THE HEAVENLY MYSTERY!

  Name: Dikshith    

 Class: 1 Bcom D

Reg no: 20SJCCC318 

Dear Toba Tek Singh, 

There has been a lot of confusion surrounding your identity, location, country. whether you are in India or Pakistan or nowhere on this earth? Bishen Singh struggled throughout his life to find your coordinates but finally was squeezed to death in the conflicts of India and Pakistan. He wanted to be free and not trapped in an asylum for 15 years. He wanted to be in your arms to which he used to address as home. Even after losing his family, he was in a mad search, only to come home. 

  

          But little did he know that you were nowhere on this planet. For you were a place beyond this world. A place which was far from all the conflicts, hostilities and crisis of Earth. A place where only a bunch of good people could find a home. People coming to you need not have any religion, for humanity and kindness have no religion. But here on Earth people are displaced based on their religion. It doesn't matter which country you like, the merciless authorities throw you to the country of your religious majority. Religion becomes one's identity and there is no choice in the hands of the individuals. Bureaucracy decides who a person is and where he will live. Religion is so firmly attached to an individual that he cannot rise above it throughout his life. 

  

        Bishen Singh was one such individual who was in search of a home or in search of you where he could live peacefully without being labelled by his religion. But he was recognized as a Sikh and was to be deported to India along with other Sikhs and Hindus against his will for he thought that you were in Pakistan. 

     He ultimately finds you not during his life, but at the end of it, after a tragic death in the no man's land between two countries, India and Pakistan. His search has come to an end with you and I now request you to keep him happy and safe. A man who only wanted to go home was seen as an asylum seeker. And now since he has found you, no force in the world can deport him to any country nor can identify him on his religion. 

     May you give a home to all such people like Bishen Singh where they can peacefully live their afterlife. 

  

Yours  lovingly, 

Dikshith. 

REPORT  

  

Toba Tek Singh to me is not a person as the name suggests, but a place of significant importance. A place that is neither in India nor in Pakistan. There is a lot of confusion regarding the location of this mystical place with the people from both nations claiming it to be located in their territories. But these people remain in ignorance as the place is far from the human world itself. Toba Tek Singh is a heavenly place that is quite distant from the reach of ordinary humans. It is a place of joy, happiness, peace, prosperity, love and all the good things of this world and remains protected from the conflicts, feuds, anger, hostilities and war between the two bitter enemies. This fact has been depicted in my creative presentation (poster) where we see the borders of the two nations and the path to Toba Tek Singh which is created for Bishen Singh, a lunatic who lost his life while finding this mystical place. Bishen Singh was deemed to be a lunatic. He was an inmate in an Asylum in Pakistan who knew about the heavenly place and wanted to find it. He believed it to be his home and struggled throughout his life to reach there but ultimately loses his life between the borders of India and Pakistan in his quest to Toba Tek Singh. But soon after death, the road to Toba Tek Singh opens in front of Bishen Singh with the angels receiving him. Labelling Bishen Singh as a lunatic is wrong as I strongly believe that he was the only enlightened man in the world of lunatics.  

  

Most of us hardly remember anything from those thick history books in our 9th and 10th grades. And this is not our fault if we feel sleepy or boring while reading history as plain texts are meaningless. They serve no purpose if they are successful in making the reader fall asleep. It is only when we see some pictures or hear stories is when we can co-relate the text and the presentation. It is rightly said that “A picture is worth a thousand words”. This is the true essence of a creative mode of expression which is important particularly in historical reimagination. It makes history interesting to the readers. It plays a great role in making the current generation informed about the historical events and also helping them to reflect upon. I believe that the creative presentation made by me truly reflects the history and helps us in interpreting the scenes, situations and circumstances of those times.    

  

The historical context which I have selected is the mass migration of people during the partition of India and Pakistan. It was the world's first and the only such event where lakhs of people crossed the international borders to find their homes. Thousands of people were even killed in this historic event due to communal disharmony. Apart from sane people we also had few insane and lunatics who were to be deported to their respective countries based on religion. One among them was Bishen Singh who was a Sikh and was taken to the Indian borders based on his religion against his will. Bishen Singh dreamt of living in an ideal country away from India and Pakistan.  

He dreamt of a perfect place with all the good things of the human world. He called it Toba Tek Singh and enquired about it with people around him. Those living in Pakistan told him that Toba Tek Singh was in their country and those in India believed it to be in their country so all his enquiries were in vain. With so much confusion around him, Bishen Singh became even more desperate. His frustration reached a peak when he was finally being transported to India. When the lunatics were exchanged at the borders Bishen Singh escaped the clutches of the armed forces and created huge chaos. This resulted in military clashes between the two forces and Bishen was squeezed to death. Throughout his life, he was in quest of his home but only after his death, the path to Toba Tek Singh appeared in front of him. It is said that only the good and fortunate ones ever witness the magic of Toba Tek Singh and Bishen Singh was one among them who though could not visit it in his life but surely witnessed it after his death.   

  

The partition of a huge nation in the 20th century into India and Pakistan was a significant historic event, not only because it created two new countries on the globe but also because it touched the lives of about half a billion people leaving millions homeless. What happened after that was only war and bloodshed. If not for the partition we would have had a magnificent and prosperous nation. If not for Jinnah’s two-nation theory, there would have been a single nation where people of different religions and community could co-exist just like modern India. The levels of poverty, corruption and sufferings could have been much lower. With one great nation and unity, we could have achieved thousands of milestones.  

The partition which was looked upon as a solution only worsened the situations in both the regions making them more fragile. This also led to the 2 neighbouring countries being hostile enemies of each other. If not for the partition, this story would have never existed and if not for the partition, I would have never written this report.