The Tale of a Lost Soul
Name : Yeshwanth Gowda
Class : 1 BCOM D
20SJCCC365
LETTER
Dear Toba Tek Singh,
I am writing this letter to support you for the mistreatment you have suffered and also to apprise you that I am with you for believing that religion is not a factor for inequality.
After the British invasion, you were forced to undergo the partition of a secular country India , into two independent dominion states Pakistan, which became a Muslim country and India, which became a majority Hindu but secular country.
I happened to hear that you were from Pakistan and were forced to reside in India irrespective of your choice. I cannot begin to imagine how you would have felt when you were forced to leave the land you grew on. But nevertheless , you took a stand and established yourself in no man’s land, which is now called Toba Tek Singh. Although , today your efforts have not brought into light to most of the people which is very disappointing, but you have undoubtedly set an example for all the future generation out there to look upon and fight for equality and no man’s land.
I hope and pray that one day the entire world will recognize you and the efforts you’ve put into the no man’s land and eventually come to senses that we are all one and we deserve to be respected irrespective of our religion that we own or even wish to own and not be separated or parted because of the same.
REPORT
Creative expression can lead us to a deeper level of understanding and self-discovery. It is the language that lives in the heart and the spirit. It is the language that emerges when you find the safety to really listen to your heart. Art – in its most expansive definition, contains all forms of creative expression. And creativity can be seen as one of the most potent forces in the world and in our lives. It is creativity which points us to new paths, new ways of seeing and solving, and which offers us inspiration from both the inside and the outside. Creative expression is rooted in the capacities for observation, discovery, imagination, and courage. It wakes us up, challenges us, and enriches all of life. Those who dive deeply into a commitment to creative expression make their whole lives a canvas or a blank page onto which their hearts are poured…and our world is made better because of it.
I have chosen the pictorial mode of representation as pictures can translate abstract ideas into more realistic forms. We are very visual creatures. A large percentage of the human brain dedicates itself to visual processing. Our love of images lies with our cognition and ability to pay attention. Images are able to grab our attention easily, we are immediately drawn to them. Images help us learn, images grab attention, images explain tough concepts, and inspire.
Creativity can be explored through a variety of artistic disciplines. Commonly identified methods include drama, dance, music, creative writing and the visual arts, including photography. All these activities employ the participant or artist in a process that uses a holistic health framework to access physical, psychological, spiritual and social well-being. It can be utilized to convey ideas and feelings that are too large or too difficult to put into words. This may be particularly useful with people who have linguistic or cognitive issues that make creating a written or spoken narrative daunting.
You can't distort history, but can reimagine it.Visual media often seem more accessible than the written record. Images make the past seem more accessible, giving concrete shape to a world that sometimes seems intangible.
Immediacy of the image, which often conveys information more quickly than a primary document written in unfamiliar, or even a foreign, language is appreciable.
Photographs can be a visual collection of memories
Pictures allow historical events to seem more real, rather than merely stories. Like any source or artifact, pictures will be subject to debate. Pictures have become essential to historical documentation. It provides a glimpse into sections of society that were not explored or examined. Pictures and photographs contribute to restoring the history of women that was disregarded by mostly male scholars. Through photograph challenge the myth that women had no role or did not do anything of significance in history. There cases in which women were warriors, politicians, artists, and the movers of civilization. It was not until the second wave feminist movement did serious academic investigation begin of women’s history.
Hence, creative expression in the form of pictures, photographs, etc. play a major role in historical reimagination,
I have chosen to write about the Partition of India and its impact on people like Toba Tek Singh. In August, 1947, when, after three hundred years in India, the British finally left, the subcontinent was partitioned into two independent nation states: Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. Immediately, there began one of the greatest migrations in human history, as millions of Muslims trekked to West and East while millions of Hindus and Sikhs headed in the opposite direction. Like Toba Tek Singh, many hundreds of thousands never made it.
Across the Indian subcontinent, communities that had coexisted for almost a millennium attacked each other in a terrifying outbreak of sectarian violence, with Hindus and Sikhs on one side and Muslims on the other—a mutual genocide as unexpected as it was unprecedented. By 1948, as the great migration drew to a close, more than fifteen million people had been uprooted, and between one and two million were dead.
The events of the partition had an impact on literature, fostered a gendered violence, and even interrupted the lives of those living within the mental hospitals. The disruption of medical services removed an essential component of civic life, and the psychological and political events encouraged a social distancing and a seemingly justifiable violence.
The partition was deeply scarring and traumatic. For people with mental illnesses, like Bishan Singh, this trauma would’ve been more intense. He was incapable of feeling like he had an identity. His only identity was the place he resided in. Once he lost that, he completely lost himself. Him and his family were uprooted from places and communities where they had lived for generations, which changed their lives dramatically. People lost languages, ways of life, property, heirlooms and their loved ones.
For Bishan Singh, the phrase ‘home is where the heart is’ would not have the same effect as it has on any of us. To us, it might mean that no matter who you are with or where you are in the world, your family and home will have the deepest affection and emotional pull. When you have no place to call home, what can you rely on?
The partition affected millions of people and resulted in thousands of families getting displaced.
The tumultuous state of the nation caused disruption in almost every sphere. People did not have their loved ones to rely on and many close-knit families were forcefully separated.
Things did not go the way Bishan Singh would have wanted them to. Even towards the end, when he was in his last stages, nobody did anything to relieve him of his struggles. He was in distress not knowing where he was headed. Stuck in no man’s land between barbed wires, with no sense having a home let out a loud cry of pain, and the partition ultimately led to his demise.
Given the choice, he would’ve desperately reached out to his family and gone back to his hometown but even this was too much of a luxury.
As much as the partition movement aimed at restoring peace to some extent, the monumental task proved to be very difficult to execute while trying to safeguard the basic rights of people residing there.
Humans should never be deprived of their basic rights which should be given utmost priority at all times.
"TOBA TEK SINGH...a piece of land that has no name"
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