DEAR TOBA TEK SINGH

 HEMANTH.K.S

20SJCCC321

REPORT

I have chosen painting as the mode of creative expression. I chose painting because I feel this is more emphasizing and more aesthetically pleasing to look at , also I’m familiar with doing paintings.

Paintings are very attractive and aesthetic as they convey ideas, express emotion, use their senses, explore colour, explore process ,outcome’s  and experiences.

A creative mode of expression is very important in historical re imagination as creative mode is a process of   self- expression. As most of the students find history too tedious and unrelieved here  creative mode helps by making it fun and grabs people’s attention and makes it easy to understand.

'Toba Tek Singh' is one of his most famous and tragic stories about Partition. The story that dealt with the migration of Hindu and Sikh mental asylum patients in Lahore to India. During the partition 10 and 20 million people along religious lines, creating overwhelming refugee crises in the newly constituted dominions. There was large-scale violence, with estimates of loss of life accompanying or preceding the partition disputed and varying between several hundred thousand and two million.

In this the story starts after two or three years of partition In the aftermath of political separation, many people had to relocate and uproot their lives.

There were chaos and confusion regarding what actually was Indian Territory and what was the newly formed Pakistan. The situation got even worse for patients and especially the ones in mental institutions.

Once the two countries had held talks regarding the situation of mental patients, it was decided that the Muslim patients would stay or move to Pakistan whereas the Hindu and Sikh counterparts will move to India.

The patients were a riotous bunch and were even more confused about partition as there was any coherent information or news available at the asylum. Some pretended to create their own piece of home in the asylum and did not want to leave. Some climbed up a tree and made it their dwelling whole. One person claimed himself to be God and decided that both India and Pakistan belonged to him.

Among these, there was a Sikh named Bishen Singh. He once had a huge property in Toba Tek Singh (place in Pakistan). He had been in the asylum for nearly two decades and never spoke to anyone save some jumbled mumblings.

He was often visited by his family and his daughter who grew up to become a young woman while he remained locked inside. However, since the violence post-Partition, they had not come. Bishen Singh kept asking everyone at the asylum as to which country gained Toba Tek Singh but no one had any clear answer.

 According to me , the partition would have been dealt with more  forbearance by not starting to shift people as soon as they declared . it would be better if they wouldn’t leave Bishan Singh  in the border . the officials should have let bishan singh alone and not torture him and the people in asylum are good enough but all the others around them potrayed them as though they are deranged. People in asylum  lived a life around four walls like living in a prison . it would have been easier for the people if they gave an option for them to choose and decide among themselves on where they wanted to go and where they wanted  to stay.

Bishan Singh would live happily ever after if the officer allowed him to choose by himself and he would be happily living with his family and not end his life. They could have taken peoples emotions and pain in consideration to make their lives easier and normal.