in Punjab: a feeble and polarized police force, the steady withdrawal of British troops and their substitution with the limited and undermanned Punjab Boundary Forces and a petrified and well-armed population.
If your home fell on the wrong side of the border when it was finally announced, many argued, you would not be living as a minority in a modern, democratic nation state. Instead, you would suffer oppression, exploitation, the dishonoring of religion and perhaps even conversion or death.
As I said in my review of that book, the flight of millions of refugees from or to Pakistan happened without state intervention – both of the brand new states had hardly any military available to them to enforce any controls whatsoever. This was unplanned chaos fuelled by self-fulfulling convictions of the worst version of what people are like. This was stampeding for the exit. The number of deaths was never established. Between one and two million, probably.
Khushwant Singh takes all this complexity and organises it into 180 perfectly controlled and orchestrated pages. He is not overwhelmed although his readers may well be as they are whirled along in this dance of death.
Recommended.
Journalist : Do you foresee any mass transfer of population?
Viceroy Mountbatten : Personally, I don’t see it.
Why did Jinnah and Nehru accede to such an insane, precipitous, huggermugger plan?
The truth is that we were tired men and we were getting on in years…the plan for partition offered a way out and we took it. – Nehru in 1960
Yasmin Khan, from her book The Great Partition:
By August 1947 all the ingredients were in place for ethnic cleansing in Punjab: a feeble and polarized police force, the steady withdrawal of British troops and their substitution with the limited and undermanned Punjab Boundary Forces and a petrified and well-armed population.
If your home fell on the wrong side of the border when it was finally announced, many argued, you would not be living as a minority in a modern, democratic nation state. Instead, you would suffer oppression, exploitation, the dishonoring of religion and perhaps even conversion or death.
As I said in my review of that book, the flight of millions of refugees from or to Pakistan happened without state intervention – both of the brand new states had hardly any military available to them to enforce any controls whatsoever. This was unplanned chaos fuelled by self-fulfulling convictions of the worst version of what people are like. This was stampeding for the exit. The number of deaths was never established. Between one and two million, probably.
Khushwant Singh takes all this complexity and organises it into 180 perfectly controlled and orchestrated pages. He is not overwhelmed although his readers may well be as they are whirled along in this dance of death.
Recommended.
August 16, 2017
14 August and 15 August- Independence Day of two extremely opposite yet completely alike countries, once a single entity, now torn brothers
I am the offspring of blood and pain.
I am the wind heavy with the stench of fear on the eve of 14 August 1947. I am the screams of protest, I am the fury that binds me to this soil, every night, every year.
I am the worthless sacrifices that blended into the earth so well, you walk those same paths and you never see the shadows of the bones hovering over every stone.
I am the ball of gutless strength, I tore flesh apart, I made tendons burst because every man who dares leave is the father of shame.
I am the fortress of hope, I made people flee under the midnight-black sky.
I am the space between solitude and sorrow, I witnessed children’s bodies displayed on the edges of swords, a prize worth every ounce of joy.
I am the whisper in the night, the one that jerks you awake, as you recollect memories of escaping a fate worse than death.
I have the blood of the innocent on my arms, a tattoo I must wear; I shall never forget it as I move on from the despair I caused people
I am the result of a massacre, I am the result of a struggle, I am the result of an effort that blinded the world.
I am the impossible that happened after decades of vain desires.
I am the fire, I burn within every survivor. I am the follower of peace, I worship it to make myself feel like I did not cause pain.
I am the soul of soldiers, the master of endurance, the dignity men and women lost while bound in a train oozing with corpses.
I am the forces that helped bring to life a country that never forgot, a state that sustained, and an odd against all odds.
I am fury, I am misery, I am powerful, I am pure, I am tainted, I am lost.
I am the mother of these winds, I am the child of these lands, I am the father of these fountains of courage.
I survived a partition that made humanity question itself. I am every loving parent that is a murderer, I made people commit unspeakable acts in the name of faith.
I exist, I nurture, I give, I take.
Watch me, world, I am brimming with the descendants of victims and convicts. I rose from the ashes of those I helped burn and those I watched catch flames from the burning lands left after a cruel battle.
I am a giant, I am a tiny flame.
I am a legacy, I am a legend.
The world must not forget.
Come for me, come conquer me if you can.
I am my people, my people have survived. And those who survive are not afraid to fight.
I am my country.
My blood is tinted green, my heart is matted with white veins.
By the summer of 1947, when the creation of the new state of Pakistan was formally announced, ten million people—Muslims and Hindus and Sikhs—were in flight. By the time the monsoon broke, almost a million of them were dead, and all of northern India was in arms, in terror, or in hiding. The only remaining oases of peace were a scatter of little villages lost in the remote reaches of the frontier.
And thus begin the journey that will mark one of the biggest massacres in history, one of the most harrowing tales of separation of two countries and an enmity that will blossom instead of wither in the next 70 years.
Train to Pakistan is one of those few efforts to save what little love is left between India and Pakistan. I went into it with an open mind; I knew there would be a few points where the age-old debate of which party was right will come up but I was surprised by how the book took a turn for the better, instead of for the worse.
In four chapters, Khushwant Singh weaves the stories of one Sikh lambardar keeping peace in the little village, Mano Majra, where Sikhs, Muslims and one Hindu live in peace, as brothers, one village badmash wrongfully convicted of a murder and courting a Muslim girl, one Sikh with no religion and no beliefs, sent to help the villagers learn of what was happening after the partition and one government employee, waddling between the right and wrong decisions.
In a series of events, we learn of how one train’s arrival changes the views of the villagers and makes friends turn into unlikely foe. Relationships are tested, those in power manipulate those with no sense of right, and one man’s words bind the reader into a story full of so much pain, it ached to end the book. Train to Pakistan is not a light read; it wasn’t meant to be. It was written to show the slaughter of innocents that took place after the partition and how the violence was never needed, but we were made to believe that it was.
The two lines that perfectly describe why all those killings were done are as follows:
What have our tenants done?’
‘They are Muslims.’
The same went for the Sikhs. What had they done? They belonged to a different religion. People with the capability of surviving as brothers chose to kill in the name of religion. They still do.
Nothing has changed. But so has everything.
Not forever does the bulbul sing
In balmy shades of bowers,
Not forever lasts the spring
Nor ever blossom flowers.
Not forever reigneth joy,
Sets the sun on days of bliss,
Friendships not forever last,
They know not life, who know not this.
However, there is still hope for us.
I could go on and on about how I, as a Muslim, faced difficulties from Hindus or vice versa. But what good would that do? Just like the bulbul with its time-bound songs, there is a season for everything; happiness and sadness. For every Hindu that has killed my people or discriminated, there has been a Muslim that did the same. And, somehow, we forgot to see how we are so similar, not just in our views but also in our actions. I wake up every day, I eat my desi nashta and so does the person living in the country next to me. We have similar functions, similar cultures, similar festivals, yet we choose to fight over something so trivial.
We even have the same religious teachings:
From the Sikh Scripture
Air, water and earth,
Of these are we made,
Air like the Guru’s word gives the breath of life
To the babe born of the great mother Earth
Sired by the waters.
From the Quran
In the name of thy Lord and Cherisher
Who created
Created man from a (mere) clot of congealed blood
Your Lord is Most Generous.
Who taught knowledge by the pen
Taught man what he did not know
Today, in the 21st Century, I still feel the glimpses of everything that made humans act as monsters in many eyes. I shudder to think of a repetition of those events. But then I wonder. Everything is how we see it. And everything is how we choose to see it. Hence, those words at the start. I choose to see peace, I choose to see friendship. And, I choose to see harmony between Pakistan and India one day. Because
Within myself have I lit a fire
That now robs me of my breath.
The nights I spend in counting stars,
The days in dreams of days to be
I am my country.
My blood is tinted green, my heart is matted with white veins
I was born in a country made in the name of love, loyalty and faith. And making it a country that fulfils these principles is what should be our main goal.
I am the offspring of blood and pain.
I am the wind heavy with the stench of fear on the eve of 14 August 1947. I am the screams of protest, I am the fury that binds me to this soil, every night, every year.
I am the worthless sacrifices that blended into the earth so well, you walk those same paths and you never see the shadows of the bones hovering over every stone.
I am the ball of gutless strength, I tore flesh apart, I made tendons burst because every man who dares leave is the father of shame.
I am the fortress of hope, I made people flee under the midnight-black sky.
I am the space between solitude and sorrow, I witnessed children’s bodies displayed on the edges of swords, a prize worth every ounce of joy.
I am the whisper in the night, the one that jerks you awake, as you recollect memories of escaping a fate worse than death.
I have the blood of the innocent on my arms, a tattoo I must wear; I shall never forget it as I move on from the despair I caused people
I am the result of a massacre, I am the result of a struggle, I am the result of an effort that blinded the world.
I am the impossible that happened after decades of vain desires.
I am the fire, I burn within every survivor. I am the follower of peace, I worship it to make myself feel like I did not cause pain.
I am the soul of soldiers, the master of endurance, the dignity men and women lost while bound in a train oozing with corpses.
I am the forces that helped bring to life a country that never forgot, a state that sustained, and an odd against all odds.
I am fury, I am misery, I am powerful, I am pure, I am tainted, I am lost.
I am the mother of these winds, I am the child of these lands, I am the father of these fountains of courage.
I survived a partition that made humanity question itself. I am every loving parent that is a murderer, I made people commit unspeakable acts in the name of faith.
I exist, I nurture, I give, I take.
Watch me, world, I am brimming with the descendants of victims and convicts. I rose from the ashes of those I helped burn and those I watched catch flames from the burning lands left after a cruel battle.
I am a giant, I am a tiny flame.
I am a legacy, I am a legend.
The world must not forget.
Come for me, come conquer me if you can.
I am my people, my people have survived. And those who survive are not afraid to fight.
I am my country.
My blood is tinted green, my heart is matted with white veins.
By the summer of 1947, when the creation of the new state of Pakistan was formally announced, ten million people—Muslims and Hindus and Sikhs—were in flight. By the time the monsoon broke, almost a million of them were dead, and all of northern India was in arms, in terror, or in hiding. The only remaining oases of peace were a scatter of little villages lost in the remote reaches of the frontier.
And thus begin the journey that will mark one of the biggest massacres in history, one of the most harrowing tales of separation of two countries and an enmity that will blossom instead of wither in the next 70 years.
Train to Pakistan is one of those few efforts to save what little love is left between India and Pakistan. I went into it with an open mind; I knew there would be a few points where the age-old debate of which party was right will come up but I was surprised by how the book took a turn for the better, instead of for the worse.
In four chapters, Khushwant Singh weaves the stories of one Sikh lambardar keeping peace in the little village, Mano Majra, where Sikhs, Muslims and one Hindu live in peace, as brothers, one village badmash wrongfully convicted of a murder and courting a Muslim girl, one Sikh with no religion and no beliefs, sent to help the villagers learn of what was happening after the partition and one government employee, waddling between the right and wrong decisions.
In a series of events, we learn of how one train’s arrival changes the views of the villagers and makes friends turn into unlikely foe. Relationships are tested, those in power manipulate those with no sense of right, and one man’s words bind the reader into a story full of so much pain, it ached to end the book. Train to Pakistan is not a light read; it wasn’t meant to be. It was written to show the slaughter of innocents that took place after the partition and how the violence was never needed, but we were made to believe that it was.
The two lines that perfectly describe why all those killings were done are as follows:
What have our tenants done?’
‘They are Muslims.’
The same went for the Sikhs. What had they done? They belonged to a different religion. People with the capability of surviving as brothers chose to kill in the name of religion. They still do.
Nothing has changed. But so has everything.
Not forever does the bulbul sing
In balmy shades of bowers,
Not forever lasts the spring
Nor ever blossom flowers.
Not forever reigneth joy,
Sets the sun on days of bliss,
Friendships not forever last,
They know not life, who know not this.
However, there is still hope for us.
I could go on and on about how I, as a Muslim, faced difficulties from Hindus or vice versa. But what good would that do? Just like the bulbul with its time-bound songs, there is a season for everything; happiness and sadness. For every Hindu that has killed my people or discriminated, there has been a Muslim that did the same. And, somehow, we forgot to see how we are so similar, not just in our views but also in our actions. I wake up every day, I eat my desi nashta and so does the person living in the country next to me. We have similar functions, similar cultures, similar festivals, yet we choose to fight over something so trivial.
We even have the same religious teachings:
From the Sikh Scripture
Air, water and earth,
Of these are we made,
Air like the Guru’s word gives the breath of life
To the babe born of the great mother Earth
Sired by the waters.
From the Quran
In the name of thy Lord and Cherisher
Who created
Created man from a (mere) clot of congealed blood
Your Lord is Most Generous.
Who taught knowledge by the pen
Taught man what he did not know
Today, in the 21st Century, I still feel the glimpses of everything that made humans act as monsters in many eyes. I shudder to think of a repetition of those events. But then I wonder. Everything is how we see it. And everything is how we choose to see it. Hence, those words at the start. I choose to see peace, I choose to see friendship. And, I choose to see harmony between Pakistan and India one day. Because
Within myself have I lit a fire
That now robs me of my breath.
The nights I spend in counting stars,
The days in dreams of days to be
I am my country.
My blood is tinted green, my heart is matted with white veins
I was born in a country made in the name of love, loyalty and faith. And making it a country that fulfils these principles is what should be our main goal.
August 7, 2021
The book is based during the summer of 1947 while the whole country was shaken with the woes of partition & the riots between the Sikhs and Muslims residing at Manoj Majra, a simple village where peace used to prevail amongst the said communities.
The main protagonist, Juggut Singh, was notorious in the whole village as a gangster whose days fleeted between the jail, his humble home & the fields where in the name of work or laze used to secretly meet his love.
*This relationship itself is a threat to him
When the local moneylender got murdered one faithful night, he turned out to be the main suspect while there were valid reasons of why and why not he could be the main suspect
*His character is charismatically cool yet hateful
*He is the kind of character you would love to hate but you cannot ignore at all
It is the time of partition where Sikhs and Muslims were getting killed in the name of patriotism, blame games costing their lives; women getting raped and murdered; the young and old mercilessly killed in the name of the country being divided into India and Pakistan.
*Bodies were transferred to places where they got dumped & burned
*There was never enough water to carry away the continuously dumped dead bodies; never enough fire to turn those bodies into ashes
*Arrangements were made, people made to leave homes; families were getting separated.
Who made the ultimate sacrifice to restore peace in such a situation?
✅Highlight of this story lies at the last page where the reader is hit with a jolt after a long journey of taking in all the cruelties, the deaths and separations, the corruptions and manipulations
👍What made the gangster stand out in the end made me really emotional
👎A laborious kind of read, violent scenes getting overly repeated, the slangs, too much graphic content in between the pages
Yet the ending & the rawness of the writing style truimps in the end making me realise why it is a classic read.
Recommended for age above 18.
The main protagonist, Juggut Singh, was notorious in the whole village as a gangster whose days fleeted between the jail, his humble home & the fields where in the name of work or laze used to secretly meet his love.
*This relationship itself is a threat to him
When the local moneylender got murdered one faithful night, he turned out to be the main suspect while there were valid reasons of why and why not he could be the main suspect
*His character is charismatically cool yet hateful
*He is the kind of character you would love to hate but you cannot ignore at all
It is the time of partition where Sikhs and Muslims were getting killed in the name of patriotism, blame games costing their lives; women getting raped and murdered; the young and old mercilessly killed in the name of the country being divided into India and Pakistan.
*Bodies were transferred to places where they got dumped & burned
*There was never enough water to carry away the continuously dumped dead bodies; never enough fire to turn those bodies into ashes
*Arrangements were made, people made to leave homes; families were getting separated.
Who made the ultimate sacrifice to restore peace in such a situation?
✅Highlight of this story lies at the last page where the reader is hit with a jolt after a long journey of taking in all the cruelties, the deaths and separations, the corruptions and manipulations
👍What made the gangster stand out in the end made me really emotional
👎A laborious kind of read, violent scenes getting overly repeated, the slangs, too much graphic content in between the pages
Yet the ending & the rawness of the writing style truimps in the end making me realise why it is a classic read.
Recommended for age above 18.
June 27, 2025
قطار إلي باكستان رواية للكاتب الهندي خوشوانت سينغ الذي يعتبر من أكثر الكتاب الهنود شهرة وقد نشرت هذه الرواية عام ١٩٥٦ و تحولت إلي فيلم سينمائي...
تدور أحداث الرواية حول انقسام باكستان عن الهند بعد انتهاء الاستعمار البريطاني عام ١٩٤٧ و تلقي الضوء علي الحرب الأهلية بين المسلمين والهندوس والسيخ في هذا الوقت..
لم أندمج مع الأحداث ولا مع إسلوب الكاتب والأحداث التاريخية كانت محتاجة توضيح أكتر والترجمة كمان كانت سيئة و أعتقد ممكن تكون السبب الرئيسي إني مقدرتش حتي أخلص الرواية بعد قراءة أكتر من ٨٠٪ منها ...
لم تعجبني..
تدور أحداث الرواية حول انقسام باكستان عن الهند بعد انتهاء الاستعمار البريطاني عام ١٩٤٧ و تلقي الضوء علي الحرب الأهلية بين المسلمين والهندوس والسيخ في هذا الوقت..
لم أندمج مع الأحداث ولا مع إسلوب الكاتب والأحداث التاريخية كانت محتاجة توضيح أكتر والترجمة كمان كانت سيئة و أعتقد ممكن تكون السبب الرئيسي إني مقدرتش حتي أخلص الرواية بعد قراءة أكتر من ٨٠٪ منها ...
لم تعجبني..
December 28, 2020
Train to Pakistan is a superb book on many levels. It is a documentary of Punjab, its people, its culture. Its a narrative of the gruesome events that burned northern India in 1947. It is a story of the cultural, political, and intellectual atmosphere of India at the time. And it succeeds BRILLIANTLY. It brings the reader into the picture so vividly, its rather disturbing. If the reader is a product of the society the athor writes about, or is intimately familiar with it, and possesses any amount of intellectual spark, this book is an absolute must read. How much it'll mean to you if you are not familiar with the culture of Punjab, I don't know.
November 16, 2025
"When the world is itself draped in the mantle of night, the mirror of the mind is like the sky in which thoughts twinkle like stars."
India has not changed much even after 73 years of independence when it comes to religion. It's sad and heartbreaking.
This is a story about India's partition when India was freed but Pakistan was born and how millions of people were uprooted from their homes, their families and their own identities. The characters in this may be fictitious but they represent real people, real circumstances, real violence, real trauma and real everything.
3 June 1947 – Viceroy Mountbatten announces the plan for the Partition of India into two independent states. Independence Day for the new countries will be on 14 and 15 August.
Journalist: Do you foresee any mass transfer of population?
Viceroy Mountbatten: Personally, I don’t see it.
You might like to wander through a few artistic journals — they’re full of sparks and surprises.
India has not changed much even after 73 years of independence when it comes to religion. It's sad and heartbreaking.
This is a story about India's partition when India was freed but Pakistan was born and how millions of people were uprooted from their homes, their families and their own identities. The characters in this may be fictitious but they represent real people, real circumstances, real violence, real trauma and real everything.
3 June 1947 – Viceroy Mountbatten announces the plan for the Partition of India into two independent states. Independence Day for the new countries will be on 14 and 15 August.
Journalist: Do you foresee any mass transfer of population?
Viceroy Mountbatten: Personally, I don’t see it.
You might like to wander through a few artistic journals — they’re full of sparks and surprises.
September 17, 2020
The darkest period in Indian history coincided with the time India attained independence, because communal violence that broke out as a result of the partition of the country. Those on the wrong side of the Radcliffe line paid the price as rioters abducted, tortured, raped, killed and looted. Khushwant Singh's Train to Pakistan is a novel set in a fictional town Mano Majra where Muslims and Sikhs coexisted in peace, unaware of India's independence or partition.
When a train full of corpses arrived in Mano Majra from Lahore, the air became heavy with fear, mistrust and vengeance and the situation in the town threatened to turn as tense as was the case in much of North India. Khushwant Singh's description of the gore and violence of partition is heart rending and mind numbing. A spark was all it took for people to give into mob mentality and as mentioned in the book, ethics - the kernel of religious code was conveniently removed from their thoughts and actions.
Khushwant Singh has managed to capture the horrors of the partition of India, the entirety of which is insane and unfathomable especially if one considers the personal struggles of those caught in the meaningless warfare. Many of his descriptions etch harrowing images in our minds. But Train to Pakistan is a fine classic about love, sacrifice and crime in a period of religious and political madness.
When a train full of corpses arrived in Mano Majra from Lahore, the air became heavy with fear, mistrust and vengeance and the situation in the town threatened to turn as tense as was the case in much of North India. Khushwant Singh's description of the gore and violence of partition is heart rending and mind numbing. A spark was all it took for people to give into mob mentality and as mentioned in the book, ethics - the kernel of religious code was conveniently removed from their thoughts and actions.
Khushwant Singh has managed to capture the horrors of the partition of India, the entirety of which is insane and unfathomable especially if one considers the personal struggles of those caught in the meaningless warfare. Many of his descriptions etch harrowing images in our minds. But Train to Pakistan is a fine classic about love, sacrifice and crime in a period of religious and political madness.
April 20, 2024
3 Stars
One Liner: Works in bits and pieces; underwhelming as a whole
1947 India
Mano Majra is a small village that borders between India and Pakistan. It has an almost equal number of Sikhs and Muslims and one Hindu family. The village seems to be unbothered by the chaos of Partition until the only Hindu, the money lender, is murdered, and Juggut Singh, with a criminal past and a Muslim lover, becomes a suspect. Things take a turn for worse when a train arrives with the dead bodies of the Sikhs. What happens when neighbors turn enemies? What can Juggut Singh do to save the village and himself?
My Thoughts:
Well, given the title and the author’s name, the book sets high expectations. Fortunately, I knew better (not that it helped, but still).
The book is a little less than 200 pages and is divided into three sections without any chapters or section breaks. The scenes jump at random (and somehow even the publishers didn’t see the need to format it when reprinting different editions).
It can take a while to figure out how the events fit into the timeline. Some happen in parallel, some in the near past, and some are from the immediate future. Now, insert philosophical musings and nature-themed multipage metaphors where they shouldn’t be. Perfect (not)!
The premise is actually terrific. Imagine a border village that is a character of its own. The main villagers have defined personalities (let’s not forget this is historical fiction). I quite enjoyed the portrayal of Iqbal, the ‘foreign-educated social worker’. I even laughed out loud at the mention of beautiful white ladies and the trysts of handsome Nehru (IYKYK, if you don’t, well, too bad).
The touches of wit and sarcasm work in many ways, though not always. Blending fiction and social commentary can be a tough task, and this book doesn’t manage it well. I liked The Tamarind Tree by Sundara Ramaswamy a lot more in this aspect.
However, as a book that is supposed to present the story of the Partition, this one pretty much falls flat. The writing is raw, and there’s no sugar-coating of the brutalities. But none of it moved me as a reader. Not because I already know all of it and much more, but because the execution is ineffective.
I have to mention the super annoying translations of slang into English. Imagine using an alliteration for something like a pig’s p*nis. Ugh! The constant use of translated cuss words (and phrases) grated on my nerves. Compared to this, ‘something black in the dal’ feels pardonable.
There’s quite a lot of filmy drama as well. It does help the narrative some, but fizzles out in the last section.
To summarize, despite the raw portrayal of the Partition, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this book for the topic. Go for nonfiction like The Tragic Story of Partition or Pakistan or Partition of India. I have physical copies of both books and intend to read them soon.
One Liner: Works in bits and pieces; underwhelming as a whole
1947 India
Mano Majra is a small village that borders between India and Pakistan. It has an almost equal number of Sikhs and Muslims and one Hindu family. The village seems to be unbothered by the chaos of Partition until the only Hindu, the money lender, is murdered, and Juggut Singh, with a criminal past and a Muslim lover, becomes a suspect. Things take a turn for worse when a train arrives with the dead bodies of the Sikhs. What happens when neighbors turn enemies? What can Juggut Singh do to save the village and himself?
My Thoughts:
Well, given the title and the author’s name, the book sets high expectations. Fortunately, I knew better (not that it helped, but still).
The book is a little less than 200 pages and is divided into three sections without any chapters or section breaks. The scenes jump at random (and somehow even the publishers didn’t see the need to format it when reprinting different editions).
It can take a while to figure out how the events fit into the timeline. Some happen in parallel, some in the near past, and some are from the immediate future. Now, insert philosophical musings and nature-themed multipage metaphors where they shouldn’t be. Perfect (not)!
The premise is actually terrific. Imagine a border village that is a character of its own. The main villagers have defined personalities (let’s not forget this is historical fiction). I quite enjoyed the portrayal of Iqbal, the ‘foreign-educated social worker’. I even laughed out loud at the mention of beautiful white ladies and the trysts of handsome Nehru (IYKYK, if you don’t, well, too bad).
The touches of wit and sarcasm work in many ways, though not always. Blending fiction and social commentary can be a tough task, and this book doesn’t manage it well. I liked The Tamarind Tree by Sundara Ramaswamy a lot more in this aspect.
However, as a book that is supposed to present the story of the Partition, this one pretty much falls flat. The writing is raw, and there’s no sugar-coating of the brutalities. But none of it moved me as a reader. Not because I already know all of it and much more, but because the execution is ineffective.
I have to mention the super annoying translations of slang into English. Imagine using an alliteration for something like a pig’s p*nis. Ugh! The constant use of translated cuss words (and phrases) grated on my nerves. Compared to this, ‘something black in the dal’ feels pardonable.
There’s quite a lot of filmy drama as well. It does help the narrative some, but fizzles out in the last section.
To summarize, despite the raw portrayal of the Partition, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this book for the topic. Go for nonfiction like The Tragic Story of Partition or Pakistan or Partition of India. I have physical copies of both books and intend to read them soon.
July 12, 2020
Pretext: I don't feel the story deserves anything less than 5, but disturbing, or rather unsettling as it is, I can't just simply recommend it to everyone. And that's the only cons. I felt.
Before we were even introduced to the subject of history, we knew 1947 as the year India gained independence.
Later, much later we came to know that that was also the year of Partition.
Quite some time after that we came to know of these books (from elder ones), and our parents allowed us to read them even later. Well, I did earlier though, my Dad believed in my choice. I, however don't know if I should have read it then, but if not then then now, for still I don't have a strong enough stomach to help me avoid sleepless nights after this. The time of Partition was 'hard' even if you just consider the interreligious riots. Hence, clearly enough the stories set on that time ought to be be just as chafed and cannibalistic as this one is, perhaps even more, for here you can't see the rawness...you rather feel it through the frightening ironical statements the author used, many times against even our own customs and superstitions.
" Muslim said the Hindus had planned and started the killing. According to the Hindus, the Muslims were to blame. The fact is, both sides killed. Both shit and stabbed and speared and clubbed. Both tortured. Both raped."
This was how the tale began.
The distressing aspect is that the author, not for a single moment claimed entirety. He spoke in here 'just' about Mano Majra, and except the beginning, didn't talk about anyone,or anything irrelevant to it. Just to show you how it 'was' on the actual scale.
"You have seen the world and read many books, but take it from me that a snake can cast it's slough but not it's poison. ..."
..."There is no crime in anyone's blood any more than there is goodness in the blood of others,"...
I will speak less about the story than even in the back cover. I only feel that books like these claim more the genre of realistic horror tales than historical fiction. Ruthless bandits, corrupt policemen, radical pseudo-intellectuals all are in here just like the people around you.Each and every character to whom the author gave reign one time or another generates a duality of disgust and sympathy in you. The best thing is that even the protagonist is of a villainous personality. So you see, you won't find any so-called ideologies in here from anyone. So, all in all, a very well-crafted story to stay awake a few nights. I did, and that's rare.
"'Come!' they yelled. 'Come out, if you have the courage! Come out, if you want your mothers and sisters raped! Come out, brave men!'
No one answered them. There was not a sound in Mano Majra."
Before we were even introduced to the subject of history, we knew 1947 as the year India gained independence.
Later, much later we came to know that that was also the year of Partition.
Quite some time after that we came to know of these books (from elder ones), and our parents allowed us to read them even later. Well, I did earlier though, my Dad believed in my choice. I, however don't know if I should have read it then, but if not then then now, for still I don't have a strong enough stomach to help me avoid sleepless nights after this. The time of Partition was 'hard' even if you just consider the interreligious riots. Hence, clearly enough the stories set on that time ought to be be just as chafed and cannibalistic as this one is, perhaps even more, for here you can't see the rawness...you rather feel it through the frightening ironical statements the author used, many times against even our own customs and superstitions.
" Muslim said the Hindus had planned and started the killing. According to the Hindus, the Muslims were to blame. The fact is, both sides killed. Both shit and stabbed and speared and clubbed. Both tortured. Both raped."
This was how the tale began.
The distressing aspect is that the author, not for a single moment claimed entirety. He spoke in here 'just' about Mano Majra, and except the beginning, didn't talk about anyone,or anything irrelevant to it. Just to show you how it 'was' on the actual scale.
"You have seen the world and read many books, but take it from me that a snake can cast it's slough but not it's poison. ..."
..."There is no crime in anyone's blood any more than there is goodness in the blood of others,"...
I will speak less about the story than even in the back cover. I only feel that books like these claim more the genre of realistic horror tales than historical fiction. Ruthless bandits, corrupt policemen, radical pseudo-intellectuals all are in here just like the people around you.Each and every character to whom the author gave reign one time or another generates a duality of disgust and sympathy in you. The best thing is that even the protagonist is of a villainous personality. So you see, you won't find any so-called ideologies in here from anyone. So, all in all, a very well-crafted story to stay awake a few nights. I did, and that's rare.
"'Come!' they yelled. 'Come out, if you have the courage! Come out, if you want your mothers and sisters raped! Come out, brave men!'
No one answered them. There was not a sound in Mano Majra."
July 26, 2015
One of the earliest English language novels to capture the horrors of the Indian Partition of 1947. Since then it has achieved classic status in the history of Subcontinental literature and for right reasons.
As independence and with it Partition took reality the Punjabis become desperate to learn about their fate. The province of Punjab (like Bengal on the Eastern borders) was to be cut in half between its Muslim majority population and Hindu-Sikh majority population. Those who found themselves on the wrong side paid the price when in a village, where the story is set, neighbours and long terms friends turned against one another not knowing to which new country the village had gone, since it was on the border and had a fairly mixed population.
The inanity and mindlessness of the conflict is cleverly depicted throughout the novel especially in a case when Iqbal, on the run, finds shelter in a mosque. His is a name that at that time passed for both Hindu and Muslim, with only the surname giving away his background. So originally Iqbal Singh became Iqbal Khan in the mosque.
A trainload of corpses that came in from areas that were awarded to Pakistan triggers a chain reaction of riots in cities and villages where peace had hitherto prevailed. The story shows how one small incidence in a faraway town can start up a massive bloodshed in places where, despite tensions, people had lived peacefully before but now must shed one another's blood in the name of the new countries that existed only as arbitrary lines drawn by Imperial cartographers.
As independence and with it Partition took reality the Punjabis become desperate to learn about their fate. The province of Punjab (like Bengal on the Eastern borders) was to be cut in half between its Muslim majority population and Hindu-Sikh majority population. Those who found themselves on the wrong side paid the price when in a village, where the story is set, neighbours and long terms friends turned against one another not knowing to which new country the village had gone, since it was on the border and had a fairly mixed population.
The inanity and mindlessness of the conflict is cleverly depicted throughout the novel especially in a case when Iqbal, on the run, finds shelter in a mosque. His is a name that at that time passed for both Hindu and Muslim, with only the surname giving away his background. So originally Iqbal Singh became Iqbal Khan in the mosque.
A trainload of corpses that came in from areas that were awarded to Pakistan triggers a chain reaction of riots in cities and villages where peace had hitherto prevailed. The story shows how one small incidence in a faraway town can start up a massive bloodshed in places where, despite tensions, people had lived peacefully before but now must shed one another's blood in the name of the new countries that existed only as arbitrary lines drawn by Imperial cartographers.
April 12, 2023
“Not forever does the bulbul sing
In balmy shades of bowers,
Not forever lasts the spring
Nor ever blossom the flowers.
Not forever reigneth joy,
Sets the sun on days of bliss,
Friendships do not forever last,
They know not life, who know not this.”
A novel set in the time of Post- Independence of India and the ongoing period of partition, the author brings to light a small village name Mano Majra which resides on the newly formed border between the countries India and Pakistan. Being on the fence and still being indifferent to the then-current scenarios of partition, people from different religions like Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim were living happily together. The title ‘Train To Pakistan’ makes sense as the train coming and going from Delhi to Lahore and back to Delhi crosses Mano Majra. It's the last halt point before entering Pakistan and the first while entering India.
The story builds up when a trainload of dead bodies enters Mano Majra. And the dynamics of the village get entirely altered. Without giving much about the story, the other thing that I would like to talk about is our author’s impeccable talent for a detailed description of how the village looked like during the time of partition, considering Khushwant Singh Jii himself has been a part of that period you will be able to imagine the time precisely the way it was because of his magnificent writing skills.
Overall it's a must-read for anyone and everyone whose interest lies in historical fiction. I loved, loved, loved it!
February 4, 2022
“The whole place was littered with men, women, children, cattle, and Dogs. There were kites wheeling high up in the sky long lines of crows were flying from somewhere to somewhere and millions of sparrows tweeted about the trees. Where in India could one find a place which did not teem with life?”
I read an article written by Khushwant Singh in a newspaper when I was very young. And I disliked the thoughts of the author, I remember. What was written in that article, I don’t remember! I only remember that I despised whatever was there. It’s an old case and my memory is not good. That article was also not in English.
But only sometimes back, I read the first few chapters of Khushwant Singh’s Delhi: A Novel and I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale in a library for the first time and I was outright impressed with his writing skills. He writes in a very charming way. There is an inherent charm in his pen. Simple and binding! And today when I am finally reading his first book complete, I should claim that I thoroughly enjoyed both the plot and writing. The charm of his storytelling further prevailed.
This is a famous book in India and it begins in Bollywood style. A gang of dacoits enters a village at night, after looting the house, they murdered a man. The dacoits, gun firing in the air, creating dialogues in very filmy style! And another badmash named Jugga, making love with his lover at night, outside their houses in open! And when the gang of dacoits passes through the same place, he furtively sees their faces and recognizes them.
The time is near 1947, British have left the country and India has been partitioned into two nations. Mano Majra is a small fictional place at the border of India and Pakistan. It has only three brick buildings and one of them is of Lala Ram Lal and the other two are ‘a Sikh temple’ and ‘a Mosque’. Everyone lives there in harmony and there has never been a communal clash. One educated young man, well-read and studied in a foreign land, Iqbal comes to the village one day and stays at the Gurudwara. All villagers look at him with interest. He claims he wants to preach humanity and education or capitalism too. You’re ‘being illiterate’ is the cause of your grief, he preaches!
But local administration and police arrest him along with Jugga and put them behind the bar assuming both of them are involved in decoity and murder. They manipulate and try to misuse their authority for their own greed or unsolicitous interests. The educated man got irritated with the behavior of policemen and rebukes them.
“You just want to cover up your stupidity by trumping up a false case!”
Time changed and one-day clouds appeared in the sky with hues of russet, copper, and oranges. And those who had fallen asleep had been prodded into getting up because one day a train comes in the station and it was filled with corpses, men, women, old, children some mutilated, some half dead, some packed lifeless among the luggage like a sack of cotton. The train had come from the Pakistan side. Magistrate witnessed this and became restless in the apprehension of the future of that small border village.
“The moth flew up again and down again. Hukum Chand knew that if it alighted on the ceiling for a second, one of the geckos would get it fluttering between its little crocodile jaws. Perhaps that was its destiny. It was everyone’s destiny. Whether it was in hospitals, trains, or in the Jaws of reptiles it was all the same. One could even die in bed alone and no one would discover until the stench spread all around and maggots moved in and out of the sockets on the eyes and get run over the face with their slimy clammy bellies. Hukum Chand wiped his face with his hands. How could one escape one’s own mind!”
And then the administration or some machinery play with the emotions of the people of different religions and incite them to kill the people of other religion in the same manner they have killed the people of their religion on the other side. And after some reluctance, some refugees and the dacoits approve the plan. The innocent peasants and uneducated villagers just witness this vicious plan, vulnerable to their own existence! The author has made clever innuendoes through the dialogues of villagers, on effete elements of religions. I also liked the filmy bravery of Jugga Badmash portrayed by the author.
This book finished with some positivity though, and the climax of the book was succinct and well-executed, I loved it. This book gives a horrible account of the time when there occurred an exodus of people after the partition of India in 1947 from both sides. But the writing and storytelling of the author make it a very compelling read. You won’t find any intricacy that involuntarily presents itself whenever a story is based on a real historical misdeed. The prose is simple and binding and reverberation of dialogues, characters, and imagery of village life is also very natural. I found them unprocessed to the context of rural India of that time. Through the character of Iqbal, the author has been able to push a certain mindset of contradiction (of ‘hope and dilemma’ ) of the educated, modern young man of that time.
The condition has not much changed even after eighty years have passed. People still go fanatic when it comes to religion, they lose their sense, though they are well aware of losing it!
Let kindness be the case everywhere! I hope.
“If you really believe that things are so rotten that your first duty is to destroy- to wipe the slate clean- then you should not turn green at small acts of destruction. Your duty is to connive with those who make the configuration, not to turn a moral hose-pipe on them- to create such mighty chaos that all that is rotten like selfishness, intolerance, greed, falsehood, sycophancy, is drowned. In blood, if necessary.”
May 3, 2023
Train to Pakistan follows Juggut Singh, a Sikh guy in love with Nooran, a Muslim woman during the time of India-Pakistan separation in 1947, and tackles the heart-wrenching horrors of a period that led to a loss of hundreds and thousands of lives...
During the separation, people were supposed to move from India to Pakistan and vice-versa via trains. But during the journey, riots took place and when the trains arrived...thousands of bodies were the only things to arrive in the dead silence of the night....hence the name 'ghost train'.
"𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙫𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙖𝙜𝙚 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙙 𝙞𝙣 𝙖 𝙙𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙝𝙡𝙮 𝙨𝙞𝙡𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚. 𝙉𝙤 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙖𝙨𝙠𝙚𝙙 𝙖𝙣𝙮𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙚𝙡𝙨𝙚 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙤𝙙𝙤𝙪𝙧 - 𝙛𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙩 𝙖𝙘𝙧𝙞𝙙 𝙨𝙢𝙚𝙡𝙡 𝙤𝙛 𝙨𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙛𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙝, 𝙬𝙖𝙨. 𝙏𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙠𝙣𝙚𝙬. 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙨𝙬𝙚𝙧 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙞𝙢𝙥𝙡𝙞𝙘𝙞𝙩 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙛𝙖𝙘𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙣 𝙝𝙖𝙙 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙋𝙖𝙠𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙣."
This book is heart-breaking because everything that happened in this is true and it was not easy to read about the horrors - murders, rapes, massacres, ghost trains...It is just terrible to know how so many innocent people were killed just because of religious beliefs and hatred.
But, the way the author showed the emotional moments between the neighbours as they say goodbye to their Muslim friends, not knowing when or if they'll see them again, and a forbidden love story was heart-warming. It showed that not all humanity was lost, it never is lost...
"𝙉𝙤𝙩 𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙮 𝙥𝙚𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚 𝙨𝙡𝙚𝙥𝙩 𝙞𝙣 𝙈𝙖𝙣𝙤 𝙈𝙖𝙟𝙧𝙖 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙣𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩. 𝙏𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙬𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙨𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙨𝙚-𝙩𝙖𝙡𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜, 𝙘𝙧𝙮𝙞𝙣𝙜, 𝙨𝙬𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙛𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙥, 𝙖𝙨𝙨𝙪𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙚𝙖𝙘𝙝 𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙨𝙤𝙤𝙣 𝙗𝙚 𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧. 𝙇𝙞𝙛𝙚, 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙨𝙖𝙞𝙙, 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙗𝙚 𝙖𝙨 𝙞𝙩 𝙖𝙡𝙬𝙖𝙮𝙨 𝙝𝙖𝙙 𝙗𝙚𝙚𝙣."
On the negative side, it was not engaging as a fictional story and I couldn't keep up with the writing style, which was very disorienting and uninteresting. Also, there were some disturbing incidents in the fictional story which I thought were unnecessary to be added to such a book, and too much information dump led to it having a dragged plot.
Overall, it is a poignantly written story that shows the reality of a dreadful time in Indian history, portraying the religious, political, social and emotional state during the partition aptly.
During the separation, people were supposed to move from India to Pakistan and vice-versa via trains. But during the journey, riots took place and when the trains arrived...thousands of bodies were the only things to arrive in the dead silence of the night....hence the name 'ghost train'.
"𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙫𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙖𝙜𝙚 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙙 𝙞𝙣 𝙖 𝙙𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙝𝙡𝙮 𝙨𝙞𝙡𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚. 𝙉𝙤 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙖𝙨𝙠𝙚𝙙 𝙖𝙣𝙮𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙚𝙡𝙨𝙚 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙤𝙙𝙤𝙪𝙧 - 𝙛𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙩 𝙖𝙘𝙧𝙞𝙙 𝙨𝙢𝙚𝙡𝙡 𝙤𝙛 𝙨𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙛𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙝, 𝙬𝙖𝙨. 𝙏𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙠𝙣𝙚𝙬. 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙨𝙬𝙚𝙧 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙞𝙢𝙥𝙡𝙞𝙘𝙞𝙩 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙛𝙖𝙘𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙣 𝙝𝙖𝙙 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙋𝙖𝙠𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙣."
This book is heart-breaking because everything that happened in this is true and it was not easy to read about the horrors - murders, rapes, massacres, ghost trains...It is just terrible to know how so many innocent people were killed just because of religious beliefs and hatred.
But, the way the author showed the emotional moments between the neighbours as they say goodbye to their Muslim friends, not knowing when or if they'll see them again, and a forbidden love story was heart-warming. It showed that not all humanity was lost, it never is lost...
"𝙉𝙤𝙩 𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙮 𝙥𝙚𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚 𝙨𝙡𝙚𝙥𝙩 𝙞𝙣 𝙈𝙖𝙣𝙤 𝙈𝙖𝙟𝙧𝙖 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙣𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩. 𝙏𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙬𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙨𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙨𝙚-𝙩𝙖𝙡𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜, 𝙘𝙧𝙮𝙞𝙣𝙜, 𝙨𝙬𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙛𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙥, 𝙖𝙨𝙨𝙪𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙚𝙖𝙘𝙝 𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙨𝙤𝙤𝙣 𝙗𝙚 𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧. 𝙇𝙞𝙛𝙚, 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙨𝙖𝙞𝙙, 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙗𝙚 𝙖𝙨 𝙞𝙩 𝙖𝙡𝙬𝙖𝙮𝙨 𝙝𝙖𝙙 𝙗𝙚𝙚𝙣."
On the negative side, it was not engaging as a fictional story and I couldn't keep up with the writing style, which was very disorienting and uninteresting. Also, there were some disturbing incidents in the fictional story which I thought were unnecessary to be added to such a book, and too much information dump led to it having a dragged plot.
Overall, it is a poignantly written story that shows the reality of a dreadful time in Indian history, portraying the religious, political, social and emotional state during the partition aptly.
December 30, 2013
Train to Pakistan is a book about the horrors of civil war and how a small peaceful village finally becomes a part of religious hate and communal violence. It depicts the myriads of human emotions which arise in troubled times and portrays how nothing is concrete. Khushwant Singh makes his point with this book that there is no categorical distinction of a person as good or bad and that even the best of relationships, which are built upon the virtues of comradeship and empathy, can be totally engulfed in troubled times by selfishness, intolerance, hypocrisy and falsehood. It also portrays that the test of ones character is only in tough times- via the contrast of the two lead characters of the novel. Whilst one, who is projected throughout the book as a man with sharp but logical judgements and respected for his capability to revolutionize, fails to take action when he is presented with an opportunity, the other, who has been portrayed as a typical badmash (bad/criminal), trouble-maker and fails to conform to socially-acceptable standards, sacrifices for much greater causes such as love, loyalty and humanity...
Khushwant Singh is a brilliant raconteur and his choice of words and the way he describes each action and thought of a character is extremely lucid, deeming this book a brilliant read even from a literary point of view.
Khushwant Singh is a brilliant raconteur and his choice of words and the way he describes each action and thought of a character is extremely lucid, deeming this book a brilliant read even from a literary point of view.
January 25, 2021
Train To Pakistan by Khushwant Singh is a gruesome fictional account of certain events based on real life during the historic 1947 partition.
In 1947 the English left however, the real problems had just started for the people of India and Pakistan who were tortured, raped and killed in the name of caste's and religion!
Khushwant Singh boldly highlights the tragedies faced by the Sikh and Muslim communities by means of a fictional town of Mano Majra.
The book is an unbiased account of the unfortunate events that took place during the partition of 1947. Since, it all starts with the train , I felt the book is aptly titled.
The writing style greatly reflects the authors thoughts and often the highly descriptive style of writing which sometimes requires more patience on the readers end.
All the characters in the book are going through a turmoil of their own, almost heroic at times, some fail to do what they have come for, some taking unexpected turns to do what is needed.
Hukum Sahib and Juggut Singh's characters clearly have been Khushwant Singh's favourites apart from secondary characters like Rahim Chacha and Meet Singh.
The book is more about the events and the tragedies than the actual plot and hence it ends somewhat abruptly.
Nevertheless, this is a must read to understand how lives of millions were destroyed and unfortunately no one did anything in their capacity to save those innocent lives!
In 1947 the English left however, the real problems had just started for the people of India and Pakistan who were tortured, raped and killed in the name of caste's and religion!
Khushwant Singh boldly highlights the tragedies faced by the Sikh and Muslim communities by means of a fictional town of Mano Majra.
The book is an unbiased account of the unfortunate events that took place during the partition of 1947. Since, it all starts with the train , I felt the book is aptly titled.
The writing style greatly reflects the authors thoughts and often the highly descriptive style of writing which sometimes requires more patience on the readers end.
All the characters in the book are going through a turmoil of their own, almost heroic at times, some fail to do what they have come for, some taking unexpected turns to do what is needed.
Hukum Sahib and Juggut Singh's characters clearly have been Khushwant Singh's favourites apart from secondary characters like Rahim Chacha and Meet Singh.
The book is more about the events and the tragedies than the actual plot and hence it ends somewhat abruptly.
Nevertheless, this is a must read to understand how lives of millions were destroyed and unfortunately no one did anything in their capacity to save those innocent lives!
May 18, 2017
With pellucid prose bound to tug the strings of your heart, Khushwant Singh brings to life an India that had just gained Independence. Men stepped out with swords, shielding themselves with religious scriptures, slashing through the good and the bad. Reason took a back seat when men, driven by faith, wiped out entire villages. The despondent waited for death disguised as an old friend, a neighbor or a priest from the house of God. The intellectual ensconced to safety when it dawned upon them that the country they belonged to, by virtue of birth, was not religiously pluralistic.
Read
July 31, 2020This is a highly acclaimed book on partition riots and it's a pretty short book.But it totally bored me,the pace is too slow and the writing style didn't do anything for me.
July 27, 2011
Inspite of volumes being written about life before, during and after the Indo-Pak partition, 'Train to Pakistan' clearly stands apart. How the brotherhood between two major communities of a small peaceful village transforms to hatred and loathe overnight under the existing scenario, is unbelievably surprising. Murders, thefts, molestations, massacres, over just a short span of time are enough to send shivers down your spine.
The plot goes from being horrifying to disturbing, all the while keeping the readers' interest intact. The mentality of villagers, their opinion on freedom and independence, the law makers and law changers, have all been wonderfully described. The dilemmas and the questions raised by the author, be it in terms of religion, ethics or goodness make you pause and ponder over the issue. All the characters with their various strengths and weaknesses give the story a strong foundation. Add to it, the moral paradox has so beautifully been written that one can just hope for the book to go on and on.
The plot goes from being horrifying to disturbing, all the while keeping the readers' interest intact. The mentality of villagers, their opinion on freedom and independence, the law makers and law changers, have all been wonderfully described. The dilemmas and the questions raised by the author, be it in terms of religion, ethics or goodness make you pause and ponder over the issue. All the characters with their various strengths and weaknesses give the story a strong foundation. Add to it, the moral paradox has so beautifully been written that one can just hope for the book to go on and on.
September 29, 2023
Tragic story about the partition of British India into India and Pakistan, and how it affected the residents of a fictional hamlet in India, Mano Majro, right near the India - Pakistan border. Very well executed story. It got better and better as it approached the climax. As an Indian I wish to visit Pakistan someday, though my ancestors are from South India which is far away from Pakistan, just for the sake of nostalgia.
Some of the Muslims of Pakistan slaughtered the Hindus and Sikhs of Pakistan, and some of the Hindus and Sikhs of India slaughtered the Muslims of India. The innocent people who were not involved in it had to bear the consequences of these pogroms. Muslims of India had to leave behind their livelihoods, properties and non Muslim friends and forced to run for their lives to Pakistan. Some went willingly with joy and some went unwillingly with broken hearts. Same can be said about the Hindus and Sikhs forced to leave Pakistan.
Some of the Muslims of Pakistan slaughtered the Hindus and Sikhs of Pakistan, and some of the Hindus and Sikhs of India slaughtered the Muslims of India. The innocent people who were not involved in it had to bear the consequences of these pogroms. Muslims of India had to leave behind their livelihoods, properties and non Muslim friends and forced to run for their lives to Pakistan. Some went willingly with joy and some went unwillingly with broken hearts. Same can be said about the Hindus and Sikhs forced to leave Pakistan.
March 10, 2021
পাকিস্থান এবং ভারতের দেশ-ভাগের পরবর্তী সময়ের কোন এক গ্রামকে ঘিরে উপন্যাস এটি
এই উপন্যাসে লেখক নিজ দেশ, জাতি, ধর্ম, আইন ব্যবস্থা সবকিছুর উপরে নিজের রাগ-ক্ষোভ জেড়েছেন। কোন কিছুকে ছেড়ে কথা বলেননি লেখক। একদম ঠোঁটকাটা আর সোজা কথাবার্তা, যা অনেকের পছন্দ হবে না। (হয়েছেও তাই, অনেক সমালোচনা সৃষ্টি করেছিল বইটি)
লেখকের নিজ দেশ, জাতি, ধর্ম নিয়ে যা বলেছেন তা যেন আমাদের দেশের জন্যও প্রযোজ্য
বেশ tragedic আর মন খারাপ করার মতো একটি গল্প, সাথে এমন ক্ষোভউড়ানো savage লেখা....
এক বইপড়ুয়া ভাই থেকে অনেকগুলো বই ধার নেওয়ার সময় উনি বলেছেন "আরে ভাই এই বইটা নিবেন না? সেরা একটা বই"
সত্যি বলতে, বইটি শেষ করে মনে হয়েছে না পড়লে আসলেই দারুণ কিছু মিস করা হতো....
অনুবাদ বেশ ভালোই লাগছে, মনে হয়েছে এর চেয়ে ভাল হতে পারতো না এটার অনুবাদ....
এই উপন্যাসে লেখক নিজ দেশ, জাতি, ধর্ম, আইন ব্যবস্থা সবকিছুর উপরে নিজের রাগ-ক্ষোভ জেড়েছেন। কোন কিছুকে ছেড়ে কথা বলেননি লেখক। একদম ঠোঁটকাটা আর সোজা কথাবার্তা, যা অনেকের পছন্দ হবে না। (হয়েছেও তাই, অনেক সমালোচনা সৃষ্টি করেছিল বইটি)
লেখকের নিজ দেশ, জাতি, ধর্ম নিয়ে যা বলেছেন তা যেন আমাদের দেশের জন্যও প্রযোজ্য
বেশ tragedic আর মন খারাপ করার মতো একটি গল্প, সাথে এমন ক্ষোভউড়ানো savage লেখা....
এক বইপড়ুয়া ভাই থেকে অনেকগুলো বই ধার নেওয়ার সময় উনি বলেছেন "আরে ভাই এই বইটা নিবেন না? সেরা একটা বই"
সত্যি বলতে, বইটি শেষ করে মনে হয়েছে না পড়লে আসলেই দারুণ কিছু মিস করা হতো....
অনুবাদ বেশ ভালোই লাগছে, মনে হয়েছে এর চেয়ে ভাল হতে পারতো না এটার অনুবাদ....
May 10, 2016
Brilliant!
Tear jerking horror, which unfortunately is based on real events in a fictional town.
"The doer must do only when the receiver is ready to receive. Otherwise, the act is wasted."
This is so apt. Wasted this book last decade, re-read it now... and this time it was so intense that I'm updating the rating to 5!
"Ethics, which should be the kernel of a religious code, has been carefully removed."
Thought provoking stuff on how religious zealots can churn hatred even from years of love and bonding.
Hats off for the barrage of philosophical thoughts towards the end.
Tear jerking horror, which unfortunately is based on real events in a fictional town.
"The doer must do only when the receiver is ready to receive. Otherwise, the act is wasted."
This is so apt. Wasted this book last decade, re-read it now... and this time it was so intense that I'm updating the rating to 5!
"Ethics, which should be the kernel of a religious code, has been carefully removed."
Thought provoking stuff on how religious zealots can churn hatred even from years of love and bonding.
Hats off for the barrage of philosophical thoughts towards the end.
May 21, 2020
The Partition is undoubtedly the deepest, darkest, bloodiest wound in the collective memory of South Asia, one that displaced over 14 million people, killed 2 million, and suspended a hithertho harmonious subcontinent into mutual suspicion and hatred that permeates till this day.
I was 11 when I first read this book — too young, and bred too far from the horrors it speaks of, to fully understand. Yet, like every child on either side of the Radcliffe Line, I had grown up — and continued to grow up — conscious and mournful of the Partition. Today, with the air full of communal hate and vitriol — and violence — yet again, I felt compelled to pick this up anew.
Khushwant Singh's Train To Pakistan is perhaps the best known work about the Partition, and turned out to be a poignant, insightful reminder of what we lost — and why. The story is set in the fictional village of Mano Majra, located near a railway line next to the Sutlej on the Punjab border. The village is not only a microcosm of pre-Independence communal harmony, interdependence and friendship — a morality based on loyalty to fellow villagers — but also of the general indifference and unawareness in much of the country about the politics of Independence and the Partition. All of that is to change when a train full of corpses arrives from the other side. At the heart of it, this book explores the unbelievability of the violence of 1947: How did distrust so easily poison lifelong trust and camaraderie? How were people so driven by blood and vengeance to wipe out their own neighbours? And who is to blame?
Train to Pakistan presents its answers in a subtle critique of power, as well as of morality. Throughout the novel, Singh constructs parallels between its male characters. The first of these is established by the Gunshot sequence: one night, the moneylender of the village is murdered. As the gunshot resounds, the two men in question — Jugga, a dacoit, and Hukum Chand, the divisional magistrate — tear away from the women they have been engaged with (more precisely, in the act of rape), both of whom are 16 years old. While in Jugga's case, the girl is his girlfriend Nooran, the daughter of a Muslim weaver; Hukum Chand is involved with a prostitute who, as he himself muses to himself rather guiltily, is the same age as his own daughter would have been. Is one better than the other? While the latter is a figure of authority, he remains fatalistic and amoral throughout the novel. In fact, his deliberate misdirections spark the growth of communal distrust between the people of Mano Majra. Meanwhile, Jugga lays down his life trying to prevent the rioters in the village from attacking a train full of Muslims at the end of the book.
Another parallel is drawn between Jugga and the foreign-educated, city-bred social worker Iqbal, who are arrested and detained together. Iqbal comes to Mano Majra to educated the peasants against the exploitative capitalist class and state. He is prone to sermonising and theoretically perceptive (such as to the problem with prisons). However, despite his understanding of class and caste divisions, he does not actively oppose the privileged treatment he recieves from Jugga in custody; he does not try to mix with the villagers, is a city boy distrustful of their food and water, and maintains himself as an outsider. While a privileged character who philosophises and talks about many larger issues, such as true Freedom, he is detached from the realities faced by most people in the country. In fact, it is Jugga who bring out the more nuanced ideas in this novel, such as the colonial perception of education: he is representative of an entire mindset when he thinks of English as real education, while Urdu and Gurmukhi being mere signs of literacy.
However, Iqbal's character is important in bringing out the author's critique of the newly-formed government in the novel. He voices the farce that the transfer of power from the British to Indians signified, remarking that freedom for the rich means the ability to rule and exercise power themselves, while for the poor it still is slavery. Throughout the book, Singh talks about the divide between the " baniyas " or upperclass-and-caste men in the parliament celebrating Independence and giving speeches about the country's 'tryst with destiny' and the people dying on the border. This is hardly a surprising critique coming from a Sikh man who survived the Partition violence, but it still was not as full-bodied a critique as it could be — hardly surprising, either, as Singh was a sycophant to later Congress governments and a supporter of the National Emergency of 1975.
Yet, Train to Pakistan on the whole does see authority as a cause and enabler of the massacres — the police officers, both those under Hukum Chand and those who accompany the refugee convoys later, are seen as complicit, whether indirectly or otherwise. Surprisingly, Singh, known also for his sexism, even points fingers at the easily-threatened concepts of masculinity that pervade the Indian consciousness: when rioters enter Mano Majra, they taunt the villagers as "eunuchs" for not rising up to avenge Sikh blood, and incite them to act as a "Martial race". Again, in Singh's case it is, of course, best to see this attack exclusively in the context it's provided in.
To his credit, Khushwant Singh does emphasise that bloodshed and terror came from both sides and both communities, without necessarily trying to equate or measure them against each other: while much of the action in Train to Pakistan takes place on the Indian side and is therefore threatening to Muslims, a drunk Hukum Chand towards the end is seen remembering the horrors seen by Sikhs and Hindus on the other side. He also points at the lawlessness of the age, beginning the novel with a dacoity, and also showing how refugee properties were often purposedly given to plunderers. Another mark of the time, ofcourse, can be found in Khushwant Singh's writing itself: in the fashion of all Indians writing in the English language in this period, he takes a confused stance on his usage of words from Indian languages, often replacing them with anglicised or English translations. This is often awkward — sarkaar, which implies lordship or an authority figure, becomes "government."
In the end, however, Train to Pakistan does what it sets out to amazingly well, which is to retain the realities of the conflict that has shaped millions of lives over 7 decades now in collective and literary memory with honesty, understanding, and suitable pathos.
I was 11 when I first read this book — too young, and bred too far from the horrors it speaks of, to fully understand. Yet, like every child on either side of the Radcliffe Line, I had grown up — and continued to grow up — conscious and mournful of the Partition. Today, with the air full of communal hate and vitriol — and violence — yet again, I felt compelled to pick this up anew.
Khushwant Singh's Train To Pakistan is perhaps the best known work about the Partition, and turned out to be a poignant, insightful reminder of what we lost — and why. The story is set in the fictional village of Mano Majra, located near a railway line next to the Sutlej on the Punjab border. The village is not only a microcosm of pre-Independence communal harmony, interdependence and friendship — a morality based on loyalty to fellow villagers — but also of the general indifference and unawareness in much of the country about the politics of Independence and the Partition. All of that is to change when a train full of corpses arrives from the other side. At the heart of it, this book explores the unbelievability of the violence of 1947: How did distrust so easily poison lifelong trust and camaraderie? How were people so driven by blood and vengeance to wipe out their own neighbours? And who is to blame?
Train to Pakistan presents its answers in a subtle critique of power, as well as of morality. Throughout the novel, Singh constructs parallels between its male characters. The first of these is established by the Gunshot sequence: one night, the moneylender of the village is murdered. As the gunshot resounds, the two men in question — Jugga, a dacoit, and Hukum Chand, the divisional magistrate — tear away from the women they have been engaged with (more precisely, in the act of rape), both of whom are 16 years old. While in Jugga's case, the girl is his girlfriend Nooran, the daughter of a Muslim weaver; Hukum Chand is involved with a prostitute who, as he himself muses to himself rather guiltily, is the same age as his own daughter would have been. Is one better than the other? While the latter is a figure of authority, he remains fatalistic and amoral throughout the novel. In fact, his deliberate misdirections spark the growth of communal distrust between the people of Mano Majra. Meanwhile, Jugga lays down his life trying to prevent the rioters in the village from attacking a train full of Muslims at the end of the book.
Another parallel is drawn between Jugga and the foreign-educated, city-bred social worker Iqbal, who are arrested and detained together. Iqbal comes to Mano Majra to educated the peasants against the exploitative capitalist class and state. He is prone to sermonising and theoretically perceptive (such as to the problem with prisons). However, despite his understanding of class and caste divisions, he does not actively oppose the privileged treatment he recieves from Jugga in custody; he does not try to mix with the villagers, is a city boy distrustful of their food and water, and maintains himself as an outsider. While a privileged character who philosophises and talks about many larger issues, such as true Freedom, he is detached from the realities faced by most people in the country. In fact, it is Jugga who bring out the more nuanced ideas in this novel, such as the colonial perception of education: he is representative of an entire mindset when he thinks of English as real education, while Urdu and Gurmukhi being mere signs of literacy.
However, Iqbal's character is important in bringing out the author's critique of the newly-formed government in the novel. He voices the farce that the transfer of power from the British to Indians signified, remarking that freedom for the rich means the ability to rule and exercise power themselves, while for the poor it still is slavery. Throughout the book, Singh talks about the divide between the " baniyas " or upperclass-and-caste men in the parliament celebrating Independence and giving speeches about the country's 'tryst with destiny' and the people dying on the border. This is hardly a surprising critique coming from a Sikh man who survived the Partition violence, but it still was not as full-bodied a critique as it could be — hardly surprising, either, as Singh was a sycophant to later Congress governments and a supporter of the National Emergency of 1975.
Yet, Train to Pakistan on the whole does see authority as a cause and enabler of the massacres — the police officers, both those under Hukum Chand and those who accompany the refugee convoys later, are seen as complicit, whether indirectly or otherwise. Surprisingly, Singh, known also for his sexism, even points fingers at the easily-threatened concepts of masculinity that pervade the Indian consciousness: when rioters enter Mano Majra, they taunt the villagers as "eunuchs" for not rising up to avenge Sikh blood, and incite them to act as a "Martial race". Again, in Singh's case it is, of course, best to see this attack exclusively in the context it's provided in.
To his credit, Khushwant Singh does emphasise that bloodshed and terror came from both sides and both communities, without necessarily trying to equate or measure them against each other: while much of the action in Train to Pakistan takes place on the Indian side and is therefore threatening to Muslims, a drunk Hukum Chand towards the end is seen remembering the horrors seen by Sikhs and Hindus on the other side. He also points at the lawlessness of the age, beginning the novel with a dacoity, and also showing how refugee properties were often purposedly given to plunderers. Another mark of the time, ofcourse, can be found in Khushwant Singh's writing itself: in the fashion of all Indians writing in the English language in this period, he takes a confused stance on his usage of words from Indian languages, often replacing them with anglicised or English translations. This is often awkward — sarkaar, which implies lordship or an authority figure, becomes "government."
In the end, however, Train to Pakistan does what it sets out to amazingly well, which is to retain the realities of the conflict that has shaped millions of lives over 7 decades now in collective and literary memory with honesty, understanding, and suitable pathos.
April 20, 2020
This novel is both beautiful and heartbreaking. Not only the narration, also the way Khushwant Singh moved the story is impressive. In just 200 pages, he has covered almost all the cultural aspects of the partition. If you have to read one small but comprehensive book on the partition, 'Train to Pakistan' is for you. But if you want a lengthy but equally engrossing novel, you can go for 'This is not That Dawn'.
Khushwant Singh is a master of cultural history. In the novel, he gives the intricate details about the Punjabi culture. The perspectives of people belonging to the different fields of life are given a gripping way.
"Not many people said 'thank you' in these parts."
"The Punjabis love people they can pity."
Independence meant differently for different people. For a political party, it meant to get political positions and to get more power. For educated ones, it meant to get more government jobs and to reach to the upper echelons of power. But, for common people, it was not less than a catastrophe. They remained in the battered condition in the same way as they were living in the British era. Even now, after 72 years, one third of population in India and Pakistan is living below the poverty line.
"Freedom must be a good thing. But what will we get out of it? Educated people like you, Babu Sahib, will get the jobs the English had. Will we get more lands or more buffaloes?"
"Freedom is for the educated people who fought for it. We were slaves of the English, now we will be slaves of the educated Indians---or the Pakistanis."
"This new government is taking very loudly of stamping out all this. After a few months in office their enthusiasm will cool and things will go on as before."
Not all of them migrated willingly as a 'sacrifice', as usually told in the nationalistic histories. They were forced to leave their ancestral homes. In the villages, where majority of the population was living, they were not even aware of the new countries being carved out, new lines being drawn. In some cases, only when military came to escort them out, they suddenly came to know about those events.
"Quite suddenly, every Sikh in Mano Majra became a stranger with an evil intent."
For the first time, the name Pakistan came to mean something to them---a refuge where there were no Sikhs."
"No one had the nerve to suggest throwing them out even purely in a Sikh gathering."
At places, he also talks about the colonial mindset presistent in our daily lives.
"The memsahibs are like houris from paradise - white and soft like silk. All we have here are black buffaloes."
"Even the English respect a man of religion."
The character of Iqbal is very interesting. He is a foreign-educated comrade. He wants to bring change here. But he looks at everything with contempt. He doesn't realize he can't change people without understanding them. He abhors even those things which ordinary people holds sacred. All Iqbal does is talking. Even at the end it is Jugga Badmash who saves people while the comrade keeps on sleeping.
Hukam Chand is a deputy commissioner. In the area, his commands are followed by everyone. But, a person even with such authority could be hollow inside.
"He did not want to sleep with the girl, or make love to her, or even to kiss her on the lips and feel her body. He simply wanted her to sleep her in his lap with her head resting on his chest."
Manto writes in his stories that people were more worried about trains becoming unclean with blood than spilling blood. Same scene is depicted here,
"Why should one who enjoyed killing human beings be bothered by a stray dog getting under his wheels."
The most heart-wrecking scene was when Noora was leaving the village and went to see Jugga's mother.
"Beybey, I am going away and will never come back again. Don't be harsh to me just when I am leaving."
"A vague hope filled Nooran's being. She felt as if she belonged to the house and the house to her; the charpoy she sat on, the buffalo, Jugga's mother, all were hers. She would come back even if Jugga failed to turn up."
Khushwant Singh is a master of cultural history. In the novel, he gives the intricate details about the Punjabi culture. The perspectives of people belonging to the different fields of life are given a gripping way.
"Not many people said 'thank you' in these parts."
"The Punjabis love people they can pity."
Independence meant differently for different people. For a political party, it meant to get political positions and to get more power. For educated ones, it meant to get more government jobs and to reach to the upper echelons of power. But, for common people, it was not less than a catastrophe. They remained in the battered condition in the same way as they were living in the British era. Even now, after 72 years, one third of population in India and Pakistan is living below the poverty line.
"Freedom must be a good thing. But what will we get out of it? Educated people like you, Babu Sahib, will get the jobs the English had. Will we get more lands or more buffaloes?"
"Freedom is for the educated people who fought for it. We were slaves of the English, now we will be slaves of the educated Indians---or the Pakistanis."
"This new government is taking very loudly of stamping out all this. After a few months in office their enthusiasm will cool and things will go on as before."
Not all of them migrated willingly as a 'sacrifice', as usually told in the nationalistic histories. They were forced to leave their ancestral homes. In the villages, where majority of the population was living, they were not even aware of the new countries being carved out, new lines being drawn. In some cases, only when military came to escort them out, they suddenly came to know about those events.
"Quite suddenly, every Sikh in Mano Majra became a stranger with an evil intent."
For the first time, the name Pakistan came to mean something to them---a refuge where there were no Sikhs."
"No one had the nerve to suggest throwing them out even purely in a Sikh gathering."
At places, he also talks about the colonial mindset presistent in our daily lives.
"The memsahibs are like houris from paradise - white and soft like silk. All we have here are black buffaloes."
"Even the English respect a man of religion."
The character of Iqbal is very interesting. He is a foreign-educated comrade. He wants to bring change here. But he looks at everything with contempt. He doesn't realize he can't change people without understanding them. He abhors even those things which ordinary people holds sacred. All Iqbal does is talking. Even at the end it is Jugga Badmash who saves people while the comrade keeps on sleeping.
Hukam Chand is a deputy commissioner. In the area, his commands are followed by everyone. But, a person even with such authority could be hollow inside.
"He did not want to sleep with the girl, or make love to her, or even to kiss her on the lips and feel her body. He simply wanted her to sleep her in his lap with her head resting on his chest."
Manto writes in his stories that people were more worried about trains becoming unclean with blood than spilling blood. Same scene is depicted here,
"Why should one who enjoyed killing human beings be bothered by a stray dog getting under his wheels."
The most heart-wrecking scene was when Noora was leaving the village and went to see Jugga's mother.
"Beybey, I am going away and will never come back again. Don't be harsh to me just when I am leaving."
"A vague hope filled Nooran's being. She felt as if she belonged to the house and the house to her; the charpoy she sat on, the buffalo, Jugga's mother, all were hers. She would come back even if Jugga failed to turn up."
Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,576 reviews