Train to Pakistan .. By Khushwant Singh

"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"

The bloody violence sweeping India after the partition has not yet touched Mano Majro, a small village of Muslims and Sikhs, on the India-Pakistan border. But in the summer of 1947, the murder of a Hindu moneylender and the arrival of a train full of dead Sikhs set of a tragic chain of events.

This novel gives a vivid account of the massacres of Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs that happened during those days. It will paint us a picture that will never fade from our memories. This fiction, which was nonetheless based on a horrific reality is more of a peek into the depressing, dark and dirty politics that was played on families of common people and the atrocities stemming from the partition is one of the bloodiest in the history of mankind.

Khushwant Singh has done a brilliant job in showing us the socio-economic, political and emotional atmosphere of those troubled times acknowledging the sins committed on both sides of the border. He makes a moral commentary that bubbles up through the main characters from their thoughts and actions and presents a grim story that deserves to be told.

This blog is a tribute to the great unsung heroes and innocent victims of that time, those who saved and united their families; those who tried and failed; those who kept fighting till their last breath to protect the people they love and those who lost a war that was never theirs, to begin with!!!

"India is constipated with a lot of humbug.

Take Religion

For the Hindu, it means little besides cast and cow-protection.

For the Muslims, circumcision and kosher meat.

For the Sikhs, long hair and hatred of the Muslim.

For Christian, Hinduism with a sola topee.

For the Parsees, fire worship and feeding vultures.

Ethics, which should be the kernel of the religious code,

has been carefully removed."

--Khushwant Singh, Train to Pakistan