LETTERS TO THE PAST

 1st April, 2021

LETTERS TO THE PAST

Name: Niharika Jajodia

Roll No. : 20SJCCC337

Instagram Link     (link to the Instagram account) 

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I have used Instagram posts and stories as a medium for the assignment on Toba Tek Singh. The reason for choosing this mode would be it’s relevance in today’s world. Today, many people are using this app on a daily basis and I thought the best way to communicate the story and it’s themes and my opinions would be through this. The account is public so that it is visible to everyone. This I thought would be the easiest way to make a large number of people aware about the reasons and effects of partition. After all it is an important aspect of the Indian history. I have used Canva to design the posts. The letter on highlights is brown in colour depicting that it is ancient and adds the touch of history and antique. 

When talking about history, a creative imagination is always helpful. Even though you have not experienced any of it or even seen it in real life, it helps us to imagine and broaden our thought process and to some extent take us there, to that period that we are recollecting. History is something that has already happened, being creative can help us see what could have happened if a particular event had occurred differently or had not occurred at all. 

I have visualized Toba Tek Singh as a person and have written a letter to him going into the past. Partition was something that affected India and Pakistan majorly. It definitely had an effect on the people of the two countries. People who didn’t want to move had to now. They had to choose. There was a lot of chaos and confusion as to what was happening around them. This chaos is also reflected in Manto's story. He talks about the condition of lunatics in that era who were confused all the time but this event took their confusion to the next stage. I have brought out this aspect of the story through my second post. The picture on the left side represents a number of colours mixed up showing the predominant red of hatred. It represents the confusion in the minds of the ‘sane people’s,  the lunatics and the readers. The hatred refers to the seeds of division sown by the British rulers that lead to partition. This is shown by my third post. It visualizes Britishers dividing our country into two and the fighting among the people. 

Normally it is the lunatics who should be confused and surrounded with chaos but here it is seen that they seemed to be more sane that the people outside the asylum. Maybe staying away from all this helped them stay calm. The sanity of Toba Tek Singh can be seen by the fact that he always knew when his relatives would come to meet him even though he had no track for the day or time it was. It may be noted that the lunatics were of different religion but this did not stop them from being united. They were together as lunatics not separate as religion. This is further elaborated in the third post. 

The next posts and stories show a conversation with Toba Tek Singh. A talk about the conditions of the past and how it continues to prevail in the present. To converse further, I wrote a letter to him asking him a few questions. The food he had represents various aspects of the story and partition. The white rice shows the peace that people were craving for. His preference for colourful rice shows absence of bias and need for his own motherland. The orange dal would represent India and the green peas being Pakistan and the problems in between them. His attire signifies how lunatics are always caged and not allowed to leave by own will. Actually, the minds of the same people were caged by hatred not allowing the thought of harmony to enter their minds. Finally, he told me his plan of escape. 

All my posts highlight the two countries of India and Pakistan and divide between them. The first post also shows the no man’s land lying between the two countries which belongs to neither. 

If none of this had happened, if partition didn’t happen, the two countries would be  and all the money that is wasted in defense and fighting for nothing but hatred could be channelised towards the well being of the people and to take the country from developing to a developed one. People wouldn’t have to leave their home towns and choose a country. The various riots, debates and the question of who is right would no longer exist. 

The main people involved and affected through this would be the common man to such extent that they appear to be insane and feel lost with nowhere to go. In this story it is not only them, it is the lunatics in asylum as well who are not sure of what is happening and wanted to just stay where they were. This must be much like the thoughts of a child who was being seperated from everything he had known in his little life till then. Parting with friends, school, homeland, all this can have a huge effect on a child mentally. There might have been conflicts of opinion within the same house as well. And coming to a decision that was mutual for all would have been difficult, no doubt, given that the decision to be taken was huge. The context here is partition as shown through my posts.