(This is talked about in second heading of this review).īhai Meet Singh is the bhai (caretaker) of Gurudwara of town. This town receives the train filled of corpses not once but twice and that leads to subsequent departure of all Muslims from this town. I have not officially studied literature so I don’t honestly know weather it is correct to call a town a character of the story but I will do so. The main character is Mano Majra, the border town where in the story is based. After all, not everyone got what they wanted. This novel is based on that dark staunch naked barbaric bitter and dirty truth of Indian Independence, which we call DIVISION.
Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in this insanity that followed in the communal riots of 1947. Similar was the fate of Hindus who were coming from Pakistan. Men were killed with swords and spears while their women and sisters and mothers and daughters were ruthlessly gang-raped and then their breasts were slashed with spears while their children were killed in front of them and women left to bleed to death. These events lead to mass killings of Muslims in India. On the bogies of those trains filled with corpses Pakistanis wrote – Gift to India from Pakistan. They were filled with corpses of men, women, children and oldies. Train loads of dead bodies used to arrive from Pakistan to border station of Atari. This novel gives vivid accounts of the massacres of Hindus and Muslims, especially on the border towns of India. This novel is based on the Hindu – Muslim – Sikh riots of 1947 which followed the partition of India, when India was divided into two countries when ‘India made its tryst with destiny’. It was titled ‘Mano Majra’ but it is better known by the title of ‘Train to Pakistan’. ‘Train to Pakistan’ is the first novel of Khushwant Singh (KS).