Train To Pakistan
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4.3 • 36 Ratings
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
"In 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. One of these villages was Mano Majra."
It is a place, Khushwant Singh goes on to tell 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 refugees, 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.
Customer Reviews
Train to Pakistan
Interesting and insightful. Learning about partition when I go to a culture camp and this was our book selection.
Will read again
This book was a real page tuner. At first I grimaced at the thought of its length and with the short amount of time I was given to read it, but already in two days I have finished it wishing I had more to read. All well.
One of the best Novels about 1947 Partition
I read this novel first in my university as a part of my syllabus for World History. Years after that, I still find myself reading it over and over again. One of the best historical novels about 1947 partition that brings to surface the bare realities of people of undivided and parting India. Some of author’s commentary is so accurate about the political and social state of India before, during, and after partition.
In terms of writing, Khushwant Singh has shown his brilliance by translating the emotions and objects of Punjab through Meticulous diction and immaculate imagery that it seems like the reader is teleported spatially and temporally to a 70 years old Punjabi village, the police torture, the exploitation of women, the communal violence, the smell and taste of traditional foods, the sounds of trains, and everything else.