Introduction To Book 'Train To Pakistan' By Khushwant Singh

In Train to Pakistan, truth meets fiction with stunning impact as, Khushwant Singh recounts the trauma and tragedy of partition through the stories of his characters-stories that he, his family and friends themselves experienced or saw enacted before their eyes. A bestseller, when it was published in 1956, Train to Pakistan is now widely accepted as one of the classics of modern India fiction. 

In the summer of 1947, the frontier between India and its newly-created neighbour, Pakistan, has become a river of blood, as the post partition exodus across the border erupts into violent rioting. But in the tiny village of Mano Majra, Sikhs and Muslims continue to live peacefully, their lives regulated by the trains that rattle across the river bridge.  Until a train comes to an unscheduled stop, and the villagers discover it is full of dead Sikhs. Mano Majra turns into a battlefield of conflicting loyalties which none can control. In the stirring climax,  it is left to Jugga, the village ganster, to redeem himself by saving many Muslim lives.

Margaret Bourke-White lived and travelled in India through 1946 and 1947, photographing with an unflinching eye  the horrors that unfolding in a sub-continent torn asunder by an arbitrary line drawn by an Empire on whom the sun was setting. Published in Life magazine, the images sent shock waves across the world.

In this unique edition of Train to Pakistan, published on its 50th anniversary, we bring you Bourke-White's hitherto unpublished photographs of partition, that illustrate Khushwant Singh's prose with a stark and almost unbearably heart-rending subtext.

About The Author Of 'Train To Pakistan'

Khushwant Singh was born in 1915 in Hadali in pre-partition Punjab, Educated at Government College, Lahore, and at King's College and the Inner Temple in London, he pactised at the Lahore High Court for a few years. In 1947, he joined the Indian Ministry of External Affairs. In 1951, he embarked on his career as a journalist with All India Radio.

A much-revered journalist and columnist, Khushwant Singh is also an accomplished historian ( History of the Sikhs, Vols I & II ), and an award winning novelist. He vast oeuvre includes translations, joke books, books on Delhi, women, nature and current affairs.

Awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1974, Khushwant Singh returned the honour in 1984 to register his protest against Operation Bluestar- the Union Government's siege of the Golden Temple.

Khushwant Singh was a member of Parliament from 1980 to 1986. Ever since, he has devoted himself to what he excels in-writing. This is his fourth book for Roli Books.