Train to Pakistan [Paperback]

Khushwant Singh (Author), Arthur Lall (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 11, 1994

Train to Pakistan is the story of this isolated village that is plunged into the abyss of religious hate. It is also the story of a Sikh boy and a Muslim girl whose love endured and transcends the ravages of war.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

It is a place, Khushwant Singh goes on to tell us at the beginning of this classic novel, where Sikhs and Muslims have lived together in peace for hundreds of years. Then one day, at the end of the summer, the 'ghost train' arrives, a silent, incredible funeral train loaded with the bodies of thousands of refuges, bringing the village its first taste of the horrors of the civil war. Train to Pakistan is the story of this isolated village that is plunged into the abyss of religious hate. It is also the story of a Sikh boy and a Muslim girl whose love endures and transcends the ravages of war.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

<DIV>Khushwant Singh is a renowned journalist, the author of several works of fiction, and an authority on Sikh history.
</DIV> --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 181 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press; Reprint edition (February 11, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9780802132215
• ISBN-13: 978-0802132215
• ASIN: 0802132219
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.5 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #303,619 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

52 of 53 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A harrowing journey to the inevitable... April 12, 2002

By Luan Gaines HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

The summer of the Partition of India in 1947 marked a season of bloodshed that stunned and horrified those living through the nightmare. Entire families were forced to abandon their land for resettlement to Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India. Once that fateful line was drawn in the sand, the threat of destruction became a reality of stunning proportions. Travelers clogged the roads on carts, on foot, but mostly on trains, where they perched precariously on the roofs, clung to the sides, wherever grasping fingers could find purchase. Muslim turned against Hindu, Hindu against Muslim, in their frantic effort to escape the encroaching massacre. But the violence followed the refugees. The farther from the cities they ran, the more the indiscriminate killing infected the countryside, only to collide again and again in a futile attempt to reach safety. Almost ten million people were assigned for relocation and by the end of this bloody chapter, nearly a million were slain. A particular brutality overtook the frenzied mobs, driven frantic by rage and fear. Women were raped before the anguished eyes of their husbands, entire families robbed, dismembered, murdered and thrown aside like garbage until the streets were cluttered with human carnage.

The trains kept running. For many remote villages the supply trains were part of the clockwork of daily life, until even those over-burdened trains, off-schedule, pulled into the stations, silent, no lights or signs of humanity, their fateful cargo quiet as the grave. At first the villagers of tiny Mano Majra were unconcerned, complacent in their cooperative lifestyle, Hindu, Sikh, Muslim and quasi-Christian. Lulled by distance and a false sense of security, the villagers depended upon one another to sustain their meager quality of life, a balanced system that served everyone's needs. There had been rumors of the arrival of the silent "ghost trains" that moved quietly along the tracks, grinding slowly to a halt at the end of the line, filled with slaughtered refugees.

When the first ghost train came to Mano Majra the villagers were stunned. Abandoning chores, they gathered on rooftops to watch in silent fascination. With the second train, they were ordered to participate in burying the dead before the approaching monsoons made burial impossible. But reality struck fear into their simple hearts when all the Muslims of Mano Majra were ordered to evacuate immediately, stripped of property other than what they could carry. The remaining Hindus and Sikhs were ordered to prepare for an attack on the next train to Pakistan, with few weapons other than clubs and spears. The soldiers controlled the arms supply and would begin the attack with a volley of shots. When the people realized that this particular train would be carrying their own former friends and neighbors, they too were caught, helpless in the iron fist of history, save one disreputable (Hindu) dacoit whose intended (Muslim) wife sat among her fellow refugees. The story builds impressive steam as it lurches toward destiny, begging for the relief of action. In the end, the inevitable collision of conscience and expediency looms like a nacreous cloud above the hearts of these unsophisticated men, a mere slender thread of hope creating unbearable tension.

I was impressed with the power of Singh's timeless narrative, as the characters are propelled toward a shattering climax, as potentially devastating as any incomprehensible actions of mankind's penchant for destruction. I was struck also, by the irony: how the proliferation of a rail system that infused previously unknown economic growth potential to formerly remote areas, also became the particular transport of Death. Only a few years earlier, a rail system in another part of the world carried innumerable Jews to Hitler's ovens, another recent barbaric use of Progress, originally intended to further enrich the potential accomplishments of the human race.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars If India interests you, you cannot do without this book. December 11, 1998

By Jundla

Format:Paperback

The first work by an Indian author that I ever read, Train to Pakistan is a superb book on many levels. It is a documentary of Punjab, its people, its culture. Its a narrative of the gruesome events that burned northern India in 1947. It is a story of the cultural, political, and intellectual atmosphere of India at the time. And it succeeds BRILLIANTLY. It brings the reader into the picture so vividly, its rather disturbing. If the reader is a product of the society the athor writes about, or is intimately familiar with it, and possesses any amount of intellectual spark, this book is an absolute must read. How much it'll mean to you if you are not familiar with the culture of Punjab, I don't know.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating story about troublesome years May 8, 1998

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

To get some insight on the people behind the muslim-sikh-hindu troubles in India and Pakistan, this is a must-read. It is a brilliant story told in a way that gives the reader an excellent inside on the human factor during the time of the separation and liberation of India and Pakistan. A stranger, a non-religious muslim who has spent most of his life in England, a modern thinker, comes to a small village on what was to be the border between Pakistan and India. In this village, sikhs and muslims live in peace. But in the world around them, the troubles start. In this small village, hell soon breaks loose. In the centre of it all is a young couple from different religions, whos fate together is made impossible from this sudden outbust of sectarianism on both sides. It's a marvellous book.