The scream before sunrise.
My entire life I was termed a lunatic. Little did people know that I just wanted to be in a place where I call home, my Toba Tek Singh.
“Hindustan had become free. Pakistan had
become independent soon after its inception but man was still slave in both these countries -- slave of prejudice
… slave of religious fanaticism … slave of barbarity
and inhumanity.”
-Saadat Hasan Manto
The
creative expression that I did was write a letter addressed to Bishan Singh and
then record it as if I was reading it to him. The reason why I chose to read
out the letter was to actual express with my voice how suppressed he felt for
15 years without going back home. I wanted to read it to him and address it to
him as if he was there in front of me. It brings out the essence of the story
according to me by voicing out the emotions that was felt through a fellow
reader.
The reasons why I feel that creative expression is important in historical re imagination are:
That
it gives you your own perspective and idea of that story. For example, it gives
us the freedom to be liberal and thing of bishan singh and the other lunatic in
a certain way in our mind. We also personally can take away a lot from our own
imagination and put it in that letter, poem, painting etc.
The historical context that I have selected is the partition between India and Pakistan. It was one of the biggest and one of the most important days in the history of both the countries. When I think of partition according to me the first thing that comes into my mind is the reluctance to go through that. Thousands and thousands of families were torn apart from each other. Bishan singh was going to be reunited with his family but ultimately wanted to be go back to his house fifteen long and dreadful years later. For him Toba Tek Singh was the place that he could call home. There was constant confusion about where his home was going to be whether India or Pakistan, in the end he was told that Pakistan was where Toba Tek Singh was situated after the partition and he died right beneath the border, under a barb wire.
This is just one story about a lunatic who wanted to just go back home. But this particular took a toll on everyone, every human was in a constant dilemma. The lunatics were specially affected. The exchange of the lunatics to their respective roots and countries also shows how ruthless the leaders like Jinnah would have been to push these people away from their home into an alien land that they had known to be one. What the once collectively called their home was now being demarcated by barb wires that signify some sort of division with bad blood. It was a very traumatic experience for everyone who had to face that.
There were obviously a lot of consequences that were faced in terms of the partition that happened. Not many people were able to enjoy the fruit of their labour through independence for a long time.
If the partition had not happened then Bishan Singh would have probably still been at the asylum having his intuitive baths now and then, happy to see his family and daughter. In terms of the political aspect there would have been so much peace in that one united country where all the caste, creed and religions would have lived in harmony probably. There are a lot of pros and cons if India had not have been separated.
The main pros would have probably been a strong army, protection of minorities, many political ideology differences would have not been there, women’s empowerment, a greater freedom of speech, etc.
The whole story of Toba tek Singh is centred around partition and the emotions that are connected to it. Manto has so beautifully put it across through his writing. It made the reader like us feel every emotion connected to it. Whether it was the scene in the asylum or Bishan Singh lying lifeless under a barb wire in no mans land, it captured every emotion of trauma and the want to be home so aptly. This report thus summarises my whole take on the story TOBA TEK SINGH.
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