The characters are also well-created and the best aspect was that every major individual shared an equal amount of space in the novel. The story includes the perfect blend of comedy and tragedy-and after you’ve finished reading it-you’ll be left with a bittersweet taste in your mouth.

His writing style does share some of Pakistani writer Mohammed Hanif’s trademarks, i.e., dark humor and a preference for satire. I think that history buffs will find this make-believe novel more realistic than the versions of the Partition told in various Pakistan Studies syllabuses. The Hindus, the Muslims, and the Sikhs all were shown in a similar light and there was no bias whatsoever. His storytelling was hardcore in the sense that no party was spared from his yarn. What I adored most was how Singh didn’t sugarcoat anything. The descriptions are vivid there’s an unparalleled attention to detail relative to both the beauty of South Asia and also the horrors that occurred during the period of division. Yet, Train to Pakistan complemented its blurb word-by-word. I have to admit that sometimes when you read the description of a book, you don’t get what you bargained for, similar to when you watch an awesome trailer of a lackluster movie. Amidst conflicting loyalties, it is left to Juggut Singh to redeem himself and reclaim peace for his villa. When a train arrives, carrying the bodies of dead Sikhs, the village is transformed into a battlefield, and neither the magistrate nor the police are able to stem the rising tide of violence. Then, a local moneylender is murdered, and suspicion falls on Juggut Singh, the village gangster who is in love with a Muslim girl. But Partition does not mean much to the Sikhs and the Muslims of Mano Majra, a village on the border of India and Pakistan. BOTH SHOT AND STABBED AND SPEARED AND CLUBBED. This is how the blurb on Oxford University Press’s edition reads: It’s a fictional tale set on the backdrop of the non-fictional separation of Pakistan and India that took place in 1947 the Partition. Train to Pakistan is considered one of his signature works.

It is a tragedy that he is no longer with us, but just like any other intellectual, his ideas have lived on. Khushwant Singh is rumored to be one of the greatest English-language authors of Indian origin-and this book proves it.

Imagery in a train to pakistan