Khushwant Singh, Train to Pakistan

After the prolix of Love in the Time of Cholera, Train to Pakistan was a refreshing change. Not only for its brevity and directness, but furthermore for a context with which I could very much relate.

Although fiction, the backdrop events are real. Thousands of refugees perished throughout the escape, when a Pakistan was dividing from India. Instead of delight in freedom, it was misery and bloodshed that greeted many of the new citizens. Trainloads of dead traversed the boundary, as people in vengeance searched an insane pattern of justice.

The train with Jugga's fiancé. Whom he will not ever marry, in whose womb augments the progeny he will not ever see. The brawny thug had the wisdom which political leaders of the time lacked.

The story is set in an isolated boundary town, Mano Majra, where Sikhs and Muslims dwelled in harmony, till waking of the partition. There are several applicable characters. There's the strong friend Jugga, a convict in parole, in love with a Muslim girl. There's the Europe returned intellectual Iqbal, a communist communal worker seeking to reform the simpletons, but becomes a discouraged victim of bureaucratic quagmire instead. Then there's Hukum Chand, the seasoned locality magistrate, scheming, playing his moves as in a game of chess.

While Jugga, in denouement, is a portrayal of how love can increase the motives of a widespread lawless person, Iqbal and Hukum Chand, from their own different perspectives, reveal the bitterness in the abject failure of a political move. A move that very strongly cripples both countries to this day, and is expected to do so for numerous more years.

Khushwant Singh, with his acerbic prose, effectively drives home the dual themes of the novel: the brutality of partition, and the incapability's, even indifference, of an inept political class.

Khushwant Singh's Train to ...