Submitted to Submitted by

:Mam Syeda Ayesha Bukhari :Rashid Mehmood

Sequence #

:05

Batch-09(AERO)

Book review on A Train To Pakistan

English composition

RASHID MEHMOOD 5/15/2011

Title Author Publisher ISBN NO.

: A TRAIN TO PAKISTAN : KHUSHWANT SINGH : Penguin Books India & Ravi Dayal Publisher. : 97801-4306-5883

First published in 1956 but this specific one was published in 2009.

Purpose of the book is to enhance the knowledge of the reader regarding the partition of subcontinent and its effects on the peoples especially on villagers. The book basically is an example of Mano Majra (small village) where majority peoples are Muslims and Sikhs. And also to throw some lights on the behavior of Sikhs, and their relations with the Muslims, and also their part in the partition.The author wrote that both the communities live together friendly before the partition. But suddenly partition starts and now same peoples changes their attitude towards each other.

The writer first explains the peaceful life before partition and then the stages during and after the partition. The content and the quality of English are fine. But in some cases in order to gave the reality the author uses some foul language he also explain some abuses which is unnecessary. He adopted a chronological order and in doing so he dont wrote much about its basic topic i.e. the time during partition. Layout isnt so impressive i.e. it often creates difficulty for the readers that who is the listener and who is the speaker? And he uses the primary source as he is telling the story in a manner that it seems that he also in the scene of the story. There are few things which could be removed without affecting the story or essence of the topic for example he explain some irrelevant and foul scenes. And author also went so deep in them which were not necessary to do so. He also wrote some irrelevant things which could be erasable.

The writer dont appreciate this movement of people as some peoples dont wants to left their ancestral homes and villages same is the case with Mano Majra their Muslims also dont wants to leave their homes but due to the

danger of being killed by the refugees from Pakistan they had to left their homes, property, cattles etc. and also it results in a lot of causalities i.e. the trade of trains full of corpses being observed by the indo-pak peoples. when Sikhs saw the train full of corps from Pakistan then they became hyper and wants to take revenge of that but when they thought that they are planning to kill their own village fellows on behalf of Pakistani Muslims so most of them came back but refugee Sikhs dont wants to lose their chance to take revenge from Muslims so they make a plan to destroy the train to Pakistan but their whole plan was vanished by a Sikh who sacrifies his life to save the lifes of the Muslims which were going to Pakistan.

You can get the idea of this book with the following quotation written by khushwant Singh:

Muslims said the Hindus has planned and started the killings according to
Hindus, Muslims were to blamed. The fact is, both sides killed. Both shot and stabbed and speared and clubbed. Both tortured. Both raped.

Juggut Singh went near the track and slowly started climbing the ladder. He
reached the top, where the rope was tied to damage the train going to Pakistan. Jugga holded himself firmly, took out the knife from the back and slowly started cutting the rope. The planner to destroy the train starts shooting at him. He heard the sound of train coming closer he has almost finished cutting the rope. He was convinced that now the train will find its way safe to Pakistan, and so will be his love Noora.The planner fired again, and the bullet went in as mercilessly as ever, the sound of train came further close, jugga fell down on the track, the train went over him and went to Pakistan.

Characters along with their professions are as follows: Lambardar (a person which communicates between the peoples and the government) Ram laal (a money lender and richest person in Mano Majra) Meet Singh (he looks after the Gurdwara) Imam bakhsh (imam of the mosque of Mano Majra& also a weaver)

 Hukum chand (a magistrate which orders the inspector regarding the different matters of mano majra) Juggut Singh (an illiterate badmash of Mano Majra) Inspector sahib (a person who took the order from magistrate) Nooran(daughter of the weaver imam bakhsh) Iqbal Singh (an educated person called himself as a representative of peoples party) Bhola (a Tonga driver) Haseena (a dancer) A young extremist Sikh which leads the Sikhs to destroy the train of Muslims. Mali and his gang This book is very different as compare to the other book written on the same topic by the other author. That author explains mostly the time period during the partition and all the difficulties faced at every steps of their journey and also he discusses more general views regarding the partition. But in this book the author spend most of its times in explaining the life before the partition and so he only explain very little about the original topics requirements i.e. the time during the partition.

Over all this is the only English book other than text books that I read thoroughly. Its nice to read the book I choose that because it is easily available and also considerably small in size, and also the topic encourage me to choose that book first I thought that it will be about a train and the difficulties faced by the peoples during their journey. But in this book the author adopts the different way. He explains mostly the other things instead of basic topic.